{"id":371686,"date":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/371686\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","slug":"jewish-diaspora-leaders-urge-israeli-president-to-stop-west-bank-settler-violence-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/371686\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish diaspora leaders urge Israeli president to stop West Bank settler violence | Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind<\/a> is among leading members of the Jewish diaspora urging the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, to intervene to stop \u201cattacks by Jewish extremists\u201d on Palestinians in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

An open letter to Herzog facilitated by the London Initiative \u2013 a liberal Zionist network of 360 people, including eminent Jewish, Israeli and Israeli Palestinian figures \u2013 has attracted more than 3,000 signatories, including diplomats, philanthropists, rabbis and academics from Australia, Canada, across Europe, South Africa the UK and US. It follows a spate of <\/a>killings and arson attacks by settlers <\/a>on Palestinian civilians in March.<\/p>\n

The letter said: \u201cIsrael\u2019s security forces are clearly better able to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank<\/a>, living under different levels of Israeli military and civil control, from Jewish terror. That they do not act decisively suggests a lack of directives from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter, timed for the Jewish festival of Passover, added: \u201cMr President, the terror, death and destruction inflicted by Jewish-Israeli extremists against innocent Palestinians across the West Bank is an abomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not only morally shameful but a strategic threat to the future of Israel. It damages world Jewry and the relationship of future generations with Israel. Sadly, based on events and on the statements of the most extreme coalition partners it can be concluded that the violence now engulfing the West Bank is not only condoned by the government but is in fact policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

UK signatories to the letter include Matthew Gould, the former UK Ambassador to Israel; Lord Michael Levy, former Middle East envoy and a close ally of former prime minister Tony Blair; Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major; the Tory peer and Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein; the philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield; and Sir Mick Davis, a former Conservative party treasurer who co-founded the London Initiative.<\/p>\n

Prominent signatories outside the UK include the billionaire Canadian philanthropist Charles Bronfman; the Israeli diplomat Ilan Sztulman Starosta; Michael M Adler, a former US ambassador to Belgium; and the former Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen.<\/p>\n

Herzog\u2019s office posted his response on X. Referring to what he called the \u201crecent surge of violence by extremist elements in Judea and Samaria\u201d and \u201cgrave offences against innocent people\u201d, he added: \u201cI share your conviction that these acts of violence stand in stark contradiction to the values upon which Israel was founded and to the enduring ethical tradition of the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herzog said he had demanded the authorities \u201cemploy all available means to bring those responsible to justice and put an immediate end to this unacceptable phenomenon\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that \u201cviolence and vigilantism\u201d were not only \u201cshameful crimes against innocents\u201d but that these actions interfered \u201cwith the unceasing efforts \u2026 to contend with clear and present Palestinian terror threats\u201d.<\/p>\n

He went on to say that \u201cat a time when Israel is in the throes of a bitter war against enemies that seek its destruction, and the Jewish people is contending with a fierce and rising tide of antisemitism around the world, this kind of violence against innocents further plays directly into the hands of Israel\u2019s detractors, fuelling hatred that weakens us as a nation and jeopardises Jews everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter follows one sent to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in August 2025. Facilitated by the London Initiative and signed by 6,300 Jews worldwide, it called on him to \u201cpermanently restore the provision of food and humanitarian aid to the Gazan population\u201d and end the war in Gaza, \u201cenforce the law in the West Bank\u201d. It also said members of his government had \u201cused language of racism, hatred and incitement without censure\u201d, urging him to commit that \u201cneither you nor any member of your government will again advocate policies of starvation or expulsion as weapons of war\u201d.<\/p>\n

The latest letter says that since then the situation regarding \u201cattacks by settlers and their supporters\u201d has \u201conly deteriorated, reaching a new nadir during the war with Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind is among leading members of the Jewish diaspora urging the Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-371686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}