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David insists on focusing on making ad hominem attacks on my person, as if I were the topic of discussion. It’s not. My promise to this list is that his will be
my last intervention on this thread. I will leave you with the thoughts of another Jewish person about their lived experience growing up under Zionist indoctrination. Best regards, Gerardo
https://prismreports.org/2023/11/30/why-i-am-renouncing-my-israeli-citizenship/
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 29: Pro-Palestinian Americans in New York City gather in front of the News Corp. to protest annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center in
New York on Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Nov. 6, I was supposed to have an appointment at the Israeli consulate in New York to begin my application to renounce my Israeli citizenship. That morning, I finalized a letter of explanation to
the Israeli population and Immigration Authority to explain my reasoning. By that time, the apartheid State of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and settlers in the West
Bank had already committed countless atrocities in the prior several weeks alone, bombing hospitals, schools,
and churches,
killing and maiming thousands of Palestinians, and displacing thousands more. The genocide we
have seen unfolding since Oct. 7 is just one horrifying chapter of the decades of sheer brutality and inhumanity of the Zionist project to colonize Palestine. This is a clear continuation of the
Nakba, the theft of Palestinian land, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people since and before 1948.
In 2017, after Israeli
forces arrested then-16-year-old Ahed Tamimi (the detention and physical,
sexual, and mental abuse of Palestinian children by Israel is not uncommon; they since detained
Tamimi again on Nov. 6, though she was freed Nov. 30 as part of a prisoner exchange), I started attending rallies by Within Our Lifetime, where I heard Nerdeen Kiswani
talk about citizenship renunciation as a way forward for Israelis—and the idea was seeded in my head. I had been living in New York since 2012, but I was raised in an Israeli-Zionist household, and I cannot put into words the shame I have for my own family’s
participation in Zionist violence. While I did not serve in the IDF for medical reasons, I cannot ignore my position as a settler. Like millions of Israelis, I was also kept ignorant by the state and its educational system on purpose. However, once you unlearn
Zionist propaganda, there is no going back; the world makes so much more sense, and it feels similar to what I have heard of those who escaped a cult. After tackling some legal hurdles, I finally scheduled my renunciation appointment at the Israeli Consulate
in September and confirmed it a week before. The morning of the appointment, I received a notice of cancellation due to a “safety incident” at the building. Since I had always planned on going public about my renunciation and had been working on my letter
of explanation, I decided to post it on social media, where it spread widely. Unfortunately for Israel,
its most recent genocidal campaign meant the letter received greater visibility. On Nov. 20, I went to the rescheduled appointment only to be denied the chance to submit my application since I do not have the papers to prove I did not serve in the IDF (I do
not have access to those). So, this op-ed is a way to further clarify why I chose to take a very public approach to renouncing my citizenship and why I am encouraging others to do so, too.
Since publishing my letter, many have asked me how I was able to unlearn the Zionist propaganda. While I have always thought of myself as left-leaning, I was ignorant of much. My reeducation began
after the New York Police Department’s Daniel Pantaleo killed
Eric Garner, and I started attending Black Lives Matter protests. The Black friends I was in community with—and to whom I could never truly repay for their time and effort to educate me—taught me the foundational history of policing and racism in the U.S.
I witnessed or went to more protests like those organized
at museums across the city that exposed the interconnected relationships of oppression. I followed more and more Black, Indigenous scholars, artists, and organizers of color on social media. I began to understand the relationship between the U.S. and Israel,
the struggle for liberation in Palestine, and oppressed people around
the world.
