US-based Jewish Voice for Peace sees progress on Gaza

By Islam Dogru

Pro-peace groups in the US that have been advocating a cease-fire in Gaza for months view President Joe Biden's recent demand for a temporary suspension of fighting as a sign of society's growing influence on politics.

Officials from the US-based anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization, who have participated in hundreds of pro-Palestinian protests in New York, notably at the Statue of Liberty and Grand Central Station, spoke to Anadolu.

Esther Farmer, a leader in the group, said her grandfather hailed from Ottoman Jewry and her father, born in Palestine, migrated to New York in the 1920s.

“My grandmother always said that Jews and Palestinian Muslims got along well until the British stepped in,” she said.

Farmer said as part of JVP's efforts, it has dispatched hundreds of thousands of letters to politicians and group leaders since the Israel-Hamas war started Oct. 7.

“We are working hard to change the narrative and culture around the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The culture has been so biased toward Israel. Palestinian voices have not been heard. Anti-Zionist Jews have not been heard. And the good news in this horrible time is that this is changing. And those voices are now being heard,” she said.

Farmer highlighted that they are effectively creating “cracks” in the Israeli propaganda apparatus.

“First of all, a glimmer of hope is that there is a big support movement for Palestine right now, which has not happened for many years,” she said.

- ‘We are not going to allow the genocide of another people’

Farmer emphasized that Israel's assaults in Gaza constitute “genocide.”

“We were victims of genocide ourselves, and we are not going to allow the genocide of another people. That's not what it means to be Jewish. And so, we will not let this genocide happen, and we do think it's genocide. We think that what the Israelis are doing is trying to eliminate the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she said

Farmer said the Zionist apparatus wrongly equates Israel with Judaism, arguing that many Jews, including her own family, believe that Israel does not ensure the safety of Jews.

She clarified why the JVP opposes Zionism.

“We went through a process where we really analyzed, well, does Israel really make Jews safe? And we came up with that it does not. And it can never, because as long as you are oppressing another people, how can you be safe? My father used to say all the time, ‘How can Jews be safe when they're kicking people out of their houses? You can never be safe.’ So, it is both a practical and a moral issue. And for us in the JVP, for us to be complicit in the genocide of a people as Jews is simply unacceptable. And we will not stop until that ends.”

- ‘Israel becoming a pariah state'

Farmer said JVP remains committed to collaborating closely with Palestinian groups in the US under a shared leadership.

“Losing the public relations (battle) -- I think that Israel is now becoming a pariah state in the world, and the whole world has woken up to what's happening in Israel right now, a detail of history to know what's in front of your eyes,” she said.

Farmer reiterated that the governing authorities in Israel want to eradicate Palestine, highlighting the evident genocide in Gaza, including attacks on people near aid trucks.

“When you see something like what you just mentioned, where people that are waiting for food are being attacked, you don't need to say there needs to be an investigation. There doesn't need to be an investigation, it needs to stop. And our country's policies towards Israel make the US complicit in this genocide. And although it might be the case that, and I think it is the case, that Israel was always a client state of the US from the beginning, I think now there is an expression in English called: ‘The dog usually wags its tail,’ but this is a case where the tail is wagging the dog.”

- ‘The first thing I want to say is that this is a genocide’

JVP organizer Ayaz Muratoglu said he was born to a Turkish Jewish mother and a Muslim father from Erzurum, Türkiye.

“The first thing I want to say is that this is a genocide, and these are massacres that we're witnessing in Gaza every single day, and our government needs to listen to the people. This is not war, it's genocide,” he said.

Muratoglu, noting that the recent cease-fire call from the US should offer encouragement, “even if it is too late,” stressed that the American people will not support Biden unless he advocates for a permanent cease-fire and ceases to be complicit in the genocide against Palestinians.

“The Israeli government is starving people in Gaza and then shooting them down when they try to get food. These are massacres,” he said.

He asserted that the conflict is not a “religious war,” contrary to what certain groups are attempting to portray.

“This is a genocide perpetrated by the Israeli government, and as much as they claim to speak for all Jews, the protests of the last four months make it clear that's not true,” he added.

- ‘There is more to be done besides just a cease-fire’

“It's really terrifying to see what's been going on for a while. I feel like there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about these things,” said Colette Gerstmann, a kindergarten teacher who has been an organizer with JVP for six years.

Gerstmann said she comes from a Zionist family and continues to engage in debates with her father about Palestine.

Highlighting that many Americans and Jews, including herself, do not endorse Israel's genocide, she stressed that “every tool of genocide is being used” in Gaza.

She also said she sees “the United States continuing to fund and support it as complicity.”

Gerstmann criticized the Biden administration, saying it “realized its incredibly unpopular policies” as the November presidential elections draw nearer.

She criticized them for persistently blaming Hamas “to take the shame away from them” while simultaneously calling for a cease-fire.

Gerstmann said that even if a cease-fire is reached, there remains a significant amount of work to be done afterward.

“We want to push forward for many different human rights issues such as the right of return, the return of stolen land and equality among everybody who lives in the region. So, there's much more to be done besides just a cease-fire.”

*Writing by Gizem Nisa Cebi in Istanbul