- Westminster Synagogue supports donations for Israeli settlements.
- The UN and Amnesty International assert that Israel is in violation of international law by establishing and expanding these settlements.
Westminster Synagogue, located in the heart of London’s Knightsbridge, has been remarkably active since the onset of the ferocious Palestinian genocide.
Their meticulously organised website features a Google spreadsheet where donations made to support the cause of Israel’s onslaught of Palestinians are publicly available.
Amidst the extensive list of donations and events scheduled to support Israel in its heinous crimes, lies a donation pledge:
“JNF Canada had launched an Israel Resilience Fund. We've spent years side by side with community leaders and residents, building Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon and other periphery communities in the Gaza envelope. We've been close to these communities for decades, knowing that they receive less support and services than metropolitan centres, and we will be there for them now in their darkest days.”
The notes section reads:
“KKL is matching every donation.”
Since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) has been engaged in settlement endeavours.
In recent years, KKL-JNF has significantly increased its involvement in settlement activities, channeling millions of shekels into settlements and enabling settlers to leverage KKL-JNF resources to advance their agenda of acquiring Palestinian properties and expanding settlements.
How and why does this radical synagogue operate in London while being complicit in the mass eradication of Palestinians from their homes?
Another donation initiative asserts:
“The Kibbutz Movement, serving as the governing body for 257 Kibbutzim scattered across Israel, hereby brings to your attention the critical situation faced by Kibbutzim situated in the proximity of the Gaza Strip in southern Israel.”
In an extensive interview with Haaretz, Nir Meir, who has served as the secretary general of the Kibbutz movement for nine years, expressed a shift away from the movement’s traditional leftist stance. Meir acknowledges the validity of right-wing perspectives, suggesting it’s time to abandon the pretence of strict leftism.
“The settlers aren’t wrong. The right is correct: That is the way to seize and hold land, and their claim that, any place we Israelis leave, the Arabs will come in our place, is correct. The right is also correct in its path: It’s by settlement and only by settlement that sovereignty can be imposed. The debate is whether sovereignty should be imposed. The settlements claim that they are the successors to Kibbutz Hanita [on the Lebanon border], because, just as in the Tower and Stockade days [a method of establishing new settlements during the period of the British Mandate], you [need to] conquer hill after hill without consideration for the law and you create facts on the ground. They [the settlers] learned from us how to settle and seize land. The argument with them is not about the way or the method, but about the intention and the goal.”
In a remarkably brief span from October 7, 2023, to January 29, 2024, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that at least 198 Palestinian households, totaling 1,208 individuals, including 586 children, have been displaced due to settler violence and access constraints.
Based on numerous UN resolutions invoking Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, the international consensus holds that Israeli settlements are illegal, constituting a breach of international law.
Palestinian health authorities say that Israel’s military operations, conducted via ground and air campaigns in Gaza, have resulted in the barbaric killing of over 35,000 Palestinians. These individuals are predominately civilians. Furthermore, these actions have displaced the majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants from their residences.
Israel has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International, the International Court of Justice and various other professional bodies.
