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What Does it Mean to be a Liberal American Zionist?

07 Thursday Aug 2025

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Even before Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the definition and meaning of “Zionism” had increasingly come to be understood in far-left-progressive circles in the United States and around the world in strongly cynical and pejorative terms. Zionism became even more so understood negatively once Israel began its morally just counterattack against Hamas beginning on October 8th and later against Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. Those who were in league with the world-wide anti-Israel movement before October 7 and who had sought for years to re-frame the Zionist narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and a product of European imperialism discovered that they were gaining increasing support among many politically progressive left-wing Americans who claimed the humanitarian mantle against what they believed was Israel’s military over-reaction to what Hamas did to Israelis on that bloodiest day in the history of the State of Israel.  

Every people has the right of self-definition, and we Zionists – and especially we liberal American Zionists – have that right as well.

I believe that this is the time for us to take back our liberal American Zionist narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. That is what I want to do in this blog post, to express why I am a proud liberal American Zionist despite my deep protest against the policies of this most extremist Israeli right-wing messianic government in the history of Israel.

I am a proud liberal American Zionist and as such I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of the Jewish State militarily to defend itself when attacked by terrorists and hostile states.

As a liberal American Zionist I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, namely that justice, equality, human rights, compassion, and peace must be core values guiding every Israeli government’s policies, its military and civil society.

As a liberal American Zionist I am proud of what the Zionist movement and the people and State of Israel have accomplished in virtually every arena of human endeavor including immigration and the absorption of refugees, agriculture, education, the sciences, medicine, bio-technology, cyber, culture, the arts, diplomacy, human rights, civil society, and self-defense.

As a liberal American Zionist I understand that the intent of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran is to destroy the State of Israel and murder as many Jews as possible in their messianic zeal to establish an extremist caliphate over all of historic Palestine “from the river to the sea.” As one example of this murderous intent, Hamas’ leadership said early on in the war that 100,000 Palestinian martyrs were not too many to fulfill its extremist mission to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish state.

As a liberal American Zionist I am proud and grateful that the United States historically has been Israel’s most important and generous ally and that Israel’s security needs have enjoyed bi-partisan American political support.

As a student of Israeli and Middle East history, I know that Israel has tried many times to resolve diplomatically the Israeli-Arab and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts resulting in two-states for two-peoples as a matter of justice for the Palestinians and enlightened self-interest for Israel, but that extremist and uncompromising Palestinian leadership has walked away every time.

As a liberal American Zionist I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen, that I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military to fight in Israel’s wars. Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the decisions that directly impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew and liberal Zionist who loves Israel I believe that I have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies that I believe are harmful not only to Israel’s own best interests as a Jewish and democratic state but to my security and well-being as a Diaspora Jew and my liberal Jewish and democratic values.

As a liberal American Zionist, for months I have felt the anguish, grief and rage of what Hamas did on October 7th. I continue to worry daily about the survival of the remaining hostages and the well-being of their families and the families of the Israeli soldiers killed and injured in this war. I have worried as well since this war began about the suffering of the two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

As a liberal American Zionist I believe that Israel, in fighting this just war has not always fought the war justly. It ought to be clear that Israel has crossed many red-lines despite all the challenges and difficulties in fighting a war against a non-state actor that deliberately hides behind and uses its own people as human shields. Israel’s massive killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and its use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war are immoral and un-Jewish.

It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of U.S. weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who voted recently to halt the sale of offensive weapons to Israel as a way to put pressure on PM Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war now, to stop the suffering, the starvation, the killing of civilians, and the deaths of Israeli soldiers and hostages.

These 27 Senators are friends of Israel, every one of them. They have always supported Israel’s true security needs. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons now after all these months of war they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling, which save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be criticized for their vote or accused of being anti-Israel. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinians and for applying necessary pressure on this extremist Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate – to end this war now, to bring home the hostages immediately, to pour massive humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to stop the killing and injury of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.

The vast majority of Israelis themselves and the vast majority of the American Jewish community agree that the war must end now, the hostages returned home, and humanitarian aid be provided in quantities that can stop the hunger and starvation.

I say all of these things as a committed liberal American Zionist and as a lover of the people and State of Israel.

The North American Reform Jewish Movement has issued the following statement on Starvation in Gaza

28 Monday Jul 2025

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The ongoing crisis in Gaza is a devastating reminder of the immense human cost of war. Nearly two years into Israel’s war against Hamas, Israelis are still waiting for the return of their loved ones held hostage, and innocent Palestinians are caught in a mounting humanitarian catastrophe. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people in its pursuit of Israel’s destruction, but Israel must not sacrifice its own moral standing in return. Neither escalating military pressure nor restricting humanitarian aid has brought Israel closer to securing a hostage deal or ending the war.

While long-delayed and not-yet-certain to be more effective than previous efforts, we are encouraged by Saturday night’s announcement that the Israeli military would revive the practice of dropping aid from airplanes and make it easier for aid convoys, including those from the UN’s World Food Program, to move through Gaza along “designated humanitarian corridors,” and to temporarily cease fighting in Gaza for a humanitarian pause.

No one should be unaffected by the pervasive hunger experienced by thousands of Gazans. No one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly. Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster. The primary moral response must begin with anguished hearts in the face of such a large-scale human tragedy.

Our tradition teaches that all people are created b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God. One consequence of this is the moral priority, which is affirmed throughout the Bible and rabbinic tradition, of feeding the hungry—both for the individual and for the self-governing Jewish community.

