It’s Pro-Israel to be Pro-Palestine

I wrote last week that to be pro-Israel you don’t need to be “anti” anything – not anti-human rights, not anti-international law and certainly not anti-Palestinian.

Today, I’ll go a step further: Being pro-Palestine is pro-Israel.

The case for an independent Palestinian state next to Israel is, of course, rooted in the Palestinian people’s historic, legal and moral right to self-determination – a right that merits a state to deliver them freedom, hope, safety and more.

For those who support the Jewish people’s self-determination, that really ought to be enough to support Palestinian self-determination. But there’s a pro-Israel case as well.

It starts with reckoning with the reality that there are two peoples who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in equal numbers, and both view it as their homeland. Just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people, so too is Palestine the homeland of the Palestinian people.

If Israel is to realize its founding promise of being a secure, just and democratic homeland for the Jewish people, Palestinians need to achieve self-determination too. If Israel keeps control of all the land, it will either not be democratic, or it will not be Jewish.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way.

Take Trump’s ambassador pick Mike Huckabee. He has said the entirety of Israel-Palestine was gifted to Jews by God. To make reality fit his “Christian Zionist” narrative, he simply denies Palestinian history: “There’s really no such thing as Palestinians,” he’s said.

I know this mythology well, as I grew up with a father who would say repeatedly that Israel-Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” I learned the truth about the Palestinian experience while living in Israel.

I see now that the right-wing effort to erase Palestinians and their history is not only an affront to our Jewish values and everything a Jewish state should stand for, but it’s a threat to Israel’s own future, to the US-Israel relationship and to our children’s relationship with Israel.

We created J Street to have the debate in the US over what it means to be pro-Israel. To show that policymakers and elected officials not only can be pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel, but that they should be.

As we enter 2025 – we’re ready for that debate. As we battle for the future and the soul of both Israel and the United States, having as many folks in our community with us is more important than ever.

Efforts to erase Palestinian history echo the mythology espoused by some anti-Israel activists who argue falsely that the Jewish people have no connection to Israel and that their return to Israel was Europe’s way of solving antisemitism in Europe and Russia.

Extreme myths, disconnected from reality, do nothing to help the two peoples legitimately living on the land today to resolve their differences, stop killing each other or build a better future.

Don’t just ask the peaceniks, ask the countless former IDF and Mossad chiefs who continue to argue that supporting a peaceful Palestinian state – and ensuring it is stable, secure and prosperous – is in Israel’s long-term security interests too.

Failing to outline a realistic, achievable path toward Palestinian independence undermines moderate and pro-peace Palestinians while strengthening advocates of violent resistance.

The good news? Despite decades of violence, terror and propaganda, polls show that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans still agree: The best path to peace ends with a Palestinian state side by side with Israel.

Mainstream Jewish Americans understand that the only way for Israel to be both Jewish and democratic is for there to be a second state that the Palestinian people can call home. Only then can the State of Israel be secure, Jewish and democratic while guaranteeing – as it must – full, equal rights to the remaining non-Jewish minority.

That’s the vision we’re fighting for together, as we fight for the freedom, safety and self-determination of Palestinians too.

Thank you, sincerely, to our entire movement for their support in this incredibly challenging year.