Zionism

October 7th, 2017

Written By - Hadas Galili '19

There was never a point in my life where I didn’t identify as a Zionist. I was raised to love the country of my forefathers and to look to Israel as a symbol of hope for my people, the Jewish people. Israel, I was taught, was a place for refuge for Jews during the Holocaust. Israel was the land that 586,000 Jews fled to after they were expelled from Arab countries. But the history doesn’t start there, Jewish people have lived in Israel for 3,000 years.

But again, this was in 1948. This was before the BDS movement, before Hezbollah, ISIS, Hamas and Boko Haram. This was before college campuses became hotbeds for anti-Zionist sentiment. This was even before the UN’s sanctions against Israel. In fact, the UN used to help Israel and played a major role in its establishment. In 1948, the Holocaust was still fresh in the everyone’s mind and although we promised “Never Again”, anti-Semitism was still rampant.

So, what is Zionism, exactly? It can be defined as the belief that the Jewish people have a right to a homeland and self-determination. Therefore, to be anti-Zionist is to adamantly oppose this right of the Jewish people. It is to believe that the Jewish people do not have a right to a homeland, despite the fact that is has been proven time and time again that the Jewish people need a safe haven.

Of course, you can criticise Israel’s governmental policies, but that is no reason to call for the destruction of the Jewish people or their homeland. Of course, you can have your own opinions, but that opinion should not include a general suspicion of the Jewish people as a whole. Of course, you can be anti-Israel but your stance should not be against the idea of a Jewish homeland.