Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) is an Australian Jewish advocacy organisation launched in 2007. It recognises Israel's right to exist, but also believes that Palestinians' right to a homeland is legitimate and needs to be acknowledged.
Prominent British Jews, including actor Stephen Fry and playwright Harold Pinter, had previously spoken out against the Jewish establishment in the UK for supporting Israel above the human rights of Palestinians. [1] They formed the group Independent Jewish Voices, saying that the existing groups did not represent their views. There was also a similar group in Germany called Schalom 5767, which had attracted 7,000 signatures in support. [2]
Independent Australian Jewish Voices was established on 5 March 2007, co-founded by journalist and writer Antony Loewenstein, with the support of 120 prominent Jewish Australians. They included academics, politicians, and publishers, including ethicist Peter Singer, publisher Louise Adler, and Eva Cox, of the Women's Electoral Lobby. [1]
IAJV believes that Israel has a right to exist, but also that Palestinians' right to a homeland should be recognised. [3] It strives for peace in the Middle East. [1]
In 2007, IAJV was criticised by Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, as "dangerous and unrepresentative". [4]
Arab–Israeli peace projects are projects to promote peace and understanding between the Arab League and Israel in different spheres. These are part of a broader attempt at a peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Sponsors of such projects can be found both in Israel and Palestine.
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), represents the interests of the Australian Jewish community to government, politicians, media and other community groups and organisations through research, commentary and analysis. The organisation is directed by Colin Rubenstein, who was previously a political science lecturer at Monash University. AIJAC has office locations in Melbourne and Sydney. AIJAC is formally associated with the American Jewish Committee.
Jewish Voice for Peace is an American anti-Zionist left-wing Jewish advocacy organization that is critical of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Isratin or Isratine, also known as the bi-national state, is a proposed unitary, federal or confederate Israeli-Palestinian state encompassing the present territory of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Depending on various points of view, such a scenario is presented as a desirable one-state solution resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or as a calamity in which Israel would ostensibly lose its character as a Jewish state and the Palestinians would fail to achieve their national independence within a two-state solution. Increasingly, Isratin is being discussed not as an intentional political solution – desired or undesired – but as the probable, inevitable outcome of the continuous growth of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the seemingly irrevocable entrenchment of the Israeli occupation there since 1967.
StandWithUs (SWU) is a nonprofit right-wing pro-Israel advocacy organization founded in Los Angeles in 2001 by Roz Rothstein, Jerry Rothstein, and Esther Renzer.
Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) is an organization representing Canadian Jews who have a strong commitment to social justice and universal human rights. The organization was founded in 2008 as a result of a national conference called on behalf of the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians. Though the membership is not public, in a letter written to a local municipality in 2022, they claim to have over 1,000 members across Canada of the approximately 335,000 Canadian Jews.
The Israel lobby are individuals and groups seeking to influence the United States government to better serve Israel's interests. The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel with over seven million members. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a leading organization within the lobby, speaking on behalf of a coalition of pro-Israel American Jewish groups.
Ameinu is a left-wing American Jewish Zionist organization. Established in 2004 as the successor to the Labor Zionist Alliance, it is the continuation of Labor Zionist activity in the United States that began with the founding of Poale Zion, which came together in the period 1906.
Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is an organization launched on 5 February 2007 by 150 prominent British Jews including Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, historian Eric Hobsbawm, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Lady Ellen Dahrendorf, film director Mike Leigh, and actors Stephen Fry and Zoë Wanamaker. The organization is reportedly "born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice—and that this voice supports the Israeli government's policies". IJV stated it was founded "to represent British Jews...in response to a perceived pro-Israeli bias in existing Jewish bodies in the UK", and, according to Hobsbawn, "as a counter-balance to the uncritical support for Israeli policies by established bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews".
The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return and a right to the property they themselves or their forebears left behind or were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and the 1967 Six-Day War. As of 2024 this right does not exist.
Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP) is a Jewish activist group based in Britain that describes itself as advocating for human and civil rights, and economic and political freedom, for the Palestinian people. It opposes the current policy of Israel towards the Palestinian territories, particularly the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and seeks a change in their political status. Its membership is primarily British Jews.
The Israel lobby in the United Kingdom are individuals and groups seeking to influence the foreign policy of the United Kingdom in favour of bilateral ties with Israel, Zionism, Israel, or the policies of the Israeli government. As any lobby, such individuals and groups may seek to influence politicians and political parties, the media, the general public or specific groups or sectors.
Muslim supporters of Israel refers to both Muslims and cultural Muslims who support the right to self-determination of the Jewish people and the likewise existence of a Jewish homeland in the Southern Levant, traditionally known as the Land of Israel and corresponding to the modern polity known as the State of Israel. Muslim supporters of the Israeli state are widely considered to be a rare phenomenon in light of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the larger Arab–Israeli conflict. Within the Muslim world, the legitimacy of the State of Israel has been challenged since its inception, and support for Israel's right to exist is a minority orientation. Pro-Israel Muslims have faced opposition from both moderate Muslims and Islamists.
J Street is a nonprofit liberal Zionist advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab–Israeli and Israeli–Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. J Street was incorporated on November 29, 2007.
The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians(ACJC) was formed in 2005 as a coalition of Canadian Jews critical of the policies of the Israeli government, particularly toward the Palestinians. The ACJC argued that Israel wrongly "claim[ed] to speak in the name of Jewish people around the world," and that "those of us who have a different vision" should "come forward publicly to present our views to the Canadian Jewish community and to the people of Canada."
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), a secular organisation, was formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1984 to promote free discussion and action on Jewish and general social and political issues. It grew out of a profound concern at the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict, though some of its members had been active on the left since at least the 1930s in Europe. Others had been born in Israel or Australia, or spent considerable time in Israel. Others came out of the anti-Vietnam war and peace movements. Some key members had strong links to the Israeli peace movement, the Jewish left, Labor Zionism, or other Jewish religious and cultural traditions. More recently, members with strong environmental concerns have become active.
JCall is a non-profit advocacy group based in Europe to lobby the European parliament on foreign policy issues concerning the Middle East and Israel in particular. They say they are based along the lines of the America group J Street, founded in 2007. They say they are "committed to the state of Israel and critical of the current choices of its government." The group is considered to be leftist.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
" 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" is a 2006 essay written by Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld, director of Indiana University's Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and professor of English and Jewish Studies. It was published by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) with an introduction by AJC executive director David A. Harris. The essay claims that a "number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent antisemitism by questioning whether Israel should even exist".
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, however. Jews have been major forces in the history of the labor movement, the settlement house movement, the women's rights movement, anti-racist and anti-colonialist work, and anti-fascist and anti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Australia, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and modern-day Israel. Jews have a history of involvement in anarchism, socialism, Marxism, and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been of Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.