Freedom Is Not a Zero-sum Game: Americans Must Heed the Call of Israeli-Palestinian Solidarity
By Jonathan Taubes
I shudder to think that it was almost a year ago now that I realized just how much my commitment to self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians was quickly leaving me without a political home.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, I found myself, like many American Jews, craving outlets for activism around the crisis in Israel/Palestine. I’m a former day school kid and current Jewish non-profit professional with tons of close family in Israel. The truth is, of course, I feel a particularly Jewish sense of obligation to support Israelis in this moment of prolonged crisis. But it’s this same obligation that compels me toward solidarity with Palestinians, which was, suffice it to say, not something that was easy to act on or even talk about while working for a Jewish non-profit in late 2023.
Further compounding the challenge was the fact that leftwing organizations I’d worked with – my entry into politics came through Jewish labor history and unionism – seemed willing either to defend Hamas’ crimes on October 7th, or else excuse them. Whereas to Israeli friends and relatives, I might have seemed like a privileged, liberal diaspora Jew, to some on the Left, I was increasingly perceived as a reactionary Zionist.
Holding the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians in the earliest weeks of this war felt politically isolating to the point of questioning my own sanity. Even from Brooklyn, thousands of miles from the bombs and bloodshed, I was deeply shaken not just by the October 7th attacks and the Israeli response to them. I was dismayed by how many in my Jewish and progressive worlds seemed to accept the Manichean divide of Israelis versus Palestinians, a divide which extremists on both sides only seek to reinforce.
Shouldn’t our job, as progressives anyway, be to build solidarity across those lines? Was our job as progressives the same as our job as Jews? What did it mean that I wasn’t really able to separate those identities, but so many groups demanded that I do? Am I being narcissistic and self-absorbed in even asking these questions? Such were my thoughts in the early days of the war, as I balanced a full-time job at a Jewish non-profit with my academic pursuits in Judaic Studies, while doing my very best not to get sucked into hours of doomscrolling, or pointless debates with any number of friends or family who felt that, in one way or another, I’d betrayed them.
In my anger and anguish, I was able to connect with others who felt similarly alienated. I linked up with other progressive American Jews who know that Palestinian and Israeli fates are intertwined, that as American Jews we do have a responsibility both to our siblings and cousins on the ground, and also to ourselves – our own government, after all, has provided the weapons and diplomatic support for this war that now approaches one harrowing year.
I’m fortunate to have found outlets to help build some solidarity in the months that followed. In December, I co-wrote a Jewish Professionals for Ceasefire letter that got almost 900 signatures and more national attention than I was used to as a grassroots activist-educator. The letter emphasized a framework of Israeli-Palestinian interdependence that was lacking in so many other spaces, and it struck a chord with Jewish professionals across the country.
Around the same time, Standing Together emerged across Jewish progressive spaces as a clear, on-the-ground alternative that American Jews could support and get excited about. When Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed from Standing Together told a packed room at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side that there is no military solution, they were met with rapturous applause. Also in the early days of the war, I got arrested doing civil disobedience at a ceasefire protest in New York. Each of these moments required strategic navigation of my own values as they pushed up against the existing groups and coalitions that reflected them to varying degrees.
As a Jewish non-profit professional and member of more “mainstream” groups, I weighed the consequences to my career in literally every activist decision I made. I’m not sure I always made the right decision – in some instances I maybe played it too safe, in others maybe went too far. But I know that through this activist work, I’ve connected with many inspiring people who share my commitments as well as my constraints, and I’ve realized that I’m far from alone in facing them. I’ve grown to appreciate organizations like Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI), which have been doing this for years, even decades, and which allow for activists like me to plug into their work.
Now, as we approach a year of this unprecedented crisis in Israel and Palestine, I believe we are also witnessing a moment of unprecedented opportunity. I sensed it most acutely when six hostages, among them Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were confirmed to have been murdered by Hamas. This crushing revelation spurred an ongoing wave of Israeli protests for a ceasefire/hostage deal, and against Netanyahu’s government, which has made blatant its disregard for the hostages and their families. The protests and Histadrut general strike that followed caught the attention of the entire world; American unions like the UAW and Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers expressed immediate solidarity with Israeli protests. This, I thought, could be a defining moment, given how the hostage and ceasefire protests in the U.S. had been so separate prior to the summer. Now, in the last several weeks and months, there seems to be a growing recognition, both in Israel and the United States, that solidarity with Israeli protests for a hostage deal demands solidarity with Palestinians suffering months of devastation in Gaza, in the form of a ceasefire. That’s not a contradiction in terms – if anything, it’s the bifurcation of those movements that hasn’t made sense.