More than a few members of the current Israeli government have publicly called for Israel to decimate the Gaza strip. The most recent was Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu who, on Thursday lauded the Israeli government for “racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out.” He added: “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil.” Of equal concern are far-right Israeli politicians who advocate for Israel to permanently push most Gazans from much of Gaza and replace them with Jewish settlements. We condemn all such statements. They do not represent Jewish values nor those embodied in the Zionist vision that produced Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Despite PM Netanyahu’s calls to ignore these full members of his cabinet, their presence in this government has consistently morally compromised Israel’s actions.

Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the “total victory” over Hamas it seeks, nor can it be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law. It’s hard to imagine that this tragic approach will bring home the 50 remaining hostages, including the 20 whom we pray are still alive.

It’s imperative that the Government of Israel ensures that the recently announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid succeed as Israel works with international partners to ensure its safe and sustained delivery and do whatever possible to reduce or eliminate the shootings and other injuries sustained at food distribution centers. We applaud Israel’s green light for foreign nations to resume providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza population desperate for food and are confident that they will do all they can to ensure that such aid does not fall into the hands of Hamas.

As Israel has effective control of 70% of Gaza, with the intent to remain in significant swaths of it, even if only temporarily, it should be directly involved, facilitate and cooperate with the international community, international humanitarian NGOs, and regional friends, to take urgently needed actions, such as these suggested by Israeli Reform rabbi and Member of Knesset Gilad Kariv:

• To prevent the alarming number of civilian deaths in and around the food and humanitarian aid distribution sites.

• Opening a significant number of food distribution centers at various locations across the Gaza Strip.

• Large-scale entry of infant formula (especially liquid formula) and ensuring safe delivery to both functioning medical centers and the few remaining international aid facilities.

• Establishing secure methods—potentially through cooperation with regional countries—for delivering food supplies to aid organizations and international agencies.

• Resuming sufficient water supply to population centers in Gaza, in accordance with international health standards.

• Authorizing and assisting in the supply of medications, the establishment of field hospitals and clinics operated by remaining Palestinian medical staff, by foreign governments and by international agencies, especially in areas where hospitals have ceased functioning.

Finally, while it is imperative that Israel and the U.S. resume diplomacy to bring home all hostages and end this war, denying basic humanitarian aid crosses a moral line. Blocking food, water, medicine, and power—especially for children—is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.

The Abuse of Power in This Era

08 Tuesday Jul 2025

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The Judeo-Christian tradition, upon which the United States was founded, promoted the notion of “covenantal politics” as a means to create an ideal society based upon human rights and dignity, equality and opportunity, justice and respect, accountability and responsibility, forgiveness and reconciliation, personal growth and freedom, all based in the principle articulated in the book Genesis that the human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the Image of God, thereby affirming infinite worth and dignity in every woman, man and child.

In this era of Donald Trump, the question before us is the same question that has always challenged Americans since our nation’s founding: What is political power for? Is it to sate the personal ambition of a politician, or is it to nurture a covenantal America in which politics is the means to further a more just and inclusive nation? If politics is only about ambition and power, then power renders as irrelevant morality and conscience, and it elevates amorality, illegality, sedition, insurrection, violence, and murder.

I know I’m not alone in my disgust and feeling of foreboding about what is happening to American democracy and the spirit of fair play and common decency under the aggressive disregard for human dignity under Donald Trump. Yes, there are still many good people and servant-leaders in every arena of our society committed to the well-being of others. We are watching now, for example, how many good people are doing everything possible to save victims of this horrendous flooding in Texas. And there are many among our political, business and educational leadership, religious and social justice activists, jurists, legal scholars and advocates, journalists and writers, entertainment and sports luminaries actively fighting for what I describe above as our nation’s “covenantal politics.” Certainly, not all is lost yet and mid-term elections will surely come and the vast majority of Americans who now disapprove of Trump’s aggressive disregard for human rights and the fundamental needs of most Americans will have an opportunity to vote against him and his minions.

I have been thinking a great deal about the use and abuse of power since Trump became President again, as he wields it like every common dictator does around the world, for his own purposes and interests. Note the column one story in this past Sunday’s New York Times (July 6, 2025) that describes in detail how Trump’s financial fortunes dramatically reversed since becoming the Republican candidate for President a second time and then winning the presidency again. He was on the verge of financial ruin (hardly a successful businessman he), but now has monetized the presidency to such an extent that he has turned his losses into massive wealth and power. His is a disgusting display of corruption the likes of which America has not seen in the presidency in our nearly 250 years of existence and that no one in his party even talks about much less does anything about.

As I have thought about power, here are a few quotations that offer additional insight and its character and purpose:

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” ―Lord Acton, English Catholic historian (1834-1902)

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” ―Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese Politician and diplomat, b. 1945)

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible.” ―David Brin, American author (b. 1950)

“The true measure of a man is how he uses his power.” ―Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Winner (1929-1968)

“With great power comes great responsibility.” ―Voltaire, French Enlightenment author (1694-1778)

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ―Alice Walker, American writer (b. 1944)

“The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no [person] living with power to endanger the public liberty.” ―President John Adams (1735-1826)

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” ―George Orwell, British writer (1903-1950)

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” ―Mahatma Gandhi, Indian philosopher and non-violent champion (1869-1948)

The Case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia – An outrage if ever there is one!

04 Friday Jul 2025

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I am not a lawyer, so I rely on the expertise of legal scholars who are able to communicate clearly to the public what is at stake in cases in which the United State’s government’s actions defy the US Constitution and the law.

