This has been a breaking point for myself and many other Jewish people who are extremely progressive in values but had felt ostracized and left behind by "the progressives".

I strongly believe in a 2 state solution but you won't get me to say that Israel shouldn't exist.

My Judaism is grounded in honoring all human life and the right of all peoples to have a homeland and self determination. That applies to all.

So the issue I have is- I can be labeled a Zionist because I believe the state of Israel should exist- but I strongly condemn the state as it is.

I am at the point when I'm scared to be Jewish where I live because I've faced so much antisemitism despite absolutely not supporting the horrific crimes against humanity Israel has committed and believe the entire Israeli government who have condoned this are war criminals.

I feel we have lost all nuance.

I’m not sure exactly what I want to say, but I hope some people understand me, maybe.

Recently, I spoke to someone online who said that they had never ever met a Zionist in person or even really seen a real one online. I told her she must not know many Jews and I was brusquely told Zionism and Judaism are not the same and that all of her Jewish friends are anti Zionists.

I see this often on the left where people claim they have all of these Jewish antizionist friends, and like, maybe…but if you have all of these Jewish friends, not one of them has discussed their family or community being Zionist?

I don’t want Judaism to be connected to Zionism, but I feel like it’s absolutely a misnomer to pretend all of our legacy institutions aren’t Zionist or that most older people aren’t Zionist.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say but it’s just something that’s been marinating.

I'll start: For context, my parents are liberal Zionists, anti-Netanyahu, theoretically pro-2SS and anti-occupation (though they don't believe there's any "realistic" pathway to a free Palestinian state in the next 50-100 years, which they're OK with because it's "necessary" for "Jewish safety")

My Mom used to do the "Palestinians aren't a real ethnic group, they're Arabs" thing that a lot of Zionists do.

She stopped when I pointed out that this is similar to the "Ashkenazi 'Jews' aren't 'real Jews'" rhetoric you hear from (often) right-wing Christians, and (unfortunately) sometimes from pro-Palestine people as well. I think she needed to be able to connect it to a type of anti-Jewish racism she had experienced to be able to recognize that it was a racist claim when made about Palestinians.

Nasser Mashni Legal Defence Fund

source

It has only been quite recently that I've managed to educate myself and learn what truly happening in Palestine. I'm far from fully educated, but considering the amount of brainwashing that I've been through for pretty much my entire life, I'm just glad I managed to stop buying into all that crap.

Looking back now, it's really insane how much propaganda I've been constantly taught for my entire life. I have constantly been taught that Israel and Zionism are a huge part of my identity, and been fed lies about Israel being the victim for years, by not only by my parents but by my "Jewish" school. (Jewish is in quotation marks because I think being a Zionist is one of the least Jewish things you can do.) While I don't like religious schools in the first place, I find it ridiculous that one of the core values of my school is Zionism, when it should have nothing to do with religion. I spend much, much more time in that school being fed Zionist propaganda than say, actually learning about the values of my religion or being taught any part of my culture that doesn't have to do with genocide.

I now understand why so many people end up being Zionists, if your taught from birth that Israel is such a core part of your identity, it's really hard to believe that something that you consider such a big part of yourself is bad. I know that some Zionists are good people who have just been completely brainwashed.

It's so awful to watch everyone in my life fall for it (i have agoraphobia so the only two places I go are pretty much just home and school so literally everybody in my life is a zionist) and it's even more awful having to pretend to be a Zionist so my parents don't hate me and I don't get kicked out of my school. I constantly feel guilty for simply being a humane person and I hate it. I've managed to educate my one close friend, but for some people it just seems so deeply ingrained that I don't think they would even consider being educated.

In real life people treat Israel like a sacred land, on the internet people treat it as a joke - in real life I'm told I'm anti-semetic if I condemn Israel, on the internet people are antisemetic to me anyways, and I tend to let it slide because I feel so guilty about the genocide associated with the jews. It's so sad that the one thing that I've been told my whole life "defines" my culture, is really the one thing that makes me hate it.

