Richard Kuper on Challenging Stereotypes and Supporting Palestinian Justice
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August 28, 2024
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As the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East continues to capture global attention, it is crucial to recognise the diversity of perspectives within the Jewish community regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. To shed light on this complexity, I recently spoke with Richard Kuper, a prominent figure in the movement for Palestinian justice.
Kuper, a founding member and longtime chair of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, is also the web editor for Jewish Voice for Labour, a university lecturer, published writer, and founder of Pluto Press. His extensive background in advocacy and activism provides a nuanced perspective on the situation. I reached out to Jews for Justice for Palestinians to arrange this conversation, seeking to explore the lesser-known voices that challenge the prevailing narratives often associated with Jewish and Israeli support for Netanyahu’s government.
Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about Jews for Justice for Palestinians? What inspired you to help found the group, and what are its main goals?
I was born in South Africa into a Jewish community; roughly a third of the world that I knew, i.e., the white world, was Jewish in Johannesburg, at my school, primary and secondary school. I was very much part of that world. My grandfather was president of the Federation of Synagogues in South Africa, but my father was an atheist, and I was brought up in a secular household but observing Jewish traditions at my grandfather’s—Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Pesach and all of that. I had an Orthodox bar mitzvah, but I never really believed, and my Jewishness was part of an ethnicity, if you like, rather than part of the Jewish religion. In that, I shared it with large numbers of people in South Africa. When I came to England at the age of 20, I found much the same here. I moved in a world in which being Jewish was something you were, but not something you particularly talked about or noticed most of the time. When it did come to the fore, it was obviously over the question of Israel. In South Africa, I was a Zionist. I went to Israel on a Zionist youth training program for a couple of months. I believed in Israel; it just felt a natural solution to the discomfort of apartheid, if you like, to think that there was somewhere else in the world where I would be welcome and would be living in an egalitarian society. My visit to Israel disabused me slightly. I still came away a Zionist but felt uncomfortable. Too much of what I heard and saw in Israel was reminiscent of the way in which blacks were talked about in South Africa. There was a kind of cultural racism and assumption of superiority, which I couldn’t articulate at the time, but which left me with some discomfort. It came to a head in 1967 with the war, and I had to try and make sense of it. In doing so, I kind of felt that it was just obvious that Palestinians were having a pretty rough time of it, and that the similarities between the oppression they were suffering and the oppression I had grown up with in South Africa were now too much to ignore. We formed Jews for Justice for Palestinians in 2002. Originally it was simply a statement of opposition to what Israel was doing, saying “it’s not in our name,” a mixture of secular and religious Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, just saying enough, you know, the occupation. In effect, this is not what Israel ought to be about, and we just felt we had to stand up and be counted. It was literally that we had to say Jews are a diverse range of communities; there is no single Jewish community. The Board of Deputies of British Jews does not speak for me, does not speak for us.
Turning now to the recent escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine, can you give us some historical context? For many in the West, this conflict only seemed to begin on October 7th. Why has it escalated so dramatically now?
Well, you’re absolutely right—it didn’t start on October the 7th. This is a conflict that’s been going on for a hundred years and more ever since the development of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century and the decision that Israel should be a homeland for the Jews. In and of itself, I see nothing wrong with that; there is a deep Jewish tradition and connectedness to Israel, but none of that gives a mandate. God was not a property agent dealing our territory to various peoples around the world, and I think it’s obscene the way in which people use biblical claims as a justification for their right to live in Palestine. The Zionist movement, when it went to Palestine, became fanatical in excluding Palestinian Arabs from its society, from working for its enterprises and so on, wanting a closed-off Jewish world, and not unnaturally it excited hostility immediately from the people who lived in the territory. Zionism was a reaction to anti-Semitism, and in that sense a movement for the liberation of Jews, but when it went to Palestine, it became something different. It became experienced by the people on the ground, the Palestinians, as imperialism and colonialism, as experienced anywhere else in the world as an oppressive outside factor coming in, taking away their land, which is particularly what caused immediate conflict in Palestine. They were being expropriated, and of course, they rebelled against it. After the Second World War, again many Jews in displaced people’s camps throughout Europe had nowhere to go because no one wanted to take them in, and Israel became a refuge for them. So from that point of view, you can understand the connection to Israel or Palestine as a place of safety. The dire effect of that, however, on the people who were already there was to be played out, particularly in the war of 1947 to ’48, where some ¾ of a million Palestinians were forced to flee or fled for safety, intending to come back. People always flee from war zones. The Israeli state was declared in May 1948. Before that, almost half the Palestinians had fled in response to attacks on their villages. The massacre of Deir Yassin occurred before the declaration of the state of independence, and there was a significant factor in forcing Palestinians to leave, persuading them to leave. Many of them left for other places within Palestine and found themselves within the new state of Israel, and for the first 20 years of Israel’s existence, they were under military rule. So Israel was never an egalitarian society.