I am posting here Joyce Vance’s “Civil Discourse” missive (worth subscribing) because the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, when understood, ought to outrage anyone who cares about American democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, the truth and common decency.

Joyce Vance is an American lawyer who served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017. She was one of the first five U.S. attorneys, and the first female U.S. attorney, nominated by President Barack Obama.

Ms. Vance describes in detail the case against Mr. Garcia and the cruel treatment he has received deliberately by the Trump Administration and by Donald Trump himself.

Ms. Vance concludes:

“This case, which has brought issues of due process and the prospect of the executive branch of government ignoring orders issued by the judiciary to the forefront of Americans’ minds, will stand as one of the most important cases in American history.”  

I urge you to read the entire post below as it not only paints a terrible legal picture, but a horrendous moral one.

I have felt outrage, along with so many millions of Americans, about Mr. Garcia’s treatment since this case first became a national story months ago. Now that he has been returned to the United States and is being charged with federal crimes as a cover to whitewash what Trump and his minions have done to him and the rule of law, we know much more about what actually happened to Mr. Garcia in El Salvador and what the Trump Administration is capable of doing to any one of us.

Here is Ms. Vance’s report today – July 4, 2025

The Civil Case:

On March 24, 2025, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife filed a civil lawsuit on his behalf in federal district court in Maryland. The defendants included Attorney General Pamela Bondi, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Trump administration had just deported Venezuelans it claimed were gang members to El Salvador, although ultimately it came to light that significant numbers of them weren’t. The Trump administration violated a district court’s order that the men not be turned over to El Salvador, which was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court.

It’s not unusual for plaintiffs in civil cases to amend their initial complaint as new information comes to light. On Wednesday, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia’s wife, asked the court for permission to do so.

She explained that “the Government filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Complaint as moot, arguing that because it had returned Abrego Garcia to the United States, Plaintiffs have received all the relief they sought.” She wanted to amend her complaint to “clarify that the relief they seek remains live, notwithstanding Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.” Three new items are included in the amended complaint:

  • “The proposed Amended Complaint details the Government’s defiance of court orders after this Court granted preliminary injunctive relief.”
  • “[E]vidence that emerged in a June 2025 whistleblower disclosure from former DOJ official Erez Reuveni, who was previously counsel for the Government in this case. The new allegations include government officials internally acknowledging that Abrego Garcia’s removal was an “administrative error” while simultaneously working to prevent his return and to make post-hoc justifications. These revelations provide evidence of deliberate misconduct that was unavailable when the original Complaint was filed.”
  • “Abrego Garcia’s first-hand account of torture and mistreatment at CECOT, as well as developments regarding his return to the United States and the Government’s stated plan to remove him again.”

The proposed amended complaint, which is attached to the motion for permission to file it, contains predictable but still shocking revelations about conditions at CECOT. The conditions, as alleged, are more like a concentration camp than a prison in the United States, and there is little doubt that if established, the allegations made about those conditions would run afoul of the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Although the government has maintained that once delivered to El Salvador, these men are no longer in U.S. custody, that argument is paper-thin, or at least it should be, since the U.S. government is paying El Salvador to house these men. The allegations made by Abrego Garcia will likely play prominently in litigation over this issue.

The new allegations in the amended complaint include the following:

“Upon arrival at CECOT, the detainees were greeted by a prison official who stated, ‘Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.’ Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was then forced to strip, issued prison clothing, and subjected to physical abuse including being kicked in the legs with boots and struck on his head and arms to make him change clothes faster. His head was shaved with a zero razor, and he was frog-marched to cell 15, being struck with wooden batons along the way. By the following day, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia had visible bruises and lumps all over his body.

In Cell 15, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia and 20 other Salvadorans were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion. During this time, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself. The detainees were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.”

And although the complaint alleges that El Salvadoran prison officials acknowledged that Abrego wasn’t a gang member, they threatened him with physical harm at the hands of gang members in the prison:

“As reflected by his segregation, the Salvadoran authorities recognized that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was not affiliated with any gang and, at around this time, prison officials explicitly acknowledged that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine.’

While at CECOT, prison officials repeatedly told Plaintiff Abrego Garcia that they would transfer him to the cells containing gang members who, they assured him, would ‘tear’ him apart.

Indeed, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells who he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention from guards or personnel. Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards on personnel.

During his first two weeks at CECOT, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia suffered a significant deterioration in his physical condition and lost approximately 31 pounds (dropping from approximately 215 pounds to 184 pounds).”

During a conference call with District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, the government acknowledged it intended to deport Abrego Garcia again, this time to a third country. That would not violate the withholding order that prevented them from sending him to Venezuela. The government’s lawyer represented that it didn’t have imminent plans for deportation, but Abrego Garcia’s lawyers told the court, “We have concerns that the government may try to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia quickly over the weekend, something like that.” They asked for an emergency order that would bring him to Maryland if he were released in Tennessee, where he is facing the criminal charges the government filed against him when they returned him from El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia remains in federal custody in Tennessee while the Magistrate Judge considers whether to release him—she previously ruled he was entitled to release, but she was concerned about the deportation issue.

Judge Xinis set a July 7 court hearing in Maryland to discuss the emergency request and other matters. Today, she rejected the government’s request to delay the hearing to a later date.

