Ex-Head of World Zionist Organization Calls on Jews Around the Globe to Take Israel to International Court of Justice Over Gaza War Crimes

We publish below an article that first appeared in the August 10, 2025, issue of the Israeli daily Haaretz. It reports on a call by Avraham “Avrum” Burg “for one million Jews worldwide to join a collective legal complaint at the International Court of Justice [ICJ], accusing Israel of crimes against humanity in Gaza.”

As Haaretz notes, “Burg, 70, served as Knesset [Israeli parliament] speaker from 1999 to 2003 and previously headed the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization. Once a senior figure in the Labor Party, he has become one of Israel’s most prominent dissidents, frequently warning that the country’s political leadership is eroding democratic norms and Jewish ethics.”

The Jewish Agency for Israel is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization. It encourages immigration of Jews to Israel and oversees their integration into that state.

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism — a political movement founded for the purpose of establishing a colonial-settler state in Palestine and that rules the bourgeois society headed by the Israeli state today in alliance with world imperialism. It was founded as the Zionist Organization at the initiative of Theodor Herzl at the First Zionist Congress, which took place in August 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. WZO provided the impetus for the founding of Israel in 1948, based on the forced dispossession and expulsion of more than 750,000 native Palestinians from their land and homes, with the indispensable political support and military and economic aid of the British and U.S. governments and their allies.

After the Haaretz article, we also publish Burg’s own call issued in an August 8 Substack post.

Burg’s call is another indication that an increasing number of prominent figures in Israel’s Zionist establishment are publicly opposing the Netanyahu government’s criminal course in Gaza, the West Bank, and the broader Middle East region.

“Burg’s call comes amid a widening rift in Jewish opinion over Israel’s war in Gaza and its occupation, reflected in a series of recent letters from prominent diaspora Jewish communities and public figures urging a break with the government’s current course,” Haaretz reports. “Pro-Israel Jewish groups have also voiced concerns, with J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami noting last week that he ‘wouldn’t argue’ with anyone who called Israel’s action in Gaza a genocide.”

Since the grotesque Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the ultra-rightist Israeli regime has waged a genocidal war that has killed nearly 62,000 Palestinians, wounded about 112,000 — with an unknown number of additional victims buried in the rubble, reduced Gaza to ruins, and deliberately caused a starvation epidemic sweeping the Strip now. At the same time, the Israeli offensive has resulted in nearly 1,000 Palestinians killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank.

As Middle East scholar Assaf David recently declared, a ‘Jewish Jihad’ has seized control of Israel.

Under these conditions, the paramount and immediate task of every decent human being is to do everything possible — through collective and individual action — to stop the slaughter and save as many Palestinian lives as possible.

At this most crucial moment of the 21^st century, any and all opposition to Israel’s horrific assault on Palestinians is significant.

As Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi explained in a 2024 interview:

“I think it’s important to reach an Israeli public. I know it’s a very diminished public, but the point is that you don’t win, you don’t bring change without understanding how to appeal to public opinion, over the heads of the governments and over the heads of the propaganda machine, whether in the United States or in Israel.”

It is in that spirit that World-Outlook is publishing the article that follows for the information of our readers. The headline, subhead, text, and photos below are from the original.

— World-Outlook editors

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Haaretz | Israel News

‘Jews, Rebel!’: Ex-Knesset Speaker Calls on World Jews to Take Israel to ICJ Over Gaza War Crimes

Avraham Burg, who also headed the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, called for a million Jews to file an appeal to the International Court of Justice over crimes against humanity in Gaza: ‘This is not a rejection of our people; it is a defense of its soul’

By Etan Nechin

Aug 10, 2025

Avraham “Avrum” Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, called on Friday [August 8, 2025] for one million Jews worldwide to join a collective legal complaint at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of crimes against humanity in Gaza.

“We need one million Jews, less than ten percent of the global Jewish population, to file a joint appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague,” Burg wrote in a post titled “Jews – Rebel. Now!” published on his Substack. “A collective legal complaint against the State of Israel for crimes against humanity committed in our name and under the false banner of our Jewish identity.”

The former top center-left politician urged individuals, communities and Jewish organizations to sign on to what he described as a historic moral and legal initiative. “We will not allow the State of Israel, which systematically inflicts violence upon a civilian population, to speak in our name. We will not allow Judaism to be a cover for crimes.”

Burg, 70, served as Knesset speaker from 1999 to 2003 and previously headed the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization. Once a senior figure in the Labor Party, he has become one of Israel’s most prominent dissidents, frequently warning that the country’s political leadership is eroding democratic norms and Jewish ethics.

“This is not a rejection of our people; it is a defense of its soul,” he wrote. “Not destruction, but repair … Now, a great moral exaltation is required of all who refuse to accept the dictatorship of power and corruption led by Caesar Netanyahu and his coalition of apocalyptic zealots.”

Israel is already facing a case brought by South Africa to the ICJ in December 2023, accusing it of genocide in its military campaign in Gaza. In January 2024, the court ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide, allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and curb public incitement to genocide.

While the court stopped short of ordering a cease-fire, it found South Africa’s allegations plausible and imposed binding interim measures. The proceedings remain underway, with Israel’s response due in January 2026 after a six-month extension granted earlier this year.

Burg’s call comes amid a widening rift in Jewish opinion over Israel’s war in Gaza and its occupation, reflected in a series of recent letters from prominent diaspora Jewish communities and public figures urging a break with the government’s current course. Pro-Israel Jewish groups have also voiced concerns, with J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami noting last week that he “wouldn’t argue” with anyone who called Israel’s action in Gaza a genocide.

Burg framed his appeal as an effort to separate Jewish identity from the actions of the state, saying the initiative was to “raise the Jewish voice of moral resistance.”