There seems to be a common perception—and I’ve seen it at a couple of protests I’ve been at up here in the Northwest—mainly surprise that there has been a Jewish presence at some of the demonstrations. This perception seems to be that all Jewish people or Israeli people automatically support Netanyahu’s policies. How accurate is this, and what should the public understand about the diversity of opinion within the Jewish communities?
People are surprised to see us; it’s true. Many of them probably haven’t seen a Jewish person before, let alone a Jewish activist taking the side of Palestinians. And we always say the Jewish community is not unified. This perception that there is one view and all Jews support the same view—it’s a stereotype. It’s the basis of anti-Semitism, actually, you know, stereotyping and homogenising whole communities and whole populations. So we have always strived, from its inception, Jews for Justice for Palestinians found ourselves treated like pariahs by the official bodies of the Jewish community. We weren’t allowed to attend events like Jewish Book Week if we were seen distributing leaflets of protest about Palestine outside, and so Jews for Justice for Palestinians rapidly became an organisation pushing for pluralism within the Jewish community—the right to dissent internally. The organised bodies of the Jewish community speak mainly for those who are organised in synagogues and other organisations which affiliate, but they absolutely do not speak for all Jews.
On the topic of Israeli violence seeming the only, almost inherent, response and solution that they see, do you believe a peaceful or two-state solution is still possible, given such things as recent statements and actions from Israeli leaders, like Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who referred to Palestinians as ‘human animals’ and called for denying them basic necessities? Such comments and actions don’t just go away overnight. Is peace still a possibility after everything that has occurred since October 7th?
Will the world accept an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the territory between the river and the sea? I don’t believe it, and I sincerely hope not. But that is what the diehards in the Israeli government are now driving for, or Palestinians who will live in not even Bantustans within the greater Israel that these Mashuganas on the right-wing in Israel envisage establishing—an ethnonationalist state, destroy the Dome of the Rock, rebuild the Third Temple, introduce ritual slaughter back as we had it 2,000 years ago, you know, it’s back to the future with a vengeance. And I hope that the world will not accept it. In the end, Israel could not be doing what it is doing without America’s support. Biden arms Israel; it’s as simple as that. And the idea that opposing what Israel is doing in Gaza is anti-Semitic—I mean, there have been people who say calling for a ceasefire is anti-Semitic. And then, by a tortured logic, it kind of assumes there’ll be a ceasefire. Iran will arm Hamas; they’ll use this opportunity, but then they’ll attack Israel again. The way to stop any future attacks on Israel is to come up with some genuine solutions which offer Palestinians a way to Palestinian statehood, to recognition as a people, not as you mentioned, subhumans, animals. I mean, the parallels with other societies which have eliminated people because they were not really people, it’s absolutely terrifying. I mean, it’s not just what’s happening there; Western liberal values are at stake. Do we really believe in any of these, talked about so avidly as the real foundation of our civilisation?
I’ve read in such things as the Haaretz newspaper and other liberal papers recently, to try and get a wider view of the situation, that there’s a significant divide within Israel between the government and the general populace. How does this divide play out, especially with what I was reading about the recent court ruling on drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF?
