10 | NOVEMBER 12 • 2020 

VIEWS

young voices on Israel

I

n June, a group of young 
women from Huntington 
Woods organized a commu-
nity march as a part of the glob-
al Black Lives Matter uprising. 
The core organizing team 
had several Jewish women — 
including me, Rebecca Driker-
Ohren — as well as some 
Palestinian friends from the 
neighborhood. 
Together we led hundreds 
of people from our city in a 
powerful demonstration, loudly 
condemning police brutality, 
white supremacy and right-
wing nationalism. 
Chanting “Black lives matter” 
alongside the folks who raised 
us made us feel proud of our 
little suburb. It was inspiring 
to see our friends and families 
standing up for justice, free-
dom, and equality. But, honest-
ly, we haven’
t always felt proud 
of the political stances that 
our communities have taken, 
specifically the ways in which 
the local Jewish establishment 
has supported endless military 
occupation in Israel/Palestine. 
We were left wondering 
whether renewed Jewish enthu-
siasm for Black civil rights 
would extend to the rights of 
Palestinians. 

ANNEXATION 
Six weeks later, IfNotNow 
assembled anti-occupation 
Detroit Jews for a rally out-
side the Jewish Federation of 
Metropolitan Detroit build-
ing in Bloomfield Township. 
Prompted by the Trump-
Netanyahu plan to formalize 
Israeli annexation of more 
Palestinian lands on the occu-
pied West Bank, we demanded 

that Metro Detroit Jewish insti-
tutions refuse to fund this fla-
grant violation of human rights 
and international law. 
Unfortunately, our local 
Jewish leaders have failed to 
respond to calls to defund de 
facto Israeli annexation, a proj-
ect which has continued despite 
the suspension of the formal 
legal process following the 
Abraham Accords. 
This official silence in the 
face of oppression contradicts 

the American Jewish commu-
nity’
s values. The recent actions 
that Jewish people have taken in 
defense of Black lives embody 
these values. As surveys of 
American Jews repeatedly have 
shown, we are overwhelmingly 
liberal and progressive. So why 
won’
t the Federation promote 
freedom, dignity, and equality 
for all Israelis and Palestinians? 
Jewish support for BLM 
expresses a widely-held com-
munal belief that our Judaism 
compels us to stand with those 
facing the brunt of state vio-
lence. But it remains an open 
question as to whether the 
elites at the helm of our Jewish 
institutions will apply the Jewish 

Rebecca Driker-Ohren and Zak Witus 
Zac Schildcrout 
Palestinian Lives Matter 
 An Unfortunate Comparison 

O

f course Palestinian 
lives matter — that is 
not in dispute. 
What one can dipute is 
the conflation of one-sided 
denunciation of Israel with 
the movement for racial jus-
tice in the United States. The 
authors of the adjacent article 
seem to believe that the Metro 
Detroit Jewish community’
s 
alleged reluctance to sufficient-
ly admonish Israel renders its 
leaders moral hypocrites. 

To them, the fight for “uni-
versal equality and freedom” 
seems to necessitate myopic, 
context-free censure of Israel. 
They open their arguments 
by touting the IfNotNow-led 
protest outside JFMD’
s head-
quarters, as if the institution 
is obligated to endorse their 
positions regarding territorial 
disputes. They describe such 
“annexation” as a “flagrant vio-
lation” of international law. 
But there are persuasive legal 
arguments in favor of an Israeli 
extension of sovereignty within 
certain areas of the territory. 
As international law scholar 
Eugene Kontorovich notes, the 
International Court of Justice-

affirmed principal of uti possi-
detis juris (“you possess under 
law”) posits that “When new 
countries emerge from old ones 
or from colonial empires, the 
last official international bor-
ders constitute the new bound-
ary lines.
” After the British 
relinquished control of the land 
between the Jordan River and 
the Mediterranean Sea, Israel 
was the state that declared inde-
pendence within that geograph-
ical area without specifying its 
borders. 
Therefore, per Kontorovich’
s 
reasoning, Israel has substantive 
territorial claims in the West 
Bank. There’
s plenty of pre-
cedence for this: Jordan’
s and 
Iraq’
s internationally recognized 
borders, for example, are based 
on colonial-era Mandatory 
administrative divisions. 
The territory now known 
as the West Bank has never 
been wholly controlled by a 
Palestinian Arab political entity. 
The limited Palestinian self-gov-
ernance within certain areas of 
the West Bank established after 
the 1990s Oslo peace process 
marked the first such instance 
in history, and the areas eyed 
by the Israeli government for 
an extension of sovereignty lie 
within “
Area C”
, which Israel 
controls, in accordance with the 
Oslo Accords. That means Israel 
would not be illegally “annex-
ing” the territory of a foreign 
sovereign country. 

PAINTING ISRAEL AS AN 
APARTHEID STATE 
The majority of the West Bank’
s 
Palestinian Arabs live under 
the purview of the Palestinian 
Authority, and the Gaza Strip 

continued on page 12
continued on page 12

ALEXANDER CLEGG/JEWISH NEWS

In July, about two dozen 

protesters gathered in 

Bloomfield Township in 

response to the impend-

ing Israeli annexation of 

the West Bank.

