Since October 2023, Jews across Europe have participated in the global protest movement against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. Under slogans such as ‘Not in my Name’ and ‘Never Again is Now’, Jewish participation in the movement has sent a strong message that a growing number of Jews reject Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people and the Zionist State’s ideology of Jewish supremacy.
Despite the brutality of the genocide inflicted on Gaza, the majority of established Jewish organisations in Europe continue to uncritically support the State of Israel, rendering themselves complicit in Israel’s atrocities. These European organisations, like Israel itself, claim to speak for all Jews, effectively implicating Jewish Europeans in Israel’s actions, while simultaneously ignoring and silencing the growing dissent within the Jewish community. In response to this situation, we have felt the need to organise collectively as Jews to express our opposition to the genocide, and to Israel’s 76 year-long ethnic cleansing, occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
European Jews for Palestine consists of numerous Jewish collectives based in various European countries, representing diverse Jewish backgrounds, traditions and perspectives. We represent not only a political voice, but also a developing Jewish movement in Europe, based on justice and equality for all. We reclaim our Jewish identity by distancing ourselves from the State of Israel, and from all forms of supremacist and colonial politics.
We consider antisemitism to be a real and increasing danger: we combat it wherever and in whatever form it appears. We condemn the cynical conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. We reject the weaponization of antisemitism through the widespread use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition, which seeks to silence criticism of Israel. We consider the cruelty of Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people to be a major factor perversely contributing to anti-Jewish sentiment. The safety of Jews worldwide is threatened by the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnocracy.
Our struggle is deeply interconnected with the fight against Islamophobia and all forms of racism, discrimination and oppression and is best rooted in a broad anti-racist movement. This requires the decoupling of Judaism from the colonial doctrine of Zionism and a commitment to equal rights for all in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea. We stand in full and unequivocal solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination.