I learned from Angela Davis about the solidarity between those in Ferguson, Missouri, and the Palestinians who offered organizers concrete
tools to deal with a militarized police force trained by Israel, and I learned from Nick Estes on oil,
land, and settler colonialism in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. An especially eye-opening moment was when I read Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz’s book “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” and saw the same myths I was taught in Israel reflected in the settler-colonialist ideology of the U.S. I also learned from Harsha
Walia on the violence of borders; from Mariame Kaba on policing and prison abolition; and I am constantly
learning from Imani Barbarin about ableism and disability as a thread that connects all forms of oppression. And I have been fortunate to learn from Palestinians
like Noura Erakat about Israeli
apartheid. Other Israelis like Ilan Pappe helped untangle some of the myths that Zionism
tells the world. It is through this ever-growing learning and my understanding of my role as a settler in the U.S. that I was able to reflect and understand my role as a settler growing up in colonized Palestine and the interconnected nature of the struggles
of Palestinians, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the millions displaced and killed in
the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Sudan, and the militarization
of police forces here in the U.S. as we see in the flagrant example of Atlanta’s Cop City—just
to name a few of the current struggles.
Modern Zionism, which emerged in the 1800s, is an unethical, immoral, and evil settler-colonial
project, held together by lies, racism, propaganda,
and the support of world superpowers with their own interests in the resource-rich region.
It cannot provide a “safe haven” for Jews, and Zionism is antithetical to Jewish values. We see this in the way the government, currently led by genocidal fascist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is willing to kill Israelis, hostages (some
of whom gave accounts of
Oct. 7 and their time in captivity that
do not suit the Israeli narrative of ruthless, senseless, barbaric behavior from Hamas), and staff from international
medical organizations and the United Nations while bombarding Gaza. We see it in the repression of protests in
Israel—the nature of which Palestinians have critiqued.
We see it in the way that Israel treats Israeli Holocaust survivors, a third of whom live below the poverty line and must choose
between food and other basic necessities at times. One could also easily make the argument that antisemitism is beneficial to a settler colony that is built
and sustained by the fear of its settlers. Hence, it is to Israel’s benefit to flame
the fires of antisemitism, making Jews worldwide less safe. The founder of modern political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, himself
claimed antisemites “will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.”
Living in Israel, I saw how well the manufacturing of history and the dehumanization of Palestinians worked to create a society and culture that celebrates
and demands the death of Palestinians. Palestinians are being portrayed as wanting to enact genocide by chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a chant that represents liberation from
occupation and equality for all. However, it is Israelis and Zionists who not only use fascist, genocidal rhetoric,
but also materially make it so: enacting
pogroms; enforcing enclosures and blockades; turning off power,
food, and water supplies to millions;
demolishing homes; and ethnic cleansing
as the entire world has seen time and time again and especially in this bloody, ruthless campaign to eviscerate Gaza. The surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who has been working tirelessly in Gaza with countless wounded, correctly framed this as
such: “We are facing a killing machine masquerading as a state.” The clarity of this moment shows that as much as Palestinians are dedicated to life, water, and land, Israel and Zionists are as dedicated to death and destruction.
That is why Israel is so terrified now—the lies and propaganda simply cannot counter the overwhelming truth that we have access to thanks to journalists and people in Gaza, like Motaz
Azaiza, Plestia Alaqad, Refaat Alareer, Bisan
Owda, Eman Basher, and others who are risking not only their own
lives to share what they can, but also their
families’, as Israel targets
them as punishment (at the time of publishing this op-ed, Israel has
killed 50 Palestinian and three Lebanese reporters). Meanwhile, mainstream media reporters like Bel
Trew and Sara
Sidner and outlets like The
New York Times, The Guardian, and CNN have
been manufacturing consent for Israel to commit
this genocide by acting as stenographers, repeating U.S. government and Israeli propaganda without
questioning it and perpetuating violently racist
and Islamophobic stereotypes.
