12 October 2023
I’m mostly writing about this to organise my thoughts and emotions. The heaviness I’m feeling has caught me by surprise and it feels hard to explain, even to myself. I’m looking to my usual news sources and social feeds… to my usually somewhat progressive sources of information not just to be informed but to see their ‘take’. I guess I’m looking for threats because I want to know that my tribe (and not just my Jewish tribe) has my back. I want to know that we’re safe.
Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people should have a homeland. It’s our word, and that’s what it means. On a very deep level, a long way from our rational thoughts, a homeland makes us feel safe. It’s not rational, and it’s certainly not political. Many Israelis and many Jews have a problem with the current administration in Israel… but we still stand with Israel; we can still be Zionists. In most places, this is just called democracy. My Jewishness is about culture, community and history; it is not religious, and I am a Zionist.
Zionism, the belief in a Jewish homeland, is not antithetical to a Palestinian homeland, and anyone who doesn’t believe both have a right to exist has no place in the conversation. The goal is an outcome where you would happily be born in either state, or raise children in either state in comfort and safety, with opportunity… Leaving aside the many complexities and the utopian nature of that idea, if that isn’t your goal, you have no moral authority and no seat at the table. That isn’t extreme that’s just the pre-requisite of a conversation. We wouldn’t be tolerant of a neighbour in our street or a political party in our country that didn’t, on some basic level, agree we had a right at least to exist. We wouldn’t talk to that person.
It's not ok to be anti-Zionist. That’s why, to us, it feels anti-Semitic to be anti-Zionist, especially while rallying for Palestinian statehood, especially now. Be ambivalent, be uninformed… you probably don’t have a dog in the fight, and it is complex, but it takes a very selective and incomplete view of history to imagine Zionism is colonialism.
Firstly, a colony of where? There is nowhere else.
Secondly, in Israel, the ethnic and religious background of the ‘natives’ has changed more than anywhere else on earth. It is not Australia, it is not America… who is ‘indigenous’ to the area depends on your view of history, but the answer is both and neither and many more. Somewhere a long way back before reliable data, we were very likely brothers.
Finally, unless you are also equally outspoken about Australia’s right to exist, and America’s right to exist, and… it is hard for Jewish people not to take it personally.
Being anti-Zionist isn’t anti-settlements or anti-Netanyahu or anti-anti-Palestinian Sovereignty. Being anti-Zionist is believing the Jewish people shouldn’t have a homeland. Why believe that? If you’re not into it, you don’t have to go there. You don’t have to get gay married. …but why a belief? …and if you’re not Jewish, by what right?
If you do not believe all human life is equally sacred, that all people should have sovereignty and self-determinism, if you are not equally outspoken about atrocities irrespective of victim and perpetrator… why not? Don’t jump to your own defence. Don’t make apologies. Sit with the question. Be uncomfortable. We are uncomfortable too.
History is interesting and important but you won't find any answers there right now. It's not relevant. What happened 6 days ago was a pogrom - it was the indiscriminate mass murder of Jews for being Jews. These weren’t military targets. No one stopped to ask about their politics… babies don't have politics. There's no story and no version of history that will make it alright so we can stop searching.
The only acceptable response from anyone who values life, is devastation. The scale and the horrific nature of this Hamas attack is without parallel. We just saw a meticulously planned attack on civilians involving thousands of terrorists. The intention was mass murder, mutilation, abduction... We don’t need to apologise, or understand, or search for the ‘but’ or the ‘why’ or talk about the broader political context.
We need to condemn. We need to grieve.
It feels threatening, and hurtful, and strangely familiar to have people searching for historical or political ‘reasons’ why this is anything other than despicable.
Jewish people inherit an existential fear that many of us try and ignore or forget because we want to be past that. We’ve heard many reasons why it was ok to kill us… because of our beliefs, because we are 'sub-human', because of Jesus, because of usury, because of Zionism… When we see the Australian Greens posting their support of the Palestinian people or Waleed go on the Project to explain how the rally at the Opera House was misrepresented, that’s what we hear. ‘It’s not ok, but…’
That’s part of our story. We bring that into the context.
If you’ve ever been in an argument, you know two people can have very different ‘true’ versions of events. We talk about the War of Independence, they talk about The 'Nakba' or Tragedy. Multiply this by thousands of years and millions of people and then try to extract a coherent, causal narrative. The study of history is important but it always leaves out much, much more than it can possibly include. We’re all subjective, meaning-making and story-telling machines and we’ve always used history to make meaning from chaos... and to justify, apologise and manipulate. We are all guilty of that.
This is a cycle of violence. Israelis feel justified in their occupation of the Palestinian territories because of the real existential threat of Palestinian extremists who desire their death. If we were ignorant of that detail, we now have some clarity.
Palestinian extremists feel justified in their acts of terror because of Israeli occupation and their interpretation of religious dogma. Both sides have provocateurs and extremists. Neither side is willingly going anywhere. It is their home. It is where they belong, even if there are stories of them having come from elsewhere. We’ve all come from elsewhere.
There is no excuse to choose violence – you believe that or you don’t. It is above politics.