It’s been said for many decades that Israel as a society is deeply fragmented and on the verge of civil war, and the only thing that holds it together is the common enemy. It needs the Palestinians to stop its own society from falling apart. It needs Lebanon and Hezbollah; it needs Iran, because without them, the divides within Israeli society are too deep to contain within the institutions they have.
Richard, as we wrap up, how can people get involved with groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and what role do you see these groups playing in resolving the ongoing conflict?
I would say to any Jew who is in any doubt, contact one of the Jewish organisations: Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewish Voice for Labour, Na’amod, Young Progressive Jews, Jews Against the Occupation, Jews Against Genocide, Black Jewish Alliance. There are all these groups growing up. We need a strong Jewish voice to speak out and say Jews do not speak with one name. I said it before and I’ll say again: I think the most important antidote to the spread of anti-Semitism is to show that Jews are diverse, that not all Jews think the same, that that stereotyping, which is encouraged by the communal institutions of the Jewish community who talk about “we stand behind Israel,” our Chief Rabbi—he’s not mine—the Chief Rabbi Mirvis spoke almost immediately after October the 7th about our Gallant soldiers in Gaza. If that isn’t inviting an accusation of dual loyalty and inviting an anti-Semitic response, I do not know what is. I think the loose talk from leaders of the Jewish community is dangerous to Jews in Britain, I’ll put it like that. We have to have a whole range of diverse responses and encourage people to do what they feel comfortable with, but don’t feel comfortable doing nothing. There was a very important statement made soon after October the 7th, saying if you ever wondered what you would do if you were living under slavery or living in conditions of civil war or you were living when there was a genocide, you’re doing it now. We are witnessing, on our televisions, in our living rooms, on our phones, we are witnessing a genocide. If you don’t want to call it a genocide, we’re witnessing a slaughter of unparalleled dimensions. Don’t think it doesn’t affect you. You must do something. Through your individual actions, you build communal strength and solidarity, and that is our weapon: solidarity. And we stand, as I said before, always with the oppressed, never with the oppressors. Thanks very much.
I encourage those seeking a deeper understanding to visit Jews for Justice for Palestinians for valuable insights and engagement.
As the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East continues to capture global attention, it is crucial to recognise the diversity of perspectives within the Jewish community regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. To shed light on this complexity, I recently spoke with Richard Kuper, a prominent figure in the movement for Palestinian justice.
Kuper, a founding member and longtime chair of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, is also the web editor for Jewish Voice for Labour, a university lecturer, published writer, and founder of Pluto Press. His extensive background in advocacy and activism provides a nuanced perspective on the situation. I reached out to Jews for Justice for Palestinians to arrange this conversation, seeking to explore the lesser-known voices that challenge the prevailing narratives often associated with Jewish and Israeli support for Netanyahu’s government.
Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about Jews for Justice for Palestinians? What inspired you to help found the group, and what are its main goals?
I was born in South Africa into a Jewish community; roughly a third of the world that I knew, i.e., the white world, was Jewish in Johannesburg, at my school, primary and secondary school. I was very much part of that world. My grandfather was president of the Federation of Synagogues in South Africa, but my father was an atheist, and I was brought up in a secular household but observing Jewish traditions at my grandfather’s—Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Pesach and all of that. I had an Orthodox bar mitzvah, but I never really believed, and my Jewishness was part of an ethnicity, if you like, rather than part of the Jewish religion. In that, I shared it with large numbers of people in South Africa. When I came to England at the age of 20, I found much the same here. I moved in a world in which being Jewish was something you were, but not something you particularly talked about or noticed most of the time. When it did come to the fore, it was obviously over the question of Israel. In South Africa, I was a Zionist. I went to Israel on a Zionist youth training program for a couple of months. I believed in Israel; it just felt a natural solution to the discomfort of apartheid, if you like, to think that there was somewhere else in the world where I would be welcome and would be living in an egalitarian society. My visit to Israel disabused me slightly. I still came away a Zionist but felt uncomfortable. Too much of what I heard and saw in Israel was reminiscent of the way in which blacks were talked about in South Africa. There was a kind of cultural racism and assumption of superiority, which I couldn’t articulate at the time, but which left me with some discomfort. It came to a head in 1967 with the war, and I had to try and make sense of it. In doing so, I kind of felt that it was just obvious that Palestinians were having a pretty rough time of it, and that the similarities between the oppression they were suffering and the oppression I had grown up with in South Africa were now too much to ignore. We formed Jews for Justice for Palestinians in 2002. Originally it was simply a statement of opposition to what Israel was doing, saying “it’s not in our name,” a mixture of secular and religious Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, just saying enough, you know, the occupation. In effect, this is not what Israel ought to be about, and we just felt we had to stand up and be counted. It was literally that we had to say Jews are a diverse range of communities; there is no single Jewish community. The Board of Deputies of British Jews does not speak for me, does not speak for us.
