Accountability for All the Murderers

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dear companions-in-struggle,

The Israeli public, hundreds of thousands strong, went into the streets yesterday to demand accountability for Prime Minister Netanyahu — who along with Hamas bears responsibility for the murders of six hostages. They were denouncing the Netanyahu government for having refused to agree to a cease-fire that would have returned all the remaining hostages alive. Histadrut — the largest labor-union federation — carried out a general strike; the street action was even far broader than Histadrut’s membership.

I condemn the murders of the six hostages by their low-level Hamas captors. AND — I want to join the Israeli public in adding the Mr. Netanyahu’s name as one actual, not metaphorical murderer. His crimes culminated in the assassination of an official of the political, NOT the military branch of Hamas — the official who had tried hard to negotiate the agreement that would have saved these and other hostages’ lives.

But Netanyahu’s crimes did not start or stop there. He has been and is desperate to stay in office to prevent his own pending trial for corruption. He has been willing to prolong the war to protect himself and prevent an investigation into his own complicity in these deaths. His guilt is embodied in his deals with Hamas, the racist contempt he and his accomplices in the ultra-right-wing government hold for Palestinians as being unable to plan and carry out the Oct 7 massacres of Israelis, his and his accomplices’ contempt for women, including the women “spotters” who warned about evidence Oct 7 was on the way — all this was not simple incompetence but brazen selfishness. And it has caused at least 40,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza, mostly noncombatant children and women.

The killing of the six murdered hostages is deeply worthy of our grief and fury. So are the deaths of many many of those 40,000 Gazans whose families are weeping and suffering as are the parents, siblings, spouses, lovers, friends of the Israeli dead. Both communities of those who have been forcibly silenced speak to us from their graves. Netanyahu and his accomplices did not care, do not care. They should be held accountable.

The first step toward that accountability must be their elimination from the government of what we can hope can become a state of all its citizens, with democratic Jewish values. Diaspora Jews of all persuasions should give help to that end. Within the huge mass movement to get rid of the ‘yahu regime are groups like Standing Together (https://www.standing-together.org/en), Combatants for Peace (https://www.afcfp.org/), and others that affirm Palestinian rights as well as Jewish rights. The New Israel Fund (https://www.nif.org/) offers a tax-deductible way of sending money that can be specified for such groups.

We who pray most often in English and/ or Hebrew join in this prayer aimed at and for the Breath that all life breathes:

You Who make harmony in the ultimate reaches of the universe, teach us to make harmony within our selves, among ourselves, among all the people Yisrael (Godwrestlers), among all the people of Ishmael (God hears), and among all who dwell on Earth.

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu yaaseh/ hi taaseh shalom alenu, v’al kol Yisrael, v’al kol Yishmael, v’al kol yoshvei tevel.

— Arthur

Photo: Protests in Israel, September 1, 2024. By Nizzan Cohen,. Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.