The response to my letter has been overwhelmingly supportive. I blocked any Zionist who reached out, like an Israeli who sent me a direct message on Instagram saying, “what is it like not to have friends
or family?” But I received heartfelt messages from Palestinians inviting me to their homes and families, some even telling me that they did not know a single person who had not read my letter. Lebanese people, a people who have also suffered tremendously from Zionist
violence, offered me a community and a family. Many anti-Zionist Jews have responded, some now looking to take a similar action. For a little while, the tender responses to my letter moved me to tears. I felt, and still feel, that I did not deserve it
and wish to take the space here to deeply thank each person who has reached out, commented, or shared my letter. It is not lost on me that as a white, Ashkenazi Jewish Israeli man, the response has been mostly positive, while my friends and others are
killed, suffer doxxing, horrific racist
and Islamophobic abuse and violence, intimidation,
and economic repercussions for
choosing to speak against genocide or simply
existing.
Our call for a free Palestine demands that we understand that it will not take just a singular action but collective work. That it will take time and commitment. It demands clarity in our anti-colonial
struggle and the centering of Palestinian voices.
It demands that we keep each other safe—from McCarthyism, policing,
and state-sanctioned death and disability through
our current SARS pandemic—by wearing a high-quality mask, covering up, and protecting ourselves from surveillance. Together, our resolve must be steadfast and resilient, as of olive
trees.
Every moral and ethical part of my bones, flesh, and soul leaves me with only one viable option: to unequivocally renounce my Israeli citizenship. Mohammed
el-Kurd said “We chant for our freedom while they chant for our death, that should tell you all you need to know about the settler state.” This is why I choose to say: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Nadav Gazit
I would like to thank R and M for their careful edits on the letter I published on social media and everyone at Prism who helped see this piece through.
The author of this piece is donating their payment to the Good
Shepherd Collective. From: David Freeman <david_freeman@sfu.ca> To the group: Thank you Lyn for getting it. I won’t respond to Gerardo. He failed to acknowledge his use of classic antisemitic tropes and my statement that the timing and content relative to Kristallnacht was at best insensitive and at worst something far more
sinister, so there's no point in us discussing further directly, but I think the exchange makes a more general point.
Gerardo’s use of old antisemitic tropes in the context of (or under the veil of) criticism of Israel illustrates how antisemitism has morphed. Now antisemitism mostly comes under the guise of criticism of Israel (see Cotler 2009).
If you can turn a statement into a variation of an old antisemitic trope by replacing “Zionists” with “Jews”, or “Netanyahu” with “Rothchilds”, then the original statement would probably be perceived as antisemitic by most mainstream Jews with a Jewish education. To those struggling to define antisemitism who have some serious issues with Israel and actually want to figure out your own views while being sensitive to antisemitism, I’ll give a longer response on defining antisemitism and IHRA.
The tl;dr; is: all definitions that try to grapple with the modern issue of antisemitism veiled as anti-Zionism are trying to do the same thing. If you want to say something that the IHRA examples would suggest are antisemitic, you should do so with extreme
care and use neutral language. The IHRA definition of antisemitism clearly states: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” And this much should be obvious. Prior to Oct 7, Israel had seen massive
protests throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to oppose the Netanyahu government and its judicial reforms. That wasn’t antisemitic and a lot of Canadian Jews like myself endorsed these protest movements. IHRA’s examples involving Israel have drawn discussion, including in the Jewish community. Alternative thoughtful approaches to make the distinction between legitimate versus antisemitic criticism of Israel include the IHRA definition,
the Nexus Document, the Jerusalem Definition, and the “3D” test. The problem with defining antisemitism (like, say, racism) is that classifying text or actions as antisemitic may require a judgment about “perceptions” (IHRA), “prejudice” (Jerusalem) or “beliefs [and] attitudes” (Nexus); this
issue also arises in Schniad’s definition. It’s easier to make a good classification when a person has to explain and defend their views thoroughly, and then I expect that the different approaches will usually lead to the same judgment. The fact that people
like Gerardo and Baharak are trying to encourage others to oppose IHRA should hint that some and perhaps most of the opposition to IHRA from outside the Jewish community is driven by antisemites who don't like getting called out. The JFN and Schniad articles provided by Baharak and Gerardo mention a historical debate over the merits of Zionism within the Jewish community. These claims are factually true but potentially misleading for a non-Jewish audience.
