Gideon Levy has described Zionism as “Israel’s fundamentalist religion.” But what happens to those Israelis who reject it? Jonathan Ofir describes his journey away from Zionism, and the societal exclusion that befalls those who drift away from the ethos.
Jonathan Ofir criticizes the recent Women Wage Peace march for avoiding politics and refusing to take the occupation on directly: “when the party is over, the Palestinians go to their Bantustans, and the ‘moderate settler women’ drive on their Jewish-only roads to get to their settlements. If only the Arabs could somehow accept this as ‘peace’, then all would be well.”
The Israeli Ministry of Education dropped an explicit prohibition on racist answers by students on civic exams. So if they answer, Different population groups should be allowed to live in separate neighborhoods, thereby justifying apartheid, teachers should let it go.
Miko Peled’s suggestion at a British Labour conference that “Holocaust: yes or no” should be open to debate, has thrown raw meat to Holocaust deniers as well as Israel apologists. Even as he says that Zionism should not be debated.
The witch-hunt against ostensible ‘anti-semites’ in the British Labour has intensified into ‘thought crime’ persecution. A Jewish professor was expelled from Labour because of what Jews “feel and know” about his argument that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
“I didn’t know anything,” Danish journalist Herbert Pundik says of the Tantura massacre in Israel in 1948. Herbert Pundik has been authoritatively shaping Danish public on Israel. But he was a Mossad spy whilst being a journalist and leading editor, and was serving in the Zionist army when an Israeli town was ethnically cleansed in 1948. He turns 90 and is celebrated by Danish media.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak bemoans that the left is not sufficiently represented in celebrations of Israel’s 1967 occupation and settlement. He brags about all the leading “left” wing politicians and generals who acted to “liberate” those territories for Jews.
Elor Azarya had “endured a lot”, said an Israeli military spokesman, announcing Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot’s decision to cut four months off the soldier-medic’s already lenient 18-month sentence for killing a wounded, immobile Palestinian alleged attacker by a bullet to the head at point blank on the street in Hebron in 2016.
Jonathan Ofir responds to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN where he said he wanted to visit Antarctica because he heard penguins are enthusiastic supporters of Israel: “Those Penguins, they would completely know what’s what. Black and white. Obey – get a fish. Resist – no fish. Nowadays you are congratulating the far right ‘Decision Plan’ for annexing the West Bank, which is also black and white: Accept Apartheid, leave, or face the wrath of Israel. Palestinians might not like this, they might prove difficult. Penguins will be much easier. Fish will do the trick. They’ll stay, and you can become the Caesar of the Caesar penguins! It will be glorious!”
Two Gaza musicians were barred from participating in the West Bank tour of the Palestinian Youth Orchestra, and the Israeli Supreme Court affirmed the ban. But a technicality in the Israeli bureaucratic apparatus meant they could participate in the West Bank anyway– and the world did not end, as the rights group Gisha, which fought for the musicians, noted.