Turning now to the recent escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine, can you give us some historical context? For many in the West, this conflict only seemed to begin on October 7th. Why has it escalated so dramatically now?
Well, you’re absolutely right—it didn’t start on October the 7th. This is a conflict that’s been going on for a hundred years and more ever since the development of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century and the decision that Israel should be a homeland for the Jews. In and of itself, I see nothing wrong with that; there is a deep Jewish tradition and connectedness to Israel, but none of that gives a mandate. God was not a property agent dealing our territory to various peoples around the world, and I think it’s obscene the way in which people use biblical claims as a justification for their right to live in Palestine. The Zionist movement, when it went to Palestine, became fanatical in excluding Palestinian Arabs from its society, from working for its enterprises and so on, wanting a closed-off Jewish world, and not unnaturally it excited hostility immediately from the people who lived in the territory. Zionism was a reaction to anti-Semitism, and in that sense a movement for the liberation of Jews, but when it went to Palestine, it became something different. It became experienced by the people on the ground, the Palestinians, as imperialism and colonialism, as experienced anywhere else in the world as an oppressive outside factor coming in, taking away their land, which is particularly what caused immediate conflict in Palestine. They were being expropriated, and of course, they rebelled against it. After the Second World War, again many Jews in displaced people’s camps throughout Europe had nowhere to go because no one wanted to take them in, and Israel became a refuge for them. So from that point of view, you can understand the connection to Israel or Palestine as a place of safety. The dire effect of that, however, on the people who were already there was to be played out, particularly in the war of 1947 to ’48, where some ¾ of a million Palestinians were forced to flee or fled for safety, intending to come back. People always flee from war zones. The Israeli state was declared in May 1948. Before that, almost half the Palestinians had fled in response to attacks on their villages. The massacre of Deir Yassin occurred before the declaration of the state of independence, and there was a significant factor in forcing Palestinians to leave, persuading them to leave. Many of them left for other places within Palestine and found themselves within the new state of Israel, and for the first 20 years of Israel’s existence, they were under military rule. So Israel was never an egalitarian society.
There seems to be a common perception—and I’ve seen it at a couple of protests I’ve been at up here in the Northwest—mainly surprise that there has been a Jewish presence at some of the demonstrations. This perception seems to be that all Jewish people or Israeli people automatically support Netanyahu’s policies. How accurate is this, and what should the public understand about the diversity of opinion within the Jewish communities?
People are surprised to see us; it’s true. Many of them probably haven’t seen a Jewish person before, let alone a Jewish activist taking the side of Palestinians. And we always say the Jewish community is not unified. This perception that there is one view and all Jews support the same view—it’s a stereotype. It’s the basis of anti-Semitism, actually, you know, stereotyping and homogenising whole communities and whole populations. So we have always strived, from its inception, Jews for Justice for Palestinians found ourselves treated like pariahs by the official bodies of the Jewish community. We weren’t allowed to attend events like Jewish Book Week if we were seen distributing leaflets of protest about Palestine outside, and so Jews for Justice for Palestinians rapidly became an organisation pushing for pluralism within the Jewish community—the right to dissent internally. The organised bodies of the Jewish community speak mainly for those who are organised in synagogues and other organisations which affiliate, but they absolutely do not speak for all Jews.