The non-Zionist and anti-Zionist views as historically debated in the Jewish community were generally about details of Jewish theology and Jewish inclusion in the diaspora; they bear little relation to the anti-Zionist views advanced primarily but not exclusively
by non-Jews today. One major difference is that today, the State of Israel exists, so contemporary anti-Zionism calls for its dismantling/destruction, and naturally invokes the question of “what should happen to the Jews of Israel?” This raises the issue with advocating anti-Zionism right now in the close aftermath of October 7. If you do not explicitly state opposition to the October 7 attack and provide a lengthy condemnation of Israel’s war against Hamas,
it’s pretty reasonable to interpret your statement as support for the attack. This is how I read a statement signed by many of our colleagues, including Gerardo and Baharak. And that’s hateful, and dangerously so. It is possible for anti-Zionism to not be antisemitic, and the Nexus Document gives as clear example anti-Zionism as part of a principled opposition to nation states in general. But I basically never hear anyone clearly articulate
that view in the context of contemporary anti-Zionist advocacy. This exception shows how IHRA usually gets it right in spite of perhaps being too stringent in theory. Most of the time when someone advances an anti-Zionist position, I see the antisemitic
hate below the surface. If you hold one of these niche anti-Zionist views or want to criticize Israel harshly in ways that might be classified as antisemitic by the IHRA document, then the onus is on you to explain yourself clearly and use neutral and
factual language to the extent possible to avoid alternative interpretations. To do otherwise runs the risk of promoting antisemitic hate, which we have way too much of right now. For those looking to advocate for Palestinians more constructively at this time, the call for a ceasefire authored by Burnaby City Council does not come across as antisemitic and is a good example:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-Oay4VQ-mJFmPHZiLD1UnMp9VrJGyrTzUW7piEeinC8/edit. For those who read this, I hope it’s constructive. David References 2023 Israel protest movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform_protests Cotler 2009.
https://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ISGAP-Working-Papers-Booklet-Cotler-09-copy.pdf IHRA definition of antisemitism: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism Nexus Document:
https://israelandantisemitism.com/the-nexus-document/ Jerusalem Declaration:
https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/ Sharansky’s 3D test:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Ds_of_antisemitism Anti-Israel statement signed by many SFU faculty:
https://forms.gle/Y3PaL9TmHipCVWqb9 Article on IJV founder having wacky views (which isn’t essential to my e-mail): https://www.pressreader.com/canada/national-post-latest-edition/20090922/281496452327308 From: Gerardo Otero Amnesty International: Israel’s
apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity Human Rights Watch: A
Threshold Crossed -- Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution Jewish Currents: A Textbook
Case of Genocide -- Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening? Best regards, Gerardo From: David Freeman <david_freeman@sfu.ca> Gerardo, You sent an anti-Israel e-mail to the group on Nov 9, on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The e-mail referenced (in an uncreative way) the classic antisemitic “Jews as powerful” trope in saying “the U.S. state
is acting as Netanyahu’s poodle”. It also contained some inaccuracies/exaggerations in the direction of the classic “Jews as powerful” trope, classic economics/political antisemitism. The entirety of the message, as criticism of Israel, passes the 3D test
for when criticism of Israel is “antisemitism hidden behind a façade of anti-Zionism” (quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Ds_of_antisemitism). Following your Kristallnacht e-mail, you sent a separate e-mail to the group about a group that vandalized Indigo, which was targeted because some aspect the Jewish CEO’s ties to. You termed “tremendous abuse of police power in
Toronto against a professor engaged in protest.” I reasonably interpreted that as condoning and supporting the vandalism (which you have subsequently cleared up), and opposing the use of police to prosecute and prevent such vandalism. (Those who are unaware
of the history and details of Kristallnacht can check the USHMM write-up). You did so in the midst of a spike in hate crimes against Jews here in Canada. In the recent stats for 2021, Jews and Blacks were the two groups most targeted for hate crimes in Canada, each targeted far more than other groups,
