Open Letter to Sa’a the foreign minister of Israel

                                          

                                                                                                                         Thanks, Mr. Following your speech to the UN Security Council on August 5, Minister, I am writing to you. I was at the session, but I didn't get a chance to talk to you afterwards. I'd like to share some of my thoughts on your speech. You failed to understand, in your speech, why almost everyone in the world, including many Jews like me, are appalled by your government's actions. You wouldn't have known it from your speech because Israel is engaged in mass murder and starvation, as the majority of the world views it, and I agree. 

You failed to acknowledge that The Washington Post recently listed the names of approximately 18,500 Palestinian children who have been killed by Israel. Even though the world watches video clips every day of Israeli forces killing starving civilians in cold blood as they approach food distribution points, you attributed every mass killing of civilians by Israeli forces to Hamas. You lamented the starvation of twenty hostages but did not mention the starvation of 2 million Palestinians by Israel. 

As The Times of Israel has documented, you failed to mention that your own prime minister actively worked over the years to fund Hamas. If you hadn't tried to get me and millions of other Jews to participate in your government's crimes against humanity, your oversights—whether from ignorance or evasion—would be devastating for Israel alone.

 Israel is "The sovereign state of the Jewish people," as you stated at the U.N. session. It is not true. Israel is a sovereign nation with its own people. I am a citizen of the United States and a Jew. Israel is not and never will be my state. The gap between us was evident in your speech when you talked about Jews. Judaism was mentioned by you as a nationality. This is, in fact, the Zionist idea, but it contradicts Jewish belief and practice for 2,000 years. I, like millions of other Jews, despise the concept. For many people outside of Israel, including myself, Judaism is a way of life based on ethics, culture, tradition, law, and belief that has nothing to do with nationality. 

Jews lived in numerous nations throughout the world for 2,000 years. In fact, the great Rabbinic sages of the Babylonian Talmud explicitly forbade the Jewish people from moving in large numbers to Jerusalem and advised them to remain in their own homelands (Ketubot 111a). Sadly, the Zionists carried out extensive campaigns to persuade Jewish communities to leave their own countries, languages, local cultures, and relationships with their neighbors in order to bring them to Israel. These campaigns included scare tactics and financial subsidies. I have visited nearly empty synagogues and vacated Jewish communities all over the world, where only a few elderly Jews remain and where these few Jews insisted that their communities once coexisted peacefully with the majority of non-Jews. Numerous vibrant communities of our fellow religions have been weakened or destroyed by Zionism all over the world. Ironically, Sir Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the Cabinet, strongly opposed the Balfour Declaration when Zionists convinced the British Government in 1917 to issue it, claiming that he was a British citizen who happened to be Jewish but not a member of a Jewish nation: "I assert that there is not a Jewish nation." For instance, the members of my family, who have lived in this country for generations, share nothing in common with any Jewish family in any other country besides the fact that they practice the same religion to some degree. 

In this context, it is also important to keep in mind that the Balfour Declaration makes it clear and unambiguous that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." This is something that should be remembered. That test has been failed by Zionism. Your government stands in violent, unwavering opposition to a Palestine that is its own sovereign state and is committed to the ongoing occupation of all of Palestine. In this regard, the Likud founding platform of 1977 explicitly states that "only Israeli sovereignty will exist between the Sea and the Jordan." Israel uses mass starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, administrative detention, torture, land seizures, and other brutal repression to demonize the Palestinian people and physically crush them. You admitted with shame that "all Palestinian factions" back terrorism. Your United Nations counterpart. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Ambassador, declared the opposite during the Security Council session.

 He made his position crystal clear: "The solution is ending this illegal occupation and ending this disastrous conflict; it is the realization of the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinian state, not its destruction; it is the fulfillment of our rights, not their continued denial; it is the respect for international law, not its trampling; it is the implementation of the two-state solution, not a one state reality with Palestinians condemned to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid." In its efforts to prevent the two-state solution, Israel stands in opposition to nearly every nation on earth. The State of Palestine is recognized by 147 nations, and many more will soon. Only six U.N. member states (Argentina, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Paraguay, United States) opposed the Palestinian people's right to political self-determination, out of a total of one hundred and seventy. The powerful "New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution," which was issued by the global community at the High-Level International Conference on Implementing the Two-State Solution on July 29, 2025, one week prior to your own speech at the U.N., was completely ignored in your presentation. Security Committee. That high-level conference was co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France. 

Peace and normalization of relations with Israel should Israel adhere to international law and decency in accordance with the two-state solution, according to Arab and Islamic nations all over the world. Your government rejects peace because it wants to rule Palestine in its entirety instead. The United States has supported Israel's extremist position up until this point, but no other major power has supported it. We should also acknowledge that Christian Evangelical Protestants, who believe that the gathering of Jews in Israel is a prelude to their annihilation and the end of the world, have been a major reason for the United States' support up until this point. Those are allies of your government. Regarding public opinion in the United States as a whole, 60% disapprove of Israel's actions right now, while only 32% support them. Mr.  Minister, the worldwide hostility you cited is not directed at Jews but rather at your government's actions. 

Extremism and zealotry threaten Israel from within, resulting in Jewish and non-Jewish global disapproval of Israel. The policies of Israel's extremist government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, pose the greatest threat to Israel's survival. They are not the Arab countries, the Palestinians, or Iran. Israel's survival can only be achieved through the two-state solution. You may believe that nuclear weapons and the government of the United States will save you, but brute power will fade if Israel continues to do grave injustice to the Palestinian people. Unjust states do not last long, as the Jewish prophets repeatedly taught.