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The former British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind is among leading members of the Jewish diaspora urging the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, to intervene to stop “attacks by Jewish extremists” on Palestinians in the West Bank.
An open letter to Herzog facilitated by the London Initiative – a liberal Zionist network of 360 people, including eminent Jewish, Israeli and Israeli Palestinian figures – has attracted more than 3,000 signatories, including diplomats, philanthropists, rabbis and academics from Australia, Canada, across Europe, South Africa the UK and US. It follows a spate of killings and arson attacks by settlers on Palestinian civilians in March.
The letter said: “Israel’s security forces are clearly better able to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, living under different levels of Israeli military and civil control, from Jewish terror. That they do not act decisively suggests a lack of directives from the government.”
The letter, timed for the Jewish festival of Passover, added: “Mr President, the terror, death and destruction inflicted by Jewish-Israeli extremists against innocent Palestinians across the West Bank is an abomination.
“It is not only morally shameful but a strategic threat to the future of Israel. It damages world Jewry and the relationship of future generations with Israel. Sadly, based on events and on the statements of the most extreme coalition partners it can be concluded that the violence now engulfing the West Bank is not only condoned by the government but is in fact policy.”
UK signatories to the letter include Matthew Gould, the former UK Ambassador to Israel; Lord Michael Levy, former Middle East envoy and a close ally of former prime minister Tony Blair; Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major; Tory peer and Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein; philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield; and Sir Mick Davis, the former Conservative party treasurer who co-founded The London Initiative.
Prominent signatories outside the UK include billionaire Canadian philanthropist Charles Bronfman; Israeli diplomat Ambassador Ilan Sztulman Starosta; Michael M Adler, the former US ambassador to Belgium; and the former Canadian Ambassador to Israel, Jon Allen.
President Herzog’s office posted his response on X. Referring to what he called the “recent surge of violence by extremist elements in Judea and Samaria” and “grave offences against innocent people”, he added: “I share your conviction that these acts of violence stand in stark contradiction to the values upon which Israel was founded and to the enduring ethical tradition of the Jewish people.”
Herzog said he had demanded the authorities “employ all available means to bring those responsible to justice and put an immediate end to this unacceptable phenomenon”.
He added that “violence and vigilantism” were not only “shameful crimes against innocents” but that these actions interfered “with the unceasing efforts … to contend with clear and present Palestinian terror threats”.
He went on to say that “at a time when Israel is in the throes of a bitter war against enemies that seek its destruction, and the Jewish people is contending with a fierce and rising tide of antisemitism around the world, this kind of violence against innocents further plays directly into the hands of Israel’s detractors, fuelling hatred that weakens us as a nation and jeopardises Jews everywhere.”
The letter follows one sent to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in August 2025. Facilitated by the London Initiative and signed by 6,300 Jews worldwide, it called on him to “permanently restore the provision of food and humanitarian aid to the Gazan population” and end the war in Gaza, “enforce the law in the West Bank”. It also said members of his government have “used language of racism, hatred and incitement without censure”, urging him to commit that “neither you nor any member of your government will again advocate policies of starvation or expulsion as weapons of war”.
The latest letter says that since then the situation regarding “attacks by settlers and their supporters” has “only deteriorated, reaching a new nadir during the war with Iran”.