On the topic of Israeli violence seeming the only, almost inherent, response and solution that they see, do you believe a peaceful or two-state solution is still possible, given such things as recent statements and actions from Israeli leaders, like Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who referred to Palestinians as ‘human animals’ and called for denying them basic necessities? Such comments and actions don’t just go away overnight. Is peace still a possibility after everything that has occurred since October 7th?
Will the world accept an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the territory between the river and the sea? I don’t believe it, and I sincerely hope not. But that is what the diehards in the Israeli government are now driving for, or Palestinians who will live in not even Bantustans within the greater Israel that these Mashuganas on the right-wing in Israel envisage establishing—an ethnonationalist state, destroy the Dome of the Rock, rebuild the Third Temple, introduce ritual slaughter back as we had it 2,000 years ago, you know, it’s back to the future with a vengeance. And I hope that the world will not accept it. In the end, Israel could not be doing what it is doing without America’s support. Biden arms Israel; it’s as simple as that. And the idea that opposing what Israel is doing in Gaza is anti-Semitic—I mean, there have been people who say calling for a ceasefire is anti-Semitic. And then, by a tortured logic, it kind of assumes there’ll be a ceasefire. Iran will arm Hamas; they’ll use this opportunity, but then they’ll attack Israel again. The way to stop any future attacks on Israel is to come up with some genuine solutions which offer Palestinians a way to Palestinian statehood, to recognition as a people, not as you mentioned, subhumans, animals. I mean, the parallels with other societies which have eliminated people because they were not really people, it’s absolutely terrifying. I mean, it’s not just what’s happening there; Western liberal values are at stake. Do we really believe in any of these, talked about so avidly as the real foundation of our civilisation?
I’ve read in such things as the Haaretz newspaper and other liberal papers recently, to try and get a wider view of the situation, that there’s a significant divide within Israel between the government and the general populace. How does this divide play out, especially with what I was reading about the recent court ruling on drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF?
It’s been said for many decades that Israel as a society is deeply fragmented and on the verge of civil war, and the only thing that holds it together is the common enemy. It needs the Palestinians to stop its own society from falling apart. It needs Lebanon and Hezbollah; it needs Iran, because without them, the divides within Israeli society are too deep to contain within the institutions they have.
Richard, as we wrap up, how can people get involved with groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and what role do you see these groups playing in resolving the ongoing conflict?
I would say to any Jew who is in any doubt, contact one of the Jewish organisations: Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewish Voice for Labour, Na’amod, Young Progressive Jews, Jews Against the Occupation, Jews Against Genocide, Black Jewish Alliance. There are all these groups growing up. We need a strong Jewish voice to speak out and say Jews do not speak with one name. I said it before and I’ll say again: I think the most important antidote to the spread of anti-Semitism is to show that Jews are diverse, that not all Jews think the same, that that stereotyping, which is encouraged by the communal institutions of the Jewish community who talk about “we stand behind Israel,” our Chief Rabbi—he’s not mine—the Chief Rabbi Mirvis spoke almost immediately after October the 7th about our Gallant soldiers in Gaza. If that isn’t inviting an accusation of dual loyalty and inviting an anti-Semitic response, I do not know what is. I think the loose talk from leaders of the Jewish community is dangerous to Jews in Britain, I’ll put it like that. We have to have a whole range of diverse responses and encourage people to do what they feel comfortable with, but don’t feel comfortable doing nothing. There was a very important statement made soon after October the 7th, saying if you ever wondered what you would do if you were living under slavery or living in conditions of civil war or you were living when there was a genocide, you’re doing it now. We are witnessing, on our televisions, in our living rooms, on our phones, we are witnessing a genocide. If you don’t want to call it a genocide, we’re witnessing a slaughter of unparalleled dimensions. Don’t think it doesn’t affect you. You must do something. Through your individual actions, you build communal strength and solidarity, and that is our weapon: solidarity. And we stand, as I said before, always with the oppressed, never with the oppressors. Thanks very much.
I encourage those seeking a deeper understanding to visit Jews for Justice for Palestinians for valuable insights and engagement.
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