People inspect damage and recover items from their homes following Israeli air strikes, on March 3 in southern Gaza. Photo by Getty Images

By Arno Rosenfeld March 6, 2024

A coalition of leading liberal Zionist groups are backing a “bilateral ceasefire,” including the release of Israeli hostages, to end the Israel-Hamas war. The ten members of the Progressive Israel Network, which includes J Street and the Reconstructionist movement, made the call in a Tuesday letter to President Joe Biden.

“We firmly believe that there is no military solution to this conflict,” the coalition wrote in the letter. Other prominent members include the New Israel Fund, T’ruah and Americans for Peace Now.

The letter marks a notable shift among liberal Zionist groups, many of which have been loath to use the term “ceasefire” even as some of them soured on Israel’s war effort, which began following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, months ago.

J Street said in December that it did not support a ceasefire “because we do not see a viable path to a stable, peaceful future” so long as Hamas controlled Gaza. It shifted that stance in January, backing a “negotiated stop to the fighting,” but did not use the term “ceasefire,” which has been a left-wing rallying cry since October. 

Adina Vogel-Ayalon, J Street’s vice president, said the organization had stayed away from the phrase out of a fear that people would believe it was “a unilateral call for Israel to lay down its arms.”

“Sometimes a function of time allows for you to be better understood and not misunderstood,” she said.

While J Street previously expressed its support for Israel to “confront and defeat Hamas,” Vogel-Ayalon added that there could be a diplomatic route to removing Hamas from power in Gaza following a negotiated ceasefire.

Reconstructionist movement weighs in

The coalition letter marks the first detailed statement on the war by the Reconstructionist movement, which released an accompanying letter to Reconstructionist Jews about why it signed on.

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the president of Reconstructing Judaism, said that she recently returned from a Reconstructionist rabbinical conference where attendees largely supported the thrust of the letter. In addition to a “bilateral ceasefire that brings a stop to fighting” it also calls on the White House to support “a release of all hostages, and a surge in humanitarian assistance” to Palestinians in Gaza.

“It felt like the right statement at the right time,” Waxman said.

Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 while at least 246 Israeli soldiers have died since the war began, according to Israeli officials. The Israeli military has since killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. 

Other signatories to the coalition letter included ALEPH, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, New York Jewish Agenda and Partners for Progressive Israel.

Some of these groups have previously called for a ceasefire.

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