A Nation of Justice Cannot Live on Injustice

I have written about Israel for years. I know Israel. I know its people. I know them as a nation of justice and compassion, a people who have endured wrongs from many nations and yet contributed immeasurably to humanity.

But today I must speak plainly: the expansion of settlements in the West Bank must stop.

Israel is small, surrounded by a vast Arab world with lands they themselves cannot fully use. Hatred of Jews in parts of that world is ideological, not rooted in humanity. I do not share that hatred. I love the Jewish people. I see them in my city of Essaouira during their holidays, and I feel joy. I admire them for what they have given the world—science, culture, spirituality. They are a beautiful people.

Yet occupation is not justice. It is not what the Torah teaches, nor what humanity demands. Israel’s strength has always been its moral compass, its ability to resist without losing its ethical bearings. Settlements threaten that compass.

And let us be clear: you do not have to close the British consulate in Jerusalem, you do not have to prove anything through gestures of nationalism. You simply have to stop this injustice. It has nothing to do with noble causes. Terror is terror, as the American ambassador once said, and theft is theft. These truths cannot be disguised by politics or ideology.

And then there are the killings. Why this injustice, so stark, so heartbreaking, that I could not turn a blind eye? Is this the purpose of life? Is this what God wants—to kill and rob people of their lives, their love, their warmth? What are they treated as—animals, stones? No. They are human beings, and their humanity must be honored.

This is not an attack, but a plea. Israel, the people I admire and love: stop what is happening in the West Bank. Remain faithful to your legacy of justice and compassion. The world needs you as an example of humanity, not as an oppressor.

Like this or not, people of Israel, you are doing wrong. You are oppressing. Revenge, I can understand. But those who suffer are innocent. Innocent of politics, innocent of ideology, innocent of the crimes of others. And yet they pay with their lives, their homes, their futures.