Our Shared Humanity
Supporting the victims of injustice, oppression and genocide is not a matter of tribal identity. It is everyone’s duty.
(If you have received this by email, please click on the title to read the latest version. I often correct typos and continue to edit my essays after publishing the first version).
This essay emerged out of a recent correspondence with a fellow activist for Palestinian human rights. He told me about this interview between Katie Halper and Rabbi Shapiro, which I recommend.
In his discussion with Halper, Rabbi Shapiro argues against diaspora Jews speaking out on Israel’s genocide, because of their Jewishness. The Rabbi argues that anyone speaking negatively (or positively), as a Jew, about the actions of Israel legitimises Israel as a state of the Jews. Rabbi Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew who rightly believes he has no relationship at all to the state of Israel. He objects to the idea that Israel is a ‘Jewish state’, and that it speaks for ‘the Jews’. In the interview he says: “Zionism is the ideology that caused colonialism”. Rabbi Shapiro argues that even if tomorrow the Palestinians were free and had 95% of historic Palestine, and Israel had only 5%, he would still object to Zionism and its claim that Israel is a Jewish state.
Despite repeated invitations, I have consistently refused to join pro-Palestine groups and organisations that identify as Jewish. I have always thought that supporting the Palestinians has, or should have nothing to do with identifying as Jewish. Supporting human beings suffering from injustice, or oppression in any context, is a universal moral duty.
Israel and Zionists may have a ‘specialness complex’, but Israel’s genocidal settler-colonialism is not a special case. Neither the victim nor the perpetrator in Israel’s genocide are special. Genocides have been ubiquitous in human history. Regardless of the official narrative around each instance of genocide, they always stem from the same pathology that breeds division, tribalism, survivalism, and entitlement.
By ‘specialness complex’ I refer to the deep belief in Jewish-Israeli society that Jews are not a part of humanity; that everything about Jews—the good as well as the bad, is entirely unique, and ‘special’. Israel is a cult, and all cults are founded on a primitive psychology of survivalism, and on a belief that they are ‘special’ and different from the outside world. Cult psychology requires people to put aside their individual identity and adopt the identity the group gives them. When I still lived in Israel I felt suffocated, but I didn’t quite understand why. Only after I left, was I able to begin to grasp that I was, in fact, a cult leaver. I do not believe that it is possible to be a healthy human being, and at the same time be a loyal Jewish citizen, (or a supporter of the state of Israel). Healthy human beings do not foster fear, hatred and mistrust, and they do not commit or condone murder and abuse.
I do not accept the label ‘Jewish’ to describe myself. There is nothing ‘Jewish’ about me. I do not observe the Jewish religion and, as a woman, I do not like any version of it. I am not ‘traditional’, that is I do not observe even a watered down version of Jewish customs or traditions and my spiritual beliefs bear no relation to Jewish religion. The environment I grew up with, the school system I attended, were ‘secular’. But secular society in Israel still acknowledges and celebrates some version of Jewish festivals and customs. I abandoned Israeli Jewish festivals and customs long before leaving Israel. When I started to look more closely at what Jewish festivals meant and what they celebrated, I began to find them distasteful and disturbing. Zionist Israeli society has leveraged these festivals to reinforce and solidify Zionist identity. Israel’s interpretation of Judaism serves solely to legitimise settler-colonial genocide. In reality, Israeli society worships the god of Zionism—an ideology devoid of anything spiritual or sacred.
Zionism parallels the version of Christianity that spawned the Crusades and Inquisition. Both ideologies centre on power and control, rooted in fear and insecurity. Fear can drive people to impose order through their narrow, survivalist worldview, to serve only their limited interests. This reveals a fundamental absence of faith. Authentic faith teaches love, ethics, humility, and universal respect. It does not teach chauvinism, or control, nor does it call on people to eliminate those they do not like, or who do not agree with them.
The only thing that makes me ‘Jewish’ is that the Israeli state says I am—and Israel defines my Jewishness by my ‘blood’. I reject ‘race science’. No one should accept it. It has always been pure fiction, convenient only for justifying discrimination, slavery, apartheid, oppression, murder and genocide. My blood is no different from anyone else’s, and it bears no relation to group identity. Groups and group affiliations are social constructs. They are not biologically or genetically determined. People confuse ways of life, societal structures and belief systems with biology, and this remains the fundamental deception at the heart of ‘race science’.
I have long wondered what it means for people to identify as Jewish when they do not observe Jewish religion. In other words, what makes a person a Jew if they are ‘secular’. People have told me they identify as Jewish because of family history, cuisine, or customs, that are meaningful to them and that they consider Jewish. Identity is—or should be—a choice. Rabbi Shapiro is a human being who chooses to observe Jewish religion, because he believes that it is his path to a spiritual relationship with the Divine. His faith has nothing to do with his human DNA.
