in Deir al-Hatab, West Bank, last month. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
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.
