For some period (I don't have an exact record - three years perhaps up to a date in 2005) I was a signatory to the statement of aims of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. I was one, because I am a Jew and I am for justice for the Palestinians. I've been opposed to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank from the very first day, and to the policy of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories likewise.
In due course, however, I asked for my signature to be removed from the JFJFP list because, in signing up to its aims, I didn't take myself to be agreeing to public statements in the name of JFJFP which don't necessarily have anything to do with justice for anyone. A case in point was Irene Bruegel's letter to the Guardian in January 2004, defending Jenny Tonge's egregious remarks on suicide bombers. Justice for Palestinians doesn't entail being an apologist for the apologists.
Now Bruegel has a letter in the same newspaper, in which - once more above the name of JFJFP - she makes herself in effect an advocate on behalf of Hamas:
Hamas may believe that the land of Palestine must never be relinquished, just as some Jews believe in a God-given right to the whole of the land from the Jordan to the sea... Rhetoric aside, history shows that Palestinians have compromised time and time again, while Israel has persistently ignored the rulings of the UN and international law. Hamas's offer of a 50-year armistice and recognition of Israel's international borders is pragmatic, but certainly genuine in that it is tied to Israel's acceptance of international rulings.I will not discuss the soundness or otherwise of her judgement that Hamas's non-recognition of Israel - its continued claim that all of that country is in fact Palestine - is merely rhetoric, without practical political effects. But what business has Bruegel in letting this stuff pass even as rhetoric, rather than condemning it outright? She speaks for a body of people supposed to be committed to principles that include 'recognition of Israel's 1967 "green line" borders'. And just as she knows what Israel has contributed to the difficulty of securing a just solution in the Middle East, she ought to know what the rejectionist discourse within Arab and Palestinian politics has contributed to it. It is clear from developments now being reported that the politics of Hamas are under pressure from the new situation in which it finds itself and from other political players in that situation. Those who speak for JFJFP speak rather strangely if they make light of a political language that - rhetoric or otherwise - envisages the elimination of Israel. Do they perhaps sometimes lose sight of the fact that JFJFP professes also to be for justice for Israelis?