On October 18, 2023, Israelis Against Apartheid released an open letter calling for an “immediate end” to “the ongoing massive Israeli military assault on the people of Gaza.” With 1,800 Israeli signatures and counting, the letter makes it clear that many Israelis want to live in peace with Palestinians.
Israelis Against Apartheid formed in 2021 to call upon the international community to intervene in Israel’s attacks against Palestinians. Particularly, the group called out Israel’s unlawful seizing of homes in Sheikh Jarrah and the immoral violence against worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque in 2021. Their first open letter garnered more than 1,000 signatures by Israeli Jews.
Today, the group continues to bring together Israelis who seek a peaceful coexistence with Palestinian people. Israel’s destruction of the Gaza Strip since October 2023 has internally displaced approximately 2 million Palestinian people and killed more than 42,000 Palestinian people and 1,139 people in Israel. Israelis Against Apartheid’s letter states:
“Thousands of civilians, Israelis and Palestinians, are paying the price of apartheid. We are calling you to intervene immediately to stop the war crimes that are still happening.”
A Letter from Israeli Jews to the ICC Prosecutor
Israelis Against Apartheid continued their advocacy work by writing a public letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan KC, published on November 2, 2023. The letter asks the ICC “to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes, and genocide of the Palestinian people,” adding that “[f]or the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated.”
The group argues that Israel has been able to form an apartheid regime due to its “persistent impunity,” leading to the “acute deterioration in basic conditions of life [which] could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes.” The letter supports its accusation of Israel’s intentions of genocide by quoting Israeli military, journalists and politicians who have made such calls in Hebrew. For example, they cite Binyamin Netanyahu’s public declaration on October 29, 2023 in which he referred to the Palestinian people as “Amalek”, or the enemy nation of the biblical Israelites, and quoted the Bible: “to utterly destroy all that Amalek have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman and infant.”
The letter makes three demands with the goal of saving “as many lives as possible”:
1. Issue immediate arrest warrants for Israeli political and military-security leaders who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- Accelerate the ICC’s investigation into Israel’s ongoing war crimes.
- To be a valid and trustworthy platform for arising crimes.
The International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrants
While ICC Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan KC has not directly responded to the Israelis Against Apartheid letter, he did release a statement on May 20, 2024 which applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of the State of Palestine in the Gaza Strip.
The war crimes and crimes against humanity include the following:
- Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
- Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, or cruel treatment
- Willful killing
- Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population
- Extermination, including in the context of deaths caused by starvation
- Persecution
- Other inhumane acts
The statement reads:
“My Office submits that the evidence we have collected, including interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, authenticated video, photo and audio material, satellite imagery and statements from the alleged perpetrator group, shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.” It cites the following evidence:
- “imposition of a total siege over Gaza”
- “arbitrarily restricting the transfer of essential supplies–including food and medicine”
- “cutting off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza–Gazans’ principal source of clean water”
- “cutting off and hindering electricity supplies”
- “other attacks on civilians, including those queuing for food”
- “obstruction of aid delivery by humanitarian agencies”
- “attacks on and killing of aid workers”
Prosecutor Khan affirms that “Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population. That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law.”
Jewish Israeli Voices Against Apartheid
In an interview with Postcolonial Encounters on Instagram, Israelis Against Apartheid explained their vision for the future in Israel/Palestine. They seek “complete civil equality for all people between the (Jordan) River and the (Mediterranean) Sea, including Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homeland.”
They argue that this will require Israel to forgo its “Jewish and Democratic” statehood and transition to a fully democratic statehood. The group believes that Israel’s foregrounding of Jewish rights necessarily creates unequal rights for non-Jewish groups and is foundational to its apartheid regime.
Israelis Against Apartheid has continued to make statements in support of establishing peace. In March 2024, the group reached out to more than 90 foreign embassies in Israel urging them to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people. And, in November 2024, the group wrote another open letter following the International Criminal Court of Justice hearing of South Africa’s appeal to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza, both supporting the appeal and reiterating its call to end the assault on Gaza.
Join the Call
Israelis Against Apartheid is one of many groups of Israeli and Jewish people who seek peace in the holy land. They join groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which has more than 300,000 Jewish supporters around the world, and IfNotNow, a group of American Jews organizing to end the United States’ support of Israel’s apartheid system.
Learn more about the Jewish perspective on the Palestinian experience at the Promised Land Museum.
Watch the video gallery tours here.