The same week Abrego Garcia’s wife filed her original complaint, Defendant Kristi Noem traveled to El Salvador to “visit” CECOT prison. She posed for this photo in front of a cell full of prisoners.

A report from the CATO Institute suggests that although the government claims all of the men it sent to Venezuela are “illegal aliens,” in 50 of the 90 cases where they were able to identify how the men entered the United States, the men said that they entered the U.S. legally, with government permission, at an official border crossing point.”

The Criminal Case

The government attempted to save face when it returned Abrego Garcia from El Salvador by filing criminal charges against him involving the transportation of people who were known to be present in the U.S. without legal immigration status. Comments made by government officials went far beyond the facts alleged in the indictment—a clear violation of DOJ policy—in describing his conduct and claiming he was a serious violent criminal who, among other things, had sexually assaulted women.

Last week, there were reports that the government’s key witness, Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, likely the owner of the car Abrego Garcia was driving during the incident he was charged with, was a three-time convicted felon. The deal the government cut with him allowed his early released early from federal prison to a halfway house in exchange for his cooperation in the case.

An official with Homeland Security Investigations, part of ICE, testified Hernandez Reyes would have been deported but for his cooperation with the government. The Washington Post reported that he said in court that the government “is also likely to give him a work permit.”

In the meantime, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. in Tennessee to enforce local rules that prohibit the Trump administration from making “extensive and inflammatory extrajudicial comments about Mr. Abrego that are likely to prejudice his right to a fair trial.” The motion continues, “These comments continued unabated—if anything they ramped up—since his indictment in this District, making clear the government’s intent to engage in a ‘trial by newspaper.’”

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers raise four points of concern in their pleading:

  • “[T]he government has relentlessly attacked Mr. Abrego’s character and reputation in dozens of public statements … Many of the government’s statements have been highly prejudicial and serve no justifiable law enforcement purpose—and reflect nothing more than the lengths the government will go to in its efforts to paint Mr. Abrego as a dangerous criminal to deflect from its mistake.”
  • “[T]he government has expressed opinions about Mr. Abrego’s guilt and the evidence in this case in ways that go far beyond the limited disclosures permitted” by local rules of court.
  • “[T]he government’s statements have been contaminated with irrelevant and false claims that the DOJ ‘knows or reasonably should know are likely to be inadmissible as evidence in a trial or that would, if disclosed, create a substantial risk of prejudicing an impartial trial.”” As an example, they offer that, “at a press conference announcing these charges, Attorney General Bondi recounted allegations from unreliable alleged coconspirators that Mr. Abrego ‘abused undocumented alien females,’ ‘trafficked firearms and narcotics,’ ‘solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor,’ and ‘played a role in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother.’” They also objected to what they call unsubstantiated claims that Abrego Garcia is Mr. Abrego is a “wife beater” and “domestic abuser.” They conclude that “These assertions are not only irrelevant and inflammatory, but also based entirely on inadmissible hearsay.”
  • “[S]ince the indictment was unsealed, the government has made nearly three dozen statements about the fact that it has charged Mr. Abrego with a crime, without reference to the presumption of innocence.”

In a normal administration, an Assistant United States Attorney who did any of these things would most likely be seriously sanctioned by internal DOJ disciplinary mechanisms. But here, the concern is about the Attorney General of the United States and other high-ranking officials. We are no longer surprised by much, but we should reclaim our ability to be shocked by the truly outrageous. Because that’s exactly what this is.

It is the job of defense lawyers to put the government on its back foot. But they’ve made the claims in this case knowing that they will be thoroughly tested. In their motion, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers ask the court for a very simple sanction: they want him to “issue an order directing the parties to comply with Local Criminal Rule 2.01,” the local rule that prohibits these out-of-court statements. This afternoon, Judge Crenshaw directed both sides to stop making public statements about the case. It’s not clear from his two-sentence ruling, “Motion (69) is GRANTED. All counsel are expected to comply with the Local Rules of this Court,” whether the order extends to DHS employees in addition to DOJ employees, which Abrego Garcia’s lawyers requested.

Despite this limited action, the motion was a strategic one that hints at the kind of arguments that will be used to argue a guilty verdict, if the government obtains one, should be reversed because the jury pool was tainted by the government’s own statements to the public. The motion also recites that, “The Vice President, a Yale Law School graduate, went so far as to flatly lie about Mr. Abrego, calling him a ‘convicted MS-13 gang member,’ notwithstanding that Mr. Abrego in fact has never been convicted of any crime at all.” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are busy making a record.

This case, which has brought issues of due process and the prospect of the executive branch of government ignoring orders issued by the judiciary to the forefront of Americans’ minds, will stand as one of the most important cases in American history. We don’t yet know how it will end. It is a very dangerous moment for our democracy, one we should all pay close attention to. Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse. Your support, and your paid subscriptions help me devote the time and resources necessary to this work.

I Protest President Trump’s Call-up of the California National Guard

08 Sunday Jun 2025

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President Trump has wanted to use the US military and states’ National Guard as a show of his concentrated federal power since his first term. He even wanted to shoot demonstrators in the legs who were protesting police brutality against the George Floyd murder by police in a demonstration outside the White House. Now, he is getting his long-held wish to hold a military parade on the streets of Washington, D.C. next week on his 79th birthday just as autocrats around the world love to do to intimidate and threaten civilian populations in their countries.