and Jews were the most intensively targeted relative to population (~1% of Canadians are Jewish). I know many people who have stopped going to community events or showing visible signs of their identify out of fear for their physical safety. I honestly am
coming to expect to see myself or someone I know violently attacked or killed in a pogrom here in Canada if the trend continues. We are still in the aftermath of the largest targeted massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, led by an organization (Hamas) that is as ideologically committed to eliminating the world’s Jews as the Nazi Party was. Just look up Hamas’
founding charter, or Ghazi Hamad’s recent interview where he stated on behalf of Hamas that “we will repeat the October 7 attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated”. And look up their call for "global mobilization", and the cheers of celebration
we saw immediately following their attacks here in Vancouver. The most charitable interpretation I can give is that you have some classically antisemitic beliefs and attitudes, are an anti-Zionist, and have a complete lack of awareness of or sensitivity to the mainstream Canadian and Israeli
Jewish perspectives. I found the less charitable and more sinister interpretation reasonable given the context. Even under the charitable interpretation, I find anti-Zionism hateful regardless of whether you wish to term it a form of antisemitism or something else, I’m not the only one (https://nationalpost.com/opinion/anti-zionism-is-antisemitism-in-sheeps-clothing,
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/bret-stephens-yes-anti-zionism-is-anti-semitism,
https://forward.com/opinion/151360/judea-pearl-anti-zionism-is-racism/). That's a longer discussion and there's no point in us having it unless you first re-evaluate the classical antisemitism that your e-mail demonstrated. Baharak’s views have been documented quite publicly.
https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1721055951686451414 If the first tweet doesn’t speak for itself as hateful, imagine putting in “movement for developing and protecting [insert your choice of nation-state, state itself, not the government at the time]” in place of “Zionism”, and try
again. The retweet celebrating October 7 is pretty obvious to me. If it isn’t to you, imagine an analogous tweet celebrating September 11, 2001. Other people have turned around from holding hateful views, like Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas founder, so there's still hope. David Freeman References to hate crime statistics https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2023026-eng.htm Further example of Gerardo's factual exaggeration: Israel probably doesn’t have what he claimed is the “strongest army in the Middle East” given that it’s tiny and Turkey, Egypt, and Iran are also in the Middle East, see e.g.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ranked-world-most-powerful-militaries-2023-firepower-us-china-russia-2023-5#. And the person who Gerardo referenced who talked about using nuclear weapons was immediately and broadly denounced and kicked out of his minor cabinet post; he's from a fringe party.
From: Gerardo Otero <otero@sfu.ca> David Freeman: Your claim that Baharak and I “hold and promote hateful views” is decidedly not measured. Do you have any evidence to substantiate such defamatory accusation? For me, the main point of sharing The Globe and Mail article last week was to highlight what I considered to be an obviously disproportionate use of police force against an act of
protest. Whether one agrees or not with engaging in such acts of direct action is more or less beside the point. Personally, I would not have engaged in such action nor do I condone it. But can it justify police brutality?
For those of you who have "X" have a listen to sociologist Luin Goldring reading some of her colleague Lesley Wood's testimony at a rally at YorkU. https://twitter.com/camilapress/status/1729823879714013387?s=20 Best regards, Gerardo __ Gerardo Otero Professor and Graduate Chair
School of International Studies Simon Fraser University Website: http://www.sfu.ca/people/otero.html Gerardo’s YouTube Channel I thankfully acknowledge that I live and work in unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlem Nations. From: Nicholas Blomley <nicholas_blomley@sfu.ca> Thank you, Behraad, for your measured response. Accusations that colleagues have "hateful views" does not seem to me to be measured.
Nicholas Kjølsen Blomley blomley@sfu.ca belongingsmatter.ca |