Anti-Israel protesters take part in a demonstration hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America, IfNotNow Movement, and Jewish Voice for Peace that turned violent in Washington, DC, Nov. 15, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

Anti-Israel activists are slamming a prominent anti-Israel group for mentioning the death of Israelis in a statement marking the one-year anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

In a lengthy statement which condemned Israel for causing “genocide, death, and destruction” in Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) also mourned “every life taken in the past year — Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese.” The group also said that “our commitment to Palestinian liberation is grounded in our belief that every human must have the right to live in safety and freedom.”

JVP, a so-called “anti-Zionist Jewish advocacy organization,” was emphatically condemned by pro-Palestinian activists for showing sympathy to the Israeli people in its official statement. Some of these commenters on social media directly compared Israeli Jews to Nazis — an antisemitic trope known as Holocaust inversion.  

“‘Every German life taken during the Auschwitz Uprising was valuable and a loss'” one commenter sarcastically posted on X/Twitter. 

“You are the Jewish voice for fascism not for peace. caring for the Nazis makes you a Nazi,” another commenter wrote on the social media platform. 

“This is a poorly crafted statement, perhaps not with [malice] but all the same,” an X user said.

“We really should really only be centering Palestinians here and not Israelis! This lessens the impact of any activism, and while I don’t think this is an intentional misstep or attempt at counterinsurgency we still have to take responsibility for our own habits!” another commenter posted.

“Your leadership is going to be hauled in front of a military tribunal when all your fellow Zionists are made to answer for their crimes,” one individual wrote.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The organization;s explicit anti-Zionist stance places it among an extreme fringe within the Jewish community. 

The group argued in a recently resurfaced 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing””to Palestinians.

JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind  Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel while expressing praise for terrorists such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. JVP has also argued that the Israeli state should be dissolved, asserting that its existence actually makes Jews less safe.

Critics of the organization often point out that many JVP chapters do not possess a single person of Jewish faith. The organization does not require a Jewish person to found a chapter and has even helped orchestrate anti-Israel demonstrations in front of synagogues.