Yesterday and today, while circumventing the legitimate authority of California Governor Gavin Newsom to call up the California National Guard (if it would be needed –  Governor Newsom does not believe it is needed), Trump has himself called up 2000 National Guard troops and deployed them in Los Angeles citing a rarely used provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services  ”10 U.S.C. 12406,”  that has been activated only when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” That is NOT happening in Los Angeles County. Governor Newsom has stated that local police departments are acting responsibly, as opposed to the charges of the President.

The White House sent out this letter yesterday, insulting the Democratic leadership of the State of California, and falsely characterizing the situation in Los Angeles as out of control. The letter is transparent. It is part of Trump’s retributive justice against blue states generally and Democratic political leadership in California specifically. Of course, the great irony of this White House statement is that Trump pardoned hundreds of convicted criminals serving prison time for attacking the government of the United States, killing and injuring dozens of police officers who were guarding the nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021:

“In recent days, violent mobs have attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles, California. These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens. That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester. The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs. These criminals will be arrested and swiftly brought to justice. The Commander-in-Chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely.” -Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley was quoted this morning in the NY Times (link to the full article is below):

“For the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling. It is using the military domestically to stop dissent.”

I agree.

A friend rightly compared Trump’s action this weekend to the arson attack on the home of the German parliament in Berlin on Monday, February 27, 1933, four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. The fire, allegedly set by the Nazis themselves, was used to weaponize the NAZIs on their rapid march to destroy what was left of democracy in Germany.

Though I do not believe that we in America are experiencing 1930s Germany, the desired march towards autocracy by this President is obvious.

Now is the time for us to protest Trump’s over-reach. We best remember the warning of the German theologian and Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) who aptly wrote about the consequences of passivity in the face of anti-democratic governance and brutality:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and Id did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Read the NY Times piece on this action here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/us/trump-national-guard-deploy-rare.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“We all want to change the world” – by Kareem Abdul-Jabaar – A Review

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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Kareem Abdul-Jabaar’s newly published book We all want to change the world – My Journey through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today is a sweeping, thoughtful, self-revelatory, honest, and inspiring review of most of the major social justice movements and human rights challenges in the United States since the 1950s when Kareem was coming of age as a African American athlete in New York City. One of the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA, Kareem is now among the most prolific writers, probing thinkers and public intellectuals in America.

I read Kareem’s Substack newsletters from start to finish each time he publishes (twice weekly) and I find him always smart, rational, intellectually honest, thorough in his research, moral, and entertaining with his short videos of extraordinary athletic feats, musical selections, and cultural moments. Just as his Substack newsletter is worth reading, so is his newest book.

Kareem covers the impact on American society of the movements for Free Speech, Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam War, Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation, and the cultural, emotional and psychological mindsets that spawned the courageous leadership that furthered human rights and opportunities in the United States for discriminated groups of Americans.

Kareem describes his personal mantra as that inspired by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s adage: “No one is free unless everyone is free,” and what Dr. King said in another way: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

As a young black man growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City, becoming a famous athlete, meeting Dr. King, Mohammad Ali, and other leading black sports, entertainment and human rights figures, and reading constantly from the time he was a teen-ager, the shy, intellectual, self-reflective and compassionate young man felt compelled to think not only about himself and his athletic career and the moral compromises that many fellow black athletes felt they had to make in order to further their careers, but about every individual struggling for dignity beyond the stereotypes and cultural definitions that oppressed them.

Kareem wrote:

“Writing [the chapter on Civil Rights as My Gateway Movement] was especially challenging for me. As I chronicled the history of decade after decade of civil rights abuses and the martyrs who gave up their lives in pursuit of the freedoms already promised by our Constitution, I felt the rising heat of frustration and anger from my younger days. I needed to take frequent breaks to remind myself that frustration and anger by themselves accomplish nothing. Injustice is fueled by indifference, but passion without a plan is just as destructive. For me, the fiery passion of my youth needed to be channeled in order for me to do my part to bring about justice.”

This book is well-researched and well-written, and it lays out the historical facts and events of each of the human rights movements Kareem discusses in detail. He first presents those events historically, then dives into the emotional, social, and psychological challenges the leaders and followers of each movement confronted. For me, about three years younger than Kareem (age 78), I remember so much of what he describes, and I appreciate his insights about the forces that propelled the leadership of each movement to do what they did, as well as the baked-in cultural norms that reflected (and still reflects) the thinking of massive numbers of Americans.

Among other self-revelatory sections of the book, Kareem describes himself as a feminist. He wrote:

“As a Black teenager growing up in New York City, I loved books, movies, television, and music. Looking back on all that I was exposed to, I see now how those popular art forms conspired to produce a pounding thrum of dangerous misogyny, an insistent earworm that ran through my generation as it had so many generations before. With this evolving women’s movement, as more and more voices joined the chorus protesting misogyny, our heads were cleared enough to choose for ourselves. That’s how it was for me.”

In his epilogue, Kareem confessed:

“The biggest challenge I had in writing this book was the frequent breaks I had to take due to the build-up of frustration and anger. Again and again in my research, I saw the same pattern: basic human rights denied, indignities and disrespect piled on, and the refusal of oppressors to acknowledge why they were wrong. The worst was the complicity of so many people who disagreed with the discrimination in principle but who were too complacent to act. They might justify their collusion with ‘What can I do?’ but they already know the answer. They just don’t like it.”  

He concludes the book discussing the ongoing need for open and public protest in all the areas he discussed:

“The Founders enshrined the right to protest in our Constitution. They did that because they knew that the forces of self-interest and corruption would always try and to subvert the ideals of democracy they laid out.”

