Experience and Ideology

I'm not Jewish, but I grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood. We were "goyim", but we weren'ttreated as outsiders. I went to nursery school at the Jewish Y. That was the only timethat we celebrated Jewish holidays. I still remember lighting a menorah that I'd made atthe nursery school. Oh yes, and I went to a day camp at the Jewish Y. When we had medical problems, there was the Jewish General Hospital at our disposal.

Having grown up among Jews, and given that Israel is a democracy, a westernised "oasis"in the frighteningly foreign territory that is the Middle East, a place whose peoplesare associated with images of violence, I should be identifying with Israel rather thanwith the Palestinians and the Lebanese, right?

When the war in Lebanon was raging on, I was just imagining- would some of the Jewish peopleI've known, who've accepted me as friends at various times- would they hate me if they knewwhat I really thought of what Israel was doing?

I know of Jews who, needless to say, feel this sort of thing far more strongly. The Jewish community is admirable in many ways because it really is a community, so well organizedin taking care of each other (and even of non-Jews!)- but that organization has another side.Those who go against the institutional (Zionist) view of the Jewish community risk being treatedas traitors. I heard of Jews being called "self-hating Jews". A Jewish friend told me thatan she was at a meeting where an anti-Zionist Jew was called a "dirty Jew" by a right-wing Zionist.

I was heartbroken to see the community I'd grown up in mobilizing in favour of atrocities. It shows how nationalism (and other ideologies) can bring out the worst in otherwise decent people. I love people, but not their ideologies. Ideologies are used to hurt people. They distortnoble ideals, turning them into cruel jokes.

Zionism is an ideology. Some of the ideals that were in Zionism were good, but they've been distorted by the requirements of an ideology of people with the power to oppress other people. Even when modern Israel was founded, the flip side was the disposession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians- refugees to this day.

I don't believe that there will be a two-state solution. They may talk in Israel about"disengagement", but Israel won't stop trying to rule over the Palestinians in one way oranother. After all, Israeli troops continue to ravage the Gaza strip. The Palestinians are not allowed to elect their own government without interference. Israel can't leave the Palestinians alone, because its very existance is predicated on the denial of the existance of a Palestinian people with rights comparable to those of the Jews- or at least that's how Zionists seem to feel deep down. But eventually, I believe that Israel in its current form will be- not destroyed, but transformed. Everything now is pointing to a one-state solution- and it's not people who are "anti-Israel" who'll be the cause.