There is a growing recognition of the need for broad-based coalitions toward a ceasefire-hostage deal, and peace and dignity for both peoples between the River and the Sea. When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of many Democrats who refused to attend Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this summer, decided instead to meet with a delegation of hostage families and Palestinians, I knew that this moment could be a tipping point.
In earlier months, I was able to connect with American Jewish activists who shared my sense of alienation and my determination to support peace and dignity for both peoples. Now, it’s become undeniable that this commitment entails taking cues from Palestinians and Israelis who are building shared solidarity out of their grief, in ways that too many in both the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian worlds have thought impossible. Hostage family groups like We Are All Hostages – the families from the Begin Gate protests, who met with Omar – and many other inspiring groups, are laying groundwork for profound political shifts. Groups like PPI and New Israel Fund play crucial roles in connecting Americans like me with activists on the ground. And as activists on the ground lead the way, it seems like more and more people are waking up to the potential for the enduring transnational solidarity that this represents.
These developments leave me more hopeful than I can remember, certainly since October 7th. Of course, the situation on the ground is more dire than ever in my lifetime, maybe than ever in Israel’s history. And I know the political challenges are immense. Many Jewish legacy organizations, for example, have remained silent at best when it comes to criticizing Netanyahu’s far-right government, even as more Israelis than ever take to the streets against it.
But: I detect within networks of pro-Israel, pro-Palestine groups a shared single-mindedness toward ending this war. It is this single-mindedness that led ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in recent days, to finally call for a hostage deal, under direct pressure from We Are All Hostages and other hostage families. On the Left, activists are increasingly ready to embrace difficult conversations within the framework of Palestinian-Israeli-Jewish solidarity for a ceasefire-hostage deal, an end to the occupation, and equal rights for all between the River and the Sea. The Uncommitted movement is another positive development, in my view – as some activists in their orbit, like Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman, have formed explicit connections with hostage families.
“Where is the Palestinian J Street,” some critics ask? Well, we see some of those changes unfolding right now. Precisely for that reason, we must embrace conversation and coalition with those who are willing to work with us toward shared goals. Emerging connections between hostage families and Palestinian activists signify that Palestinian freedom and Israeli security are not only compatible, they are deeply intertwined. This is the message that’s been lacking in too many mainstream Jewish spaces, and in too many pro-Palestine spaces here in the U.S. But the fact that that message is gaining support among unprecedented numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, among American Jewry, and even among the Left and Labor movements here, should be a major cause for hope. For me, it’s been the source of renewed enthusiasm and commitment toward ending this war. For organizations like PPI, which have devoted themselves for years to self-determination for both peoples, these developments should be vindicating.
Americans, and American Jews in particular, must heed the call from these veteran networks of shared society organizations – and from emerging ones as well. It is our duty to support the groups and movements articulating political alternatives to endless war and perpetual domination of one people over another. Could it be that the tipping point is now? As Israelis take to the streets by the hundreds of thousands against their government; as extremists on both sides make clear their disregard for their own people and their support for endless war; as clear buds of Israeli-Palestinian solidarity emerge from the wreckage and destruction.
Americans have an unprecedented opportunity, and I hope our communities will seize it. Palestinians and Israelis working together for true peace and justice are opening up new potential for genuine political transformation. The war has devastated – continues to devastate – communities on the ground. But extremists on both sides in Israel and Palestine are being discredited. Though they remain formally in power, to devastating consequences for both peoples, they have already ceded the future. Netanyahu and Hamas have demonstrated that their political survivals depend on each other. Now, on-the-ground movements and their global networks of supporters are showing that the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, not their governments, are mutually dependent as well.
Let’s echo that affirmative vision, with no illusions about the difficulty of the current moment, but with a clear understanding of the strategic opportunities that it presents. In building transnational networks with activists on the ground, we will, together, be enabled to help end this war, bring the hostages home, and ultimately transform politics in Israel/Palestine. In taking part in that transformative work, we can help enact profound changes here in the United States, as well.
Jonathan Taubes is an activist-educator from Brooklyn who works at the intersections of Judaism, social justice, and the labor movement. Taubes has worked as a political organizer at the Workers Circle and a service corps manager at Repair the World. He is active as a lay-leader with New Israel Fund’s NewGen community, and with a range of Jewish social justice groups.
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