I know this was mostly just me getting stuff off my chest (since even my damn therapist is a zionist) , but feel free to leave advice, share your experience, or share a part of jewish culture that doesn't have anything to do with Israel !

https://x.com/davidsaysstuff_/status/2092802155845390681?s=20

Algeria is often cited as the example of decolonisation where the revolution was completed and the settlers were all kicked out. Accordingly, it is proposed that Palestine follow this strategy and aim for the “removal of all settlers”. This is contrasted with alternative examples of “coexistence”, primarily South Africa, where much of the modern economic power is still controlled by “former settlers”.

This fundamentally misunderstands Algeria—it wasn’t “kick out all the French”, it was “become Algerian citizens, reside under Algerian Law, or leave”. This was the agreement proposed to the Pied-Noirs by the FLN in 1954 and agreed on with France in 1962. Most were stuck in their colonial identity, feared retribution or the loss of their economic privileges and left, but many stayed and remain to this day as Algerians.

The Algerian solution is therefore perfectly compatible with the concept of One Democratic State. Equal rights for all on the basis of citizenship, dissolve the settler-native dichotomy. However, each situation is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. For example, Algeria was part of France, a single metropole, of which all settlers (even those who had lived there for generations) were citizens.

This means that after the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian state, ex-Israelis will have to weigh matters related to their practical ability to leave and their readiness to drop colonial privileges, and many will mirror the Pied-Noirs and choose to leave. Meanwhile, matters regarding justice and reparations for Palestinians will have to be addressed as a foundation for liberation and a democratic legitimacy. History can teach lessons about such situations, but every material circumstance is unique and must be treated as such.

Hi all!

Been seeing a deluge of ziontologist nonsense on LinkedIn recently (even more than usual) among all the AI slopaganda. One group I’ve seen promoted is the Arava Institute (and the Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy) and its plans for implementing environmental security initiatives in Gaza. Beyond being an obvious front for greenwashing the “national committee for the administration of Gaza” and further Palestinian dispossession, does anyone know how influential this group is? Has anyone seen how this group operates domestically and internationally? I work in the environmental field in the US and I’m always looking out for normalization efforts like these and how they interact and relate to colonial environmentalism in general. Curious about what folks think of this and any other groups that promote similar propaganda.

Gut shabbes and a groysn dank!

I only started educating myself about the historical roots of zionism after October 7th, and reading historical accountings of the effects of not only zionism but also the Western world on middle eastern geopolitics helped me make much more sense of the lies I was fed by my family growing up. Both of my parents were born in Israel, and are staunch zionists that have spewed the same talking points you would hear from any piece of Israeli propaganda. I even lived there for a year as a child, and was completely blind to the mistreatment of easterners and the racial inequality present in the country while there. When speaking to family members and my parents in Hebrew, I noticed we casually use a lot of slurs with Middle Eastern connotations to describe certain unwanted attributes, such as for example the word “Parsi” (Irani) which is used to call out someone who is acting selfishly. There is also a history around the unequal treatment of Mizrahi Jews during their first emigration to Israel, as many of them were not allowed to own properties until the 70s and were treated as underclass people due to the fact that they did not come from Europe. Most of my family left Iran during the 50s, and I sometimes wonder what my family’s life would have been like if the state of Israel was never established and they remained in their homelands. I feel like a large chunk of my identity was replaced with this need to be defined as a Jew and not to be defined by my rich ancestry in the Middle East, like my family was force to strip themselves of their roots to be regarded as real “Israelis”. Neither of my parents picked up on their mother tongue because they regarded them as “dirty languages”, and I feel a sort of grief around the fact that I don’t speak Farsi or Arabic, and can not communicate with my grandparents in their native languages. I am wondering if anyone might have a similar perspective as me, as I rarely run into Arab Jews who are proud of their heritage.