Kareem can be forgiven for the human rights issues he did not include in his book. However, there is one that Kareem does not discuss in this volume – the oldest of all hatreds, antisemitism. I’ve wondered why he didn’t discuss it specifically since it has become a major issue in North America, on college and university campuses, and around the world especially since Hamas’s brutal attack, murder and rape of 1200 Israelis and others on October 7, 2023 in Southern Israel and reactions to Israel and Jews as a consequence of the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel.

On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas attack, Kareem wrote in his Substack newsletter of his support of Israel. He condemned Hamas categorically, and elsewhere he described antisemitism as “especially heinous.” Kareem was the 2022 winner of Canada’s “Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center’s first Ally Against Anti-Semitism Award,” so his pro-Jewish and pro-Israel bona fides are undisputed. Given Kareem’s 1.1 million Substack readers and the likely large number of people of color, athletes, and liberal-left readers who will read this book (as well as interested moderates and conservatives), I would have appreciated his discussion of antisemitism, its nature and history going back thousands of years and reemerging today in the United States, especially in this post-October 7th period in which so many on the far left publicly have identified with Hamas against Israel and Zionism and so many on the far right who openly court and identify with neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists, including the sitting President of the United States.

Hamas is among the most brutal, undemocratic, unenlightened, Jew-hating, extremist Muslim terrorist organizations in the world. It is one thing for decent people to want peace and justice for the Palestinian people in some kind of a demilitarized state of their own alongside a secure and democratic Jewish State of Israel, but it is something else entirely to support Hamas and its call for a free “Palestine from the River to the Sea.” That position means the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews. It is antisemitic Jew-hatred.  

There is a strong human rights case to be made about this oldest of hatreds that would have merited Kareem’s inclusion of a discussion of antisemitism in his book. Historically, the evidence is clear that in every country in which Jews have been discriminated against, attacked and accused of corrupting the soul of a people or nation, human rights generally and democracy specifically have been diminished and/or destroyed. To me, antisemitism would have been an obvious chapter to write about. I’m disappointed that Kareem didn’t take the opportunity to address Jew-hatred head-on, especially because I know he understands what antisemitism is and its “heinous” character. It was a missed opportunity to educate those very groups and individuals in which antisemitism has taken root and found a home in recent years on both the far left and the far right.

What I’m Reading and Watching This Week – Kareem Abdul Jabaar and Senator Adam Schiff

18 Friday Apr 2025

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Kareem Abdul Jabaar, among the greatest NBA players in the history of basketball, has become, in my view, among the greatest public intellectuals in our nation today. Kareem writes every week in his “Official Newsletter” on sports, politics and pop culture and how they define America. In every missive, his moral compass helps clarify the meaning of what we’re experiencing as a people and nation. He also entertains with short video clips in sports, pop music, and the natural world. This week, for example, he showed a video of a fox in the dead of winter in North Dakota hunting field mice through three feet of snow, leaping high into the air and diving head-first after the wild canine hears the slightest rustle of sound beneath the snow-surface, and then coming up with a mouse in its mouth 75 percent of the time.  

This week (April 18, 2025) Kareem also wrote a “Halleluyah” piece about Harvard President Alan Garber refusing to bend the knee to Trump. And he notes that the Wall Street Journal predicted that Trump will be impeached a third time – hard to believe, but he makes the case writing:

“Defying the U.S. Supreme Court is the most blatant admission that Trump is angling to be a dictator. Will he be impeached before he’s amassed enough power to overturn the government—which he’s been doing for months—or will the GOP put their country ahead of their careers before it’s too late?”

Kareem is smart and his newsletters are always thoughtful, informative and entertaining.

And then there is my friend and Senator Adam Schiff, who every night posts a YouTube of between five and ten minutes in which he reviews the outrage of the day perpetrated by Donald Trump and his administration. Always focused and thoughtful, Adam offers his viewpoint about each particular event. In this one, he describes President Trump’s blatant disobeying of lawful court orders, as Trump’s advisors and allies cheer him on, following the mind-numbing injustice of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who remains trapped in a jail in El Salvador. Watch that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGTIELDTHOo

I add two quotations from more than one hundred years ago in American history that inform us about what we are facing as a people and nation in these exceptionally disturbing days of federal government stupidity, illegality and overreach. The first is from the writings of the former Chief Justice of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), who anticipated the current moment in our history nearly a century ago, and what is required of us today:

“No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. … Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. … The peril of this nation is not in any foreign foe. We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope.”

The second are the words of Carl Schurz (1829-1906), the German-American revolutionary, statesman, and reformer:

“We have come to a point where it is loyalty to resist and treason to submit.”

Both Kareem Abdul Jabaar and Senator Adam Schiff are, among others across the nation, leading the way in our resistance.

Wiping Clean the “Human Stain” – A Pesach Message

10 Thursday Apr 2025

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Fear, anger, outrage, disgust, rage, anxiety, worry – these are among the feelings millions of Americans have been experiencing since Trump took control of the federal government, appointed incompetent sycophants to his Cabinet, began firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers, dismembering whole government departments and agencies, crashing the economy, obliterating the life savings of millions of seniors, threatening America’s social safety net, and wrecking the international global trading system.

And then there’s the endless war in Gaza that PM Netanyahu refuses to end thereby callously forsaking the lives of the remaining hostages, withholding desperately needed humanitarian aid from the most vulnerable Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and allowing more killings in Gaza and the destruction of Palestinian lives and villages in the West Bank.

