The kibbutz has long been celebrated by liberals as an example of Israel’s socialist pedigree, but movement head Nir Meir says the “first mission” of kibbutzim was “to conquer the land,” and today it stands ready to “maintain outposts” by Gaza.
Jonathan Ofir grew up on a kibbutz and was never told of the destroyed Palestinian village upon which it was built. But some signs remain, like the cacti which Israelis have attempted to appropriate, but signify the deep Palestinian ties to the land.
The shots that killed Yitzhak Rabin were not the opening shots of a civil war – they merely exposed the hidden war that had existed within Zionism since the beginning.
The film “The Voice of Ahmad” is screening in Israel, following the journey of Ahmad Masrawa, one of hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in Israel who were adopted by a kibbutz, agricultural communes that were at the core of the Zionist movement’s efforts to Judaize lands just stolen from the Palestinian people.