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The following is Avrum Burg’s call reported by Haaretz above. The headline, subhead, photo, and text below are from the original. World-Outlook publishes it for the information of our readers.

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Avrum Burg’s Substack

Jews – Rebel. Now!!!

A Jewish Plea to The International Court of Justice

By Avrum Burg

Aug 08, 2025

Magnified, sanctified
Be the holy name
Vilified, crucified
In the human frame
A million candles burning
For the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

(Leonard Cohen)

There is no single definition that defines all who identify themselves as Jewish. Is Jewishness a religion? A gene? A culture? A nationality? A legal status? In the confusion of these overlapping and contradicting identities, modern Israel has forged its own unprecedented synthesis; a fusion of five elements never fully welded in Jewish history: religion, land, power, language, and sovereignty. The product of this Israeli crucible is a cultural mutation that dares to call itself Judaism.

At this moment in Israeli history, three of those elements; religion, power, and land, have metastasized into malignant growths. Power has become too great and is now wielded in service of the most pathological interpretations of Judaism, bent on conquest and domination. The immediate cost of this cancer is the unraveling of Israeli sovereignty. Power has been handed over to violent messianic militias; their gang leaders now serve as government ministers. Together, from the top and the bottom simultaneously, they have dismantled the Israeli state. That country no longer exists.

These destructive elements were always present in the Jewish whole, but they were usually contained, marginalized, restrained. Today, after two thousand years, they have seized control and are implementing their darkest impulses. Every Jew must now confront two fundamental questions: What is my Jewish identity? And am I with them, or against them?

There is no middle ground. There mustn’t be.

To stand with them is to align oneself with the ruinous forces of our past. With those who launched a reckless and delusional revolt against the Roman Empire, bringing the destruction of the Second Temple and untold suffering upon our people. To stand with them is to embrace the biblical commandments of annihilation of the native nations and the myth of mass suicide at Masada. It is to follow a separatist, supremacist culture: a world where non-Jews are reviled, and Jews are chosen and exalted.

There are thick, unbroken lines stretching from Bar Kokhba’s hubris to Ben-Gvir’s thuggery; from Rabbi Akiva’s messianic madness to Smotrich’s crudity and zealotry. The lords of ruin in Jewish history never truly died and now they even kill.

But Judaism has always held within it another civilization. One rooted in introspection, critique, compassion, and moral action. The prophet Nathan stood before King David, Israel’s most powerful ruler, and indicted him for corruption and bloodshed. Centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah warned the decadent elites of Jerusalem of the looming First Temple’s destruction. In the year 70 CE, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai fled the city of zealots and bloodlust and inaugurated the new alternative Judaism: a faith of worship without temple, of identity without territory, of strength without force, and of spiritual authority without political sovereignty.

This was the Judaism that later embraced Yiddish, the language Isaac Bashevis Singer once described as “the language of exile… a language without land and without borders, unsupported by any government, a language with no words for weapons, for ammunition, for military maneuvers or warfare tactics. In the ghettos, Yiddish speakers lived out what the great religions merely preached: a daily practice of studying humanity and human relations. What they called Torah, Talmud, ethics, and mysticism. The ghetto, far from just a refuge for the persecuted, was a grand experiment in peaceful living, self-meaning, and care for others. And it still survives, refusing to surrender, despite the cruelty that surrounds it”.

This inner tension in the Jewish soul is still alive. Between the forces of domination, bloodlust, and silencing of others, and that Judaism of tolerance, openness, and dialogue.

Now, a great moral exaltation is required of all who refuse to accept the dictatorship of power and corruption led by Caesar Netanyahu and his coalition of apocalyptic zealots.

Now is the time to walk out of the city, as Yohanan ben Zakkai did, and rekindle a Judaism of morality and humanity. We have no institutions, no vast resources. We are scattered, often alone. We possess no military or governmental power. But we do have the spiritual and ethical strength of our past. We have Jewish history on our side.

That is why we can and must stop the flow of blood.

Here is how we can begin: We need one million Jews. Less than ten percent of the global Jewish population to file a joint appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. A collective legal complaint against the State of Israel for crimes against humanity committed in our name and under the false banner of our Jewish identity.

It is time to say: enough!

Two suns will rise on that day. One will shine within the Jewish firmament, casting light on our inner darkness and replacing fanaticism with moral clarity. The other will shine across the world, declaring that among Jews there are those who resemble the worst criminals of the nations and there are those who, without fear or favor, stand against them.

Yes, Hamas committed heinous crimes against humanity. But none of that justifies Israel’s actions in Gaza since.

This is a moment of reckoning. We must not run from it.

So, this is my plea:

If you are an individual, a community, or a Jewish organization anywhere in the world, and you are shaken by what Israel is doing; if you align yourself with the values of humanistic Judaism, with basic moral decency and collective responsibility, join this historic initiative. Not by turning to weapons or power structures, but to the conscience of humanity. Turn to The Hague.

In our appeal, we shall declare: We will not allow the State of Israel, which systematically inflicts violence upon a civilian population, to speak in our name. We will not allow Judaism to be a cover for crimes. This is not a rejection of our people it is a defense of its soul. Not destruction but repair. [Emphasis added.]

We are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. A million Jews who simply say: We are here, and we are against.

Conscientious individuals whose souls are stirred, thinkers, scholars, clergy, artists, jurists, the time is now. Connect. Sign. Organize. Raise the Jewish voice of moral resistance. The light exists. It only needs many candles.

I really hope activist readers will raise to this call and initiate it

Will hear the most ancient call -, “Where art thou?” and will respond like Leonard Cohen responded:

Hineni, hineni
Hineni, hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

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