Sects and groups that embrace the Jewish religion and reject the Zionist project based on the idea of establishing a “national homeland for the Jews” on the land of Palestine. They also organize marches denouncing Israeli violations against the Palestinian people.
The most prominent Jewish groups defending Palestine can be limited to the following: Karaites, Samaritans, Neturei Karta, some followers of the Reform movement, and some followers of secular Judaism and Judaism without God.
Samaritan sect
The smallest religious sect in the world is headquartered at the top of Mount Gerizim or Mount Tur in the Palestinian city of Nablus. Its members believe that they are the true descendants of the people of Israel. They came to the Holy Land of Palestine after their exodus from Egypt and their 40-year wandering in the Sinai desert.
They have a close relationship with the people of Nablus. They also speak the Nabulsi dialect, and share similar friendships and customs in addition to great economic cooperation. They were also represented in the Palestinian Legislative Council during the era of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
They were granted Israeli identity without giving up their Palestinian identity or nationality, as they are a minority sect. However, they consider themselves an integral part of the Palestinian people, and distance themselves from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They say that they believe in peace, and see that without the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state, there will be no peace. There will be peace, stressing that the Palestinian people have the right to obtain their freedom like the rest of the peoples of the world.
Karaite group
It arose under Islamic civilization, specifically in the eighth century AH in Iraq at the hands of Anan bin Daoud, according to some sources.
The ideas of Anan bin David spread widely among the Jews, especially in Arab countries, and there was intense hostility between them and the Talmudists, as each group considered the other to be infidels.
A few thousand of them still live in Palestine, and they are distinguished from the rest of the Jews in their festivals, courts, and places where they slaughter animals. They also maintain their religious rituals based on the Torah.
The group believes in the Torah only, and believes that God was angry with them and displaced them forever, so they have no right to establish a state in Palestine, but some historians point out that a few thousand of them were brought into Palestine after the occupation, and they live there like hostages, and Israel uses them as a means of bargaining with the remaining Karaites. Outside Palestine, Zionism also forced them to remain silent out of concern for the lives of their sect members in Palestine.
Neturei Karata movement
An anti-Zionist Jewish religious movement, it was part of the “Agodat Yisrael” party, which was established at the beginning of the 20th century to confront Zionism, but after the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the party supported the immigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, but rejected the establishment of a Jewish state.
Part of the party split from it in 1935, as a result of its rapprochement with the Zionist movement, to later create the “Neturei Karta” movement (Guardian of the City in Aramaic), which was founded in Jerusalem by Rabbi Amram Blau, after its leaders obtained the decision to separate from the Zionist neighborhoods in Jerusalem by the British Mandate government, and Blau assumed leadership of the group from its establishment until his death in 1974.
The movement’s ideology relies mainly on rabbinic literature, which states that “the Jews were expelled from the Land of Israel because of their sins,” and on the Babylonian Talmud, which assumes that “any attempt to recover the Land of Israel by force is contrary to the divine will, and that the return of Israel cannot occur except with the coming of the Messiah.”
The movement does not recognize the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, and considers that the establishment of a state for the Jews cannot be achieved by robbing another people of their land, nor can it occur except with the permission of God, after the Jews return to implementing their law, which God punished them for violating, and dispersed them throughout the lands and among the peoples of the earth because of Wasting it.
Namoud
Naamud, which means “We will stand” in Hebrew, is a left-wing Jewish movement in Britain, initially founded in 2018, then officially launched in 2019.
It seeks to end British and European support for the Israeli occupation and the apartheid regime and confront the occupation’s violations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It also supports “the struggle for dignity, freedom and democracy for all Palestinians and Israelis.”
Through the demonstrations and campaigns organized by its members, it seeks to “separate Judaism from Zionism.”
Jewish Voice for Peace
An organization founded in 1996 by anti-Israel activists, including American writer and author Tony Kushner, and American philosopher Noam Chomsky.
It has classified its orientation as “left-wing Jewish”, and considers itself the Jewish wing of the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people, and is headquartered in the United States of America.
Its members are active in American universities, in addition to cyberspace, and work to support Palestinian civil society’s call for an economic boycott, divestment, and imposition of sanctions on Israel, similar to what the BDS movement does.
The “Jewish Voice for Peace” organization calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the release of prisoners, and the return of all refugees to their homes, criticizing the Zionist movement’s policies to erase the “history of the Jewish diaspora”, by launching multiple campaigns.
It was subjected to many attacks, as it was described as anti-Semitic, and that it had “crossed the borders.” Following the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, the organization’s voice rose, as some of its members protested inside the main rotunda of Congress in the American capital, to demand a ceasefire. The American police arrested about 300 demonstrators.
If not now
A movement of young American Jews working to end their community’s support for the occupation of Palestinian territories and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, founded during the 2014 Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, calling for “an end to American support for the Israeli apartheid regime and to demand equality, justice, and a prosperous future for all Palestinians and Israelis.”
Following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, the movement said that the stifling siege on Gaza was what provoked the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and made it storm the settlements, stressing However, it does not justify these attacks, describing the Israeli government as “the most extreme right-wing government in the history of Israel.”
Jews for Justice for Palestinians
A Jewish organization based in Britain, it was founded on February 17, 2002 by the British academic Irene Bruegel – the daughter of German Jewish refugees – with her partner Richard Cooper, and in cooperation with many of their Jewish friends, most of them female, after Bruegel conducted a tour in the West Bank.
The organization calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, supports peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, and stresses the importance of engaging with the broader Jewish community and promoting dialogue about the complexities of the conflict.
