Jewish Anti-Israel Conference

Jewish Anti-Israel Conference

July 23, 2010

“We don’t go to Synagouge to pray to a flag (Israeli),” Stephen Naman

The 2010 US Assembly of Jews conference was held last month in Detroit. the theme of the conference was ‘Racism and Israeli Apartheid’ and to discuss strategies for ‘declonizing Palestine’.

Emily Katz Kasawi wrote an interesting report, titled Jewish challenges to Zionism on the rise in the US.

Anti-Zionist Jews in the US can play a role in asserting to the anti-war movement that meaningful headway will not be possible without confronting the role Israel plays in provoking and justifying the US’s war agenda. After decades of debate and hesitation, Palestine is still a point of contention in the American anti-war movement. Challenging the US funding of Israel is avoided out of concern that it will detract from critiques of the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Contrary to this concern, placing Palestine squarely in the center of an anti-war agenda in the US is the key to a more fundamental shift in US policy and practice of which war is a necessary strategy. In turn, through building with the anti-war movement, we can contribute to efforts to reduce the isolation of the Palestinian struggle, advance challenges to Islamophobia, and directly challenge the mutually beneficial relationship shared by the US and Israel.

Accountability of Israeli, US government and international Zionist support for Israel will not come from a shift in US policy but through shifting American public opinion and debate, fomenting popular movement, using international and US legal sanctions and supporting the Palestinian call for BDS. The 2010 US Assembly of Jews seeks to contribute to these efforts and reflects a significant departure from Zionism that has been building since the second Palestinian intifada broke the stranglehold of the Oslo accords. It has continuity with a long history of Jewish participation in struggles for human emancipation. Ours are among the growing voices of Jews who seek a departure from the course that Zionism has been and continues down — a course that is a betrayal of our humanity as it simultaneously denies that of Palestinians.

Jews have an independent case against Zionism, and we are also part of a solidarity movement. When Jews aren’t clear — either about their own confrontation of Zionism, or about the precedence of the demands of the Palestinian grassroots struggle — Jewish participation threatens to muddle rather than clarify and strengthen the Palestine solidarity movement. We must be cautious to not presume that our commitment and investment in overcoming Zionism suggest “equality” in the struggle; overstepping our actual role in the movement undermines Palestinian leadership in their own struggle, thus reinforcing the centralization of Jewish voices that Zionism promotes and racism suggests. Likewise, equating the need for Palestinian liberation and safety with safety of most Jews in contemporary Western countries is inaccurate.

The Assembly will be a chance to reflect on ourselves as a part of US and international movements for justice and bring clarity to our politics and practices so that we can increase our effectiveness. Jewish anti-Zionism is not an identity, but a politic to develop and actualize and a location from which to challenge Zionism. Organizing to gain the approval of — or legitimacy in relationship to — Jewish popular opinion, liberal Zionist organizations, or US public opinion undermines our ability to be in solidarity. Likewise, in the long-run, rewriting Palestinian demands (e.g. excluding the right of return from BDS campaigns) to fit agendas that reinforce peace as a strategy for maintaining an exclusive Jewish state does not challenge the foundations of Zionist policies and principles. However, in the short-run any participation that advances BDS is useful in delegitimizing Israel. It is the development and sharing of distinctions such as these that will deepen and increase the possibility of a real alternative to Zionism and the ability of Jews to contribute to a powerful and effective Palestine solidarity movement. These are the issues that we hope to raise and explore with Jews and our partners in struggle at the 2010 US Assembly of Jews.

Our commitment to confronting Zionism is part of our commitment to cutting the threads of racism, anti-Semitism, elitism, fascism, colonialism and imperialism that have nourished Zionism and were institutionalized in the apartheid structures of Israel. Instead, we build continuity with the historic and current movements for human emancipation, class struggle, equality, democracy and justice. These threads have always existed in Jewish histories, against histories of Jewish collaboration with those that seek to oppress.

http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/anti-israel-jewish-conference/