Israelism - A never-ending war for the Holy Land? | Israel Palestine War | ENDEVR Documentary

Summary

The documentary "Israelism" delves into the multifaceted relationship between Israel and Palestine, exploring the deep-seated cultural and historical ties that bind and divide these nations. Through personal narratives and historical recounts, the documentary highlights both the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, illustrating the complexity of the conflict. It examines how education, cultural identity, and politics influence different generations, both in the region and among American Jews. The film encourages viewers to question their preconceived notions, providing insights into the struggles and aspirations of those living in and around the Holy Land.

Highlights

• Personal stories from Israelis and Palestinians provide a human face to the conflict, urging empathy and understanding. 🌍
• The documentary explores the role of education in shaping perceptions of the Israel-Palestine conflict among American Jews. 🎓
• It challenges the narrative that supports unconditional support for Israel, encouraging viewers to explore varied perspectives. 🔍
• The historical and ongoing implications of policies in the region are explored, raising questions about justice and identity. ⚖️
• The film presents diverse viewpoints, questioning the long-standing narratives that have influenced the broader geopolitical standpoints. 🌏

Key Takeaways

• The documentary sheds light on the deep cultural ties and conflicts between Israel and Palestine, emphasizing the complexity of the Holy Land's history. 🗺️
• Personal narratives reveal both Israeli and Palestinian experiences, encouraging empathy and understanding across divides. 🤝
• The influence of American Jewish identity on the Israel-Palestine conflict is examined, revealing varying perspectives and generational shifts. 🇺🇸
• Education