Observations from the West Bank: the Jewish supremacy monster cannot be contained
Settlers throwing stones at Palestinian farmers near the Hebron Hills, West Bank, April 2021
Daphna Baram writes in Mondoweiss (reproduced from Facebook) on 12 August 2025:
My friend Michael Sfard, one of the best human right lawyers in Israel and a very talented author, writes about the loss of hope among human rights practitioners. Please read his words, to which I add:
My professional path crossed that of Michael in similar practices many years ago. I was an articled lawyer at Lea Tzemel’s law firm in Jerusalem when he was legal correspondent for the Ha’aretz Group Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha’ir. Then he turned human rights lawyer, and I went into Journalism, becoming news Editor for the same weekly. My first news story ever was written in collaboration with Michael. It was about what then shocked us completely: it transpired that the then President of the association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Ruth Gabizon, voiced support for practices of torture.
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The loss of hope human rights practitioners are feeling was never a huge hope to begin with. And in retrospect we can probably both agree that moments like that above were during the good times. Or at least, they were more hopeful times. The very fact that we knew this was a story worthy of the front-page headline meant that we had some faith in the values a civil rights organization should stand for. We hoped Israeli society could be made better.