In his novel The Human Stain, Philip Roth wrote cynically:

“…we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, … – there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent, Defining. The stain that is there before its mark. Without the sign it is there. The stain so intrinsic it doesn’t require a mark. The stain that precedes disobedience, that impasses disobedience and perplexes all explanation and understanding. It’s why all the cleansing is a job. A barbaric joke at that. The fantasy of purity is appalling. It’s insane. What is the quest to purify, if not more impurity?” (p. 242)

Roth’s dystopic characterization of the human condition is soul-crushing and contrary to fundamental Jewish values promoting goodness, justice, compassion, and human decency.

Years ago at a convention of Reform Rabbis in Jerusalem that met between Purim and Pesach, Yossi Klein Halevi offered this teaching about the truths at the core of each holiday. Purim, he said, reminds Jews that there are indeed evil actors in the world whose hatred of our people threatens us and we cannot be naïve about their worst intentions. Pesach reminds us, he said, that as a people who have long known enslavement and suffering must never forget that it’s our duty to remain compassionate despite the cruelty around us.

Pesach reminds us also that we need each other, our families, friends, and community as we face the multitude of moral challenges before us. When we open the door for Elijah, we’re reminded that not all is lost, that hope abides despite the human stain that leaves its corrosive residue in the heart, and that it’s our moral and Jewish duty to act justly, to love mercy, and to pursue peace.

Our role today, along with the millions of Americans who marched last weekend against the despotic over-reach of this corrupt and heartless American President, is to be, like them, on the right side of history. And it is to be grateful for the thousands of lawyers and law firms, the hundreds of college and university presidents and faculties, and the many decent public servants in Congress, state capitals and local communities across the United States who are resisting tyranny.

As Jews who love Israel, it is our place to act in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators marching weekly and calling for an immediate end to Israel’s longest war, the return of the hostages, the restoration of humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and on behalf of Israeli democracy.  

When the ancient Israelites escaped Egypt with Pharaoh’s troops in pursuit, they came to the Sea of Reeds, a natural blockade to their liberation. Moses turned to God in prayer and asked for Divine agency. However, Nachshon ben Aminadav took history into his own hands and leaped into the sea, whereupon the Holy One took note of Nachshon’s courage and parted the waters that the people might escape upon dry land.

The Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 54b), many centuries later, reflected on the moral responsibility of our people to take action whenever they confronted injustice, corruption, and hard-heartedness:

“If a person can protest the misdeeds of one’s household, yet does not, that one becomes guilty with them. If a person can protest the deeds of one’s towns-people, and does not, that one is guilty with them. If a person can protest the deeds of the entire world, and does not, that one is guilty with them.”

Chag Pesach Sameach!

For my Jewish readers – Have you voted yet?

23 Sunday Mar 2025

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At a time when democracy in Israel is being challenged by the most extreme right-wing messianic and autocratic-ruling-coalition-government in the history of the state, we American Reform Jews who care about Israel have an opportunity to make our voices heard in protest. Voting in the World Zionist Congress (WZC) election is our opportunity to take a stand for democracy and pluralism in Israel.

I have written twice on this blog already about the singular importance of this election. I am doing so again because our voting for the Reform Slate is one way for Diaspora Jewry to participate in the future of democracy in Israel. Contrast our intent to that of our ultra-Orthodox opponents who have pledged to get 100,000 votes in order to defund Israeli Reform Judaism and turn back the clock on Israeli democracy, pluralism and peace. 

Israel’s leaders are watching closely to see who is going to emerge as the predominant voice of American Jewry – and it must be us!

If we Reform American Jews vote in large numbers in this election, we can directly impact the amount of resources and funding for our Israeli Reform synagogues, rabbis, values, and advocacy work on behalf of democracy and human rights in Israel and Diaspora communities. The Israeli Reform Movement does not receive the kind of funding that the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox movements receive from the government, and so our standing in the World Zionist Congress can make a very significant impact on the financial health of the Israeli Reform Movement.

I am running for a seat in the WZC, and I ask for your vote – BUT, your vote isn’t only for me. It’s for our values to help ensure religious pluralism, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and a pathway to peace that includes the return of all hostages.

To be eligible to vote in 39th World Zionist Congress you must:

  • Be Jewish (and not subscribe to another religion)
  • Be 18 years or older by June 30, 2025
  • Be a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident in the U.S.
  • Maintain your primary residence in the U.S.
  • Accept the Jerusalem Program (the Zionist movement platform)
  • Have not voted in the November 2022 Knesset election (and will not vote in any future Knesset election which may be held prior July 28, 2025)

To register to vote, pay the $5 administrative fee, go to https://www.vote4reform.org/

I’m running for Congress and I ask for your vote!

10 Monday Mar 2025

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No – not the United States Congress – Rather, the World Zionist Congress (WZC).

Known as the “Parliament of the Jewish People,” the WZC was founded by Theodor Herzl (the Father of Zionism) in Basel, Switzerland in 1897 and convenes every 5 years drawing representatives of the Jewish people from around the world and Israel to meet together in Jerusalem.

What does the WZC do? The WZC is responsible for dispensing $1 billion annually in each of the following 5 years. It sponsors programs and funds departments and positions that further the interests of the Jewish people worldwide and in Israel.

That makes this coming Congress a very big deal. It is consequently important for the Reform movement worldwide and Israel to send a large delegation of representatives. All each of us needs to do to win the most delegates that we can is to register to vote, pay the $5 administrative fee, and then – Vote Reform.