I have had several brief exchanges recently with people from Israel in the comment section on Substack, who I eventually banned/blocked because they became abusive. Their core accusation against me was simple: I abandoned ‘the tribe’ and am therefore ‘disloyal’. Their binary thinking blocks their ability to engage with any other aspect of my perspective. When confronted with my worldview, their only coping mechanism is to label me ‘crazy’—an effective defence against the cognitive dissonance I inevitably trigger in Zionists. If they can dismiss me as insane, they do not need to engage with what I am saying. The idea that I might have my own value system and choose to be live by my own principles is incomprehensible to them. No matter what atrocities Israel commits Zionists expect me to support it, because Israel, supposedly, is the only thing standing between me and annihilation.
This mindset, known in Zionist circles as ‘Israel right or wrong’, demands unlimited and unconditional support for Israel regardless of Israel’s actions. In the Zionist worldview there is no level of wrongdoing on Israel’s part that would ever justify renouncing one’s allegiance to it. If there is a clash between universal compassion (e.g., the principle of ‘never again to anyone’) and Israel’s interests, Zionist Jews are expected to side with Israel. The ultimate loyalty must always be to ‘the tribe’, which Israel audaciously claims to embody.
Israel indoctrinates its people to mistrust humanity. The world outside the group is portrayed as inherently antisemitic and hostile to Jews1. From this perspective, choosing humanity over the group means aligning with the enemies of Jews. And who, they reason, would make such a choice unless they are insane, or infected with the same antisemitism that, according to Israel, plagues the rest of the world? This explains why I too am labelled an ‘antisemite’.
Rabbi Shapiro is right. The reason to object to the Palestinian genocide has nothing to do with being Jewish. Those who protest as ‘Jews’, unintentionally legitimise a state that has hijacked Jewish identity, and that presumes to speak for all Jews everywhere. Having said that, Jewish activists could argue that they have a right to define themselves as Jews and protest as Jews, precisely because Israel does not have a monopoly on Jewishness. Either way, I agree with Rabbi Shapiro that Zionism and the exclusively Jewish state it created must disappear. A state cannot claim to be a democracy only for a select group, nor does it have any right to ethnically cleanse, oppress, torture, and murder others for any reason.
We each have to ask ourselves who decides our identity for us. Is it us, or is it our family or our culture? When people integrate and grow in therapy, they become more authentically themselves. They are less motivated by their limbic survivalism, and familial or tribal loyalties, and more able to be and act in the world based on their own values. It is interesting and awe-inspiring when you realise that these values always involve concern, and unconditional empathy and compassion for all. Psychologically well-developed and integrated people have no need for tribalism. As Rabbi Shapiro said, and I agree, Zionists need therapy.
It is cold and wet outside right now, and I love it. But I am indoors in a warm and dry home that I am lucky to have. I cannot stop thinking about those who are homeless; about the Palestinians who are suffering and dying because of the deliberate actions of the Israeli state, and the rest of the world’s collusion. My heart breaks for Israel’s victims, because my body and mind are the same as theirs. I would not want to experience what they are forced to experience. No one should. I cannot be in any kind of relationship with people, or groups who cannot, or will not, recognise the simple fact that we all have our humanity in common.
I do not wish us a ‘happy’ New Year. I do not ‘wish’ us anything. I would like us to choose a different direction as a species. Abolishing tribalism and entitlement, and learning to value everyone without losing our diversity will inevitably result in peace and happiness for all.
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This ‘us’ vs ‘them’ belief system is a common reaction to trauma, and is one of the hallmarks of all cults. It is by no means special or uniquely Zionist, ‘Jewish’, or Israeli.
Excellent article by Avigail shedding light on how settler colonialism regularly employs religious sectarianism to create and provoke division as a means to control land and resources. All religions have historically attracted sociopaths and narcissists who see such organisations as vehicles to acquire power. Governments also see religion as a means to an end. As an Irish Republican, for me the Israelis are just the latest iteration of genocidal empire-builders. Nothing special at all. Any self respecting god would self-destruct rather than be associated with the likes of Israel or those who describe themselves as Israelis.
Another very powerful and eloquent article...
Some of those who protest as Jews are religious, and others may follows some of the Jewish traditions. Others may be choosing to protest as Jews, essentially, because they feel that it gives them more political leverage than protesting as non-Jews. Their example and presence does powerfully repudiate the argument that criticism of Israel is always and necessarily antisemitic. On the other hand I agree with your points. It's a somewhat complex topic.