Breaking from Zionism, Jewish Voices for Justice

A brief documentary by Esra Ozt, for TRT World

I am grateful to TRT World for covering the topic of leaving Zionism. Most people—including many around the world who identify as Jews and support Israel—have no idea what Israel is like from within. If they actually moved to Israel and tried to live there, I suspect they would find Israeli society to be a harsh, insecure, anxiety-ridden, and quite bizarre, psychological pressure cooker. Only the most fervent ideologues move there, and they tend to settle in the Colonised West Bank, where they actively participate in the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. I find Zionist Jews who support Israel from the comfort of their own Western societies—especially those who claim to align themselves with left-wing politics— particularly hypocritical.

Though I have only a few moments in this fifteen-minute piece, I hope I managed to convey several key points. As my readers know, I do not speak for Palestinian human rights because of my Jewish background (as defined by Israel’s race science). I stand up for the Palestinians because they are human beings who have done nothing wrong, and who do not deserve to be victims of Israel’s genocidal settler-colonialism. No one deserves to be driven out of their homes, bombed back to the stone age, traumatised and ultimately exterminated. Everyone should stand shoulder to shoulder with victims in all contexts where abuse is inflicted: workplace bullying, child abuse, domestic abuse, financial exploitation and abuse, political abuse and, indeed, genocide. Where there is abuse in the context of imbalance of power, there is only one side decent people can take. Neutrality exists only when two sides in a relationship have equal power. Symmetry does not exist where there is a power imbalance. Standing with the Palestinians people who are facing extermination/elimination—the ultimate goal of settler-colonialism—is a straightforward, uncomplicated moral obligation for anyone who considers themselves a decent human being.

Like all cults, the Israeli state demands blind loyalty from those it defines as Jews. Israel regularly denies wrongdoing, even in the face of blatant evidence. Yet Israeli Jews are perfectly aware of their country’s actions. There are no secrets in Israel, and harbour any illusions about what Israel does, especially when the military is the country’s citizenry. The phrase ‘Israel right or wrong’ refers to the requirement to be loyal to Israel no matter what. Israel expects those it calls Jews to put aside human empathy and universal values, stand by Israel and help it persecute those it considers enemies. Leaving Zionism simply means refusing to participate in this deranged, soul-destroying game, and rejecting a life defined by fear and tribalism.

The Neturei Karta Rabbi in the video is absolutely correct when he says that Israel has no business calling itself Jewish. Jewishness is neither a race, nor an ethnicity, and neither is it a ‘nationality’ as my Israeli birth certificate claims. Judaism is a religion, and only people who observe some version of Jewish religious practice can call themselves Jews. I couldn’t have less in common with the Rabbi, yet I admire how he understands his religion as harmless, as a path to a relationship with God, and as teaching him to stand with the oppressed. When I was a child growing up in Israel, we were taught that Neturei Karta were traitors. Being a ‘traitor’ to a group that commits a crime against humanity a badge of honour.

Ilan Pappé says in the video that he did not expect the level of cruelty from Israel that we have been witnessing since October 2023. But I always did, and always dreaded what I knew was coming. I have always recognised what was lurking not far from the surface in Israel. Fortunately for Ilan, he grew up in a loving family. Growing up with two abusive parents in a hellish household, I developed a heightened sensitivity to the cruelty, entitlement, and duplicity that I witnessed at home. It is people like my parents who support the genocide and, sadly, they represent the majority in Israel. There is a small minority of decent human beings there, but it is too small and now faces increasing threat.

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