There are other progressive Zionist slates on the ballot that may appeal to some of you. I am a part of that progressive community as well, and I support their agenda – but, I’m voting Reform because we badly need funds to support our Israeli Reform movement, its rabbis, congregations, youth movement, pre-military educational programs, kibbutzim, nursery schools, elementary schools, and our Reform movement’s social justice arm through the Israel Religious Action Center. The Israeli Reform Movement (IMPJ) is discriminated against by the ruling right-wing government that includes Ultra-Orthodox Parties that prevent the IMPJ from receiving funds as does its own Ultra-Orthodox synagogues and Yeshivot. 

The Reform movement delegation will be part of a coalition in the WZC that includes the Conservative movement and those progressive Zionist slates because our values are very similar.

I wrote about in a recent blog what the WZC is and does and how each of us can easily vote (see Vote Reform – and read that blog here – rabbijohnrosove.blog/2025/03/04/i-ask-for-your-vote-in-the-world-zionist-congress-election-march-10-may-4/

I’m printing below an appeal written by my friend and colleague Rabbi Josh Weinberg, the Vice-President for Zionism and Israel in the Union for Reform Judaism and the President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), an organization I once served as national chair. In that position, I was able to see from the inside the three national institutions of the Jewish people (the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Jewish National Fund) and come to understand why a large Reform Zionist movement vote total in this election is so critical to the future well-being of our liberal Reform Jewish values in Israel and around the world.

Please read carefully what Josh wrote below, and be certain to vote for the Reform Slate (#3 on the ballot):

“On Monday March 10, voting opens to elect the American delegates to the 2025 World Zionist Congress. By choosing the Vote Reform slate, we will be voting for our liberal Jewish values in the WZC. Our representatives there will help set policies and direct the allocation of a $1 billion+ annual budget that affects Jews around the world. However, this election is far more than simply about funding programs.

Like all Zionists, we Reform Zionists fight for the right to our self-determination as a people in our nation-state, affirm our close connection to the land, people, and State of Israel, and our aspirations that Israel will be a liberal, free, pluralistic, open, and tolerant democratic society.

We Reform Zionists are fighting every day against those extremist Israelis and right-wing Zionists who hold a completely different vision of what the Jewish State ought to be, and who say that we Reform and liberal Jews are inauthentic and that we practice an inauthentic Judaism.

We’re fighting also against those who champion the Greater Land of Israel vision [1], and who fervently oppose any diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We Reform Zionists are fighting so that the best interests of women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and Israel’s marginalized minorities will be seen and heard and their human rights protected.

We’re fighting so that our Israeli Reform rabbis and leaders will be recognized by the State of Israel, and their conversions will continue to be accepted in the Jewish state.

We’re fighting to say to the world that Israel is our people’s historic Homeland, even if it is not our home.

Reform Zionism is about nurturing the soul of the State according to our liberal Jewish values and upholding the values of Israel’s founders who laid them out clearly in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. [2]

Since October 7th, Zionism is about bringing back those who were taken as hostages from their homes on that day and are still languishing in Gaza, and taking care of those who were displaced from their homes and need to rebuild their communities – and not lining the coffers of those who refuse to recognize the State of Israel and shirk military/national service (i.e. the Ultra-Orthodox).

Zionism is about reimagining what it means to be Jewish in the Jewish State and offering new, authentic, inclusive and creative expressions of Jewish life there as led by our Israeli Reform rabbis (close to 150 Israeli women and men ordained by our movement in Jerusalem) and leaders.

Our Reform Zionism is not only about exercising power to defend ourselves and to maintain our sovereignty as a people, but also about our exercising compassion and care for the vulnerable and powerless in Israel’s midst and under its sovereignty.

We Reform Zionists are faced today with a choice because so many in the larger Zionist tent are striving to delegitimize us as Reform Jews. We can choose to fight for our rightful place at the Zionist table or to surrender our place to the extremist powers that seek to weaken and marginalize us as Jews amongst the Jewish people.

So often, we’re told as Diaspora Jews that we shouldn’t have a voice in what happens in the State of Israel. But we know that everything that happens in Israel has a direct effect on us, our security and our identity as Jews. So, as Zionists, we need to have our voices heard in our people’s national institutions and around the world.

Starting on Monday March 10th and continuing through to May 4th, I ask that you to take one minute to cast your vote for the Vote Reform slate (#3 on the ballot). Your vote will help our Reform movement secure its rightful place at the Zionist table, assure our influence and fair funding of our movement’s social justice programs and congregations in Israel, and thereby enable us to contribute to shaping the soul of the Jewish State itself.

Let’s take back Zionism for our Reform Movement, for our future, and for the future of the Jewish people. Vote Reform from March 10 – May 4.

If you are Jewish and over the age of 18 years, you have the right and privilege to vote in the WZC election. Please do so and ask everyone who qualifies in your extended family and friendship circles, in your synagogues and Jewish community centers, to vote Reform. Every vote matters. We need you, so do not delay – Vote Reform!”

[1] “Greater Israel” generally refers to the notion of expanding Israel’s territory and sovereignty to what proponents of the ideology see as its historic Biblical land. In Israel today, the term is generally understood to mean extending Israel’s sovereignty to the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and, in some interpretations, the previously occupied territories in the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, and Gaza Strip.

[2] “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open to the immigration of Jews and for the Ingathering of the Exiles from all countries of their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” (Paragraph 13, Megilat Haatzmaut)