Major diaspora philanthropists call on Netanyahu to end war and aid Gaza

JTA – Nearly 2 000 prominent Jews around the United States and United Kingdom, and counting, have signed a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to end the war in Gaza.

Coming amid a flurry of open statements to similar effect, the letter is notable because it has garnered signatures from influential Jewish voices with an extensive track record of donations to Israel, some of whom have not previously weighed in publicly on the nearly two-year-old war.

Among the signatories are Charles Bronfman, the Jewish Canadian-American billionaire philanthropist; philanthropist Marcia Riklis; Dame Vivien Duffield, the chairperson of the Clore Foundation; and Trevor Chinn, the president of United Jewish Israel Appeal, a leading British Jewish charity that funds initiatives in Israel.

The letter is an initiative of a new liberal Zionist network called The London Initiative, founded earlier this year to “strengthen Israeli democracy; advance a fairer shared future for all citizens of Israel; revive hope in the prospects of achieving secure peace; and improve relations between all Israelis and world Jewry”.

The initiative is helmed by Mick Davis, a former chief executive of the British Conservative Party, and Mike Prashker, the founder of Merchavim: The Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship, in an effort to “to reverse the direction” of Israel, Prashker, who lives in Israel, told eJewish Philanthropy at the time of the launch.

The letter, titled “A protest letter to PM Netanyahu from world Jewry”, outlines four requests for Netanyahu: to “permanently restore and enable the provision of food and humanitarian aid to the Gazan population; end the war; enforce the law in the West Bank; and commit that neither you nor any member of your government will again advocate policies of starvation or expulsion as weapons of war.”

The support for the letter underscores growing criticism of the Israeli government from Jewish communities in recent weeks amid allegations of widespread starvation in Gaza and reported plans by Netanyahu to further occupy the Palestinian enclave.

It focuses primarily on the harm to Israel and Jews of Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war and handling of widening violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“We are under no illusions about the actions and intentions of Hamas, other extremist forces and the states that support them, and we acknowledge the painful dilemmas any Israeli government would face in addressing these threats,” the letter reads. “Yet we also cannot escape the fact that the policies and rhetoric of the government you lead are doing lasting damage to Israel, its standing in the world, and the prospects of secure peace for all Israelis and Palestinians.”

It continues: “This has severe consequences for Israel but also for the well-being, security, and unity of Jewish communities around the world.”

Some of the letter’s signatories also signed onto a letter in early 2023 urging a halt to Netanyahu’s efforts to overhaul Israel’s judicial system, which they said would erode democracy in a state they had invested billions of dollars to strengthen.

The London Initiative declined to comment about the new letter, and the list of signatories has not yet been made public. A source close to the effort confirmed the number of signatories as of Tuesday, 5 August, as well as the identities of the prominent signers, whose names have been included in urgent appeals on social media. The appeals said organisers have set a deadline of Wednesday night to sign on.

Among those to endorse the letter on social media was Rabbi Marc Israel of Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland. He wrote on Facebook that he saw it as an opportunity to weigh in constructively at a time when, he said, it feels like much of the criticism of Israel’s leadership comes with an attack on the Jewish state too.

“I want to encourage those who have been looking to express concerns about certain Israeli government actions and statements without adding fuel to the fire of Israel’s enemies and the antisemitic, anti-Zionist propaganda to consider signing-on,” the rabbi wrote.