Launch of The Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights

Opening Speech

Itís a great pleasure to welcome you here this evening to the launch of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights. Iím Tony Lerman, in the chair for this evening, and with me are Professor Sir Nigel Rodley and Anne Karpf.

The brief mission statement on the invitation outlines what the Forum is, but such attempts at prÈcis invariably leave so much unsaidóraising more questions than they answer. Before moving on to the main part of the evening, Iím going to try to anticipate and answer some of those questions, to lay out in a little more detail why we decided to set up the Forum and the purposes we believe it could serve. Nevertheless, judging by the full hall and the many positive responses we have had from people who could not make it tonight, the idea of the Forum has certainly struck a chord.

It was in early summer last year that some of us gathered together to share deep and confused concerns. What we had in common was a sense that the breakdown of the peace process, the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, and world events that followed, had appeared to turn the world, and our worlds, upside down. We were being told that Israelís very existence was under threat, that antisemitism was rampant worldwide, Jews in Europe were living in fear of their lives and that it was time to shore up the defences. Renewed identification with Israel; strengthening of security measuresóthese were now our primary ëJewishí obligations.

For those of us who place the need for peace, reconciliation, justice and human rights above ethnic attachment and loyalty, going down this path seemed wrong. All around us growing numbers were rushing to adopt extreme positionsósupport for suicide bombings among Palestinians, growing support for the idea of ëtransferí among Israelis, a ëmy country right or wrongí attitude towards Israel developing among large parts of Diaspora Jewry. Moderate opinion among Jews, Israelis and Palestinians appeared to be collapsing, or was barely heard. There was an unprecedented polarization of Jewish attitudes. Jewish communal and religious leaders were applying intense pressure to conform and to place group solidarity above all other considerations. Those of us who refused to be drawn into these increasingly defensive camps and who insisted on our right to hold viewsóand held viewsówhich did not fit into these moulds, felt increasingly isolated and powerless. And at the very moment that we needed an expansion of the space in which our views could be expressedónever that large at the best of timesóthat space was shrinking.

And what many of us found especially sickening was hearing and reading so-called Jewish communal and religious leaders purporting to speak on behalf of the entire Jewish community, defending the indefensible, ratcheting up Jewish fears.

I found this situation especially depressing because it seemed to signal the end of a remarkable period in Jewish life in this country and in Europe as a whole; a period of cultural and religious renaissance; a breaking down of barriers among Jews and between Jews and the wider society; a more relaxed, open, pluralistic and secure atmosphereódevelopments I had been working for in my professional life for the last 25 years. They were tangible achievements. Was all this coming to an end?

This flowering of Jewish life and the Middle East peace moves in the early 1990s had pushed into the background those I describe as the ëIsrael-firstersí and those who believe that ëJews are a people who always dwells aloneí. Now, it seemed, they were coming back. Those who were never comfortable with a more relaxed and diverse Jewish reality in Britain, who clearly felt happier in a world where the natural Jewish posture is defensive, came to the fore once again, calling for unity, solidarity and improved propaganda for Israel to fight alleged anti-Zionist and antisemitic bias in the media and among some politicians.

We saw, in these developmentsóa perception that Jews as a whole are unwilling to face up to the fact of human rights abuses by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, that Jews are turning their faces away from those seeking refuge from oppression in this and other countries, that Jews pay lip service to the fight against racism but seem to have eyes only for antisemitismóa genuine danger that, in the minds of too many people, Jews would become permanently associated with the abuse of human rights and not with a moral and ethical tradition which has both informed the development of human rights values and places the pursuit of justice at the center of Jewish values.

Now, in establishing this Forum, we are not for one moment trying to imply that we, in this new framework, are about to express certain views which no one else is expressing today. Dissenting views do surface. I am always heartened by those columnists and letter writers, who, despite the abuse and scorn sometimes poured on them, speak out. The idea of this Forum is not to replace them, or to say that we can do it better, rather to give added value to those voices, to help them feel that they are part of a larger body of opinion, that they are not isolatedóthat together, in the space we can create, we constitute a significant presence.

There are other organizations expressing dissenting views, but these tend to be more narrowly focused, campaigning bodiesóand I donít for one second say that in any derogatory sense. Itís important that they exist. We, however, felt the need for something more broadly based, both in terms of the issues being covered and the affiliation of people who would wish to be part of it. And equally important, a body that would be reflective and analytical.

Because we are placing values at the heart of our concerns, we feel that no societyóhere, elsewhere in Europe, in the Middle Eastócan be fair or just where the ëotherí is demonized and denied his or her humanity and human rights. This applies to blacks and Asians in Britain for example, to Jews anywhere where antisemitism is a serious threat, to Palestinians in the occupied territories, to Muslims in an increasingly Islamaphobic climate. And with this as our opening agenda, what we aim to do is bring serious and sustained analysis and discussion to bear on these and other issues, bring the results to public attention and so expand the space for the expression of alternative views.

Although these are our current principal concerns they are not an exclusive list. The Forum will be open for discussion and debate on a variety of other social and political issues. That varietyóreflecting the diversity of the Jewish populationówill extend to the perspectives brought to bear on the issues and the political and religious standpoints of Forum participants. Weíre convinced that the kind of concerns we have expressed are shared by Jews across religious affiliations and political loyalties.

We have not come to this launch with a firm programme of activities as we would like to invite participants to come forward with their own ideas. Everyone here has been given a brief form to facilitate this. However, we have in mind arranging a Forum event approximately every quarter, the first of which is likely to focus on the interplay between Israel and antisemitism. While we have been meeting for over a year, we have remained a loose and informal structure, with everyone giving time voluntarily. However, funds will also be needed, and the form I mentioned may also be used by anyone who feels that they want to help in this way too.

Finally, it would be wrong to duck the question of why a specifically Jewish forum for justice and human rights? After all, these are not exclusively Jewish concerns. Indeed, some would argue that human rights is not at all a Jewish matter. In France, for example, some Jewish leaders and intellectuals have come to see what they pejoratively call ëdroit de líhommeismí as a stick to beat the Jews. Here too, we have Jewish commentators who have expressed similar views. And I feel compelled to quote from a letter I received yesterday from a prominent figure in the Jewish community who gave the following as one of his reasons for not coming tonight: ëHuman rights are a fine platform in China; but not here, where they serve basically to subvert the rule of law and encourage assorted undesirables to hold society to ransom.í Well, I wonder what Lord Woolf, who has so bravely and persistently championed the importance of enshrining human rights principles in British law, or Francesca Klug, a founding member of this group who was awarded an OBE for her work in achieving the implementation of the human rights act, would say to that.

I know that Nigel will be saying more on the Jewish connection to human rights so Iíll just make one further point. Of course we have no monopoly on justice and human rights and it would be inconceivable for this Forum to pursue its aims without the involvement of other human rights groups, minority organizations, academic experts, social and political commentatorsóit would be absurd to think that we can explore these concerns in isolation. But we cannot avoid the fact that we, as Jews, are being associated with human rights abuses and that that demands a response. One response would be to slink off and abdicate responsibility, say nothing, keep your head down. To cede the ground to those in the Jewish community who seem to wear this as a badge of pride and thereby provide further ammunition, completely unnecessarily, to forces whose antisemitism is but thinly varnished. To remain silent in the face of those who seem determined to lose important and natural allies in politics and the media. (As was recently done when the Observer of all newspapers was absurdly branded as judeophobicóa word whose validity I fundamentally reject.) But this surely is not the way. Our response, by setting up this Forum, is to stand up and say no; as Jews, this is not us. Weíll not be party to that equation which some in Jewish communal and religious leadership appear to lend credence to. We wanted to make a stand as Jewsóin all our diversity, coming to this for ethical reasons, universal reasons, historical reasons, religious reasons, social reasons, even for no especially articulate reasons, whateveróand immediately acknowledge that having made that stand, the path the Forum must follow is with others and not apart from them.

Enough from me. Let me invite Anne Karpf, a journalist and writer who is most certainly known to all of you, to introduce our speaker, Sir Nigel Rodley. I unashamedly count Anne as one of those who does speak out already on these issues with a deep sense of humanity, of history and personal concern.