T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which represents 1800 North American rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism, joins our rabbinic colleagues in Israel, the UK, and elsewhere in calling for Israel to cancel plans to demolish the Palestinian village of Susiya in the southern Hebron hills in the West Bank and evict the residents.
The acknowledgment this week by an internal Israeli report that Susiya sits on land privately owned by Palestinians only accentuates the injustice of the proposed destruction.
This past Sunday, Jewish communities observed Tisha b’Av, the day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of the Jewish people from our homeland. After experiencing such suffering that, in the words of Lamentations, “my life was bereft of peace; I forgot what happiness was,” (3:17) we must not allow the Jewish state to expel another people who, like us, will cry out, “Our homes [have passed] to strangers; we have become orphans.” (5:3)
We must not allow others to experience the pain we know far too well.
The demolition of Susiya would violate the human rights of its residents, and would be a threat to the security of both Israelis and Palestinians. As long as the legal system privileges Jewish settlers in the West Bank, such as those living in the Jewish settlement of Susya, over Palestinians, we will not achieve the long-term goal of a peace agreement that creates two sustainable and safe states side by side in which each population has access to a fair and just legal system. As Susiya resident Nasser Najawa wrote in a recent New York Times article, we believe that pursuit of this goal benefits both people, and is not “a story of Jews against Muslims, or even a story of Israelis against Palestinians.”
We commend the U.S. Department of State and Senator Dianne Feinstein for their strong statements asking the Israeli government to stop the proposed demolition. We join them, along with our rabbinic colleagues around the world, and Israelis and Palestinians committed to peace, in asking Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel to end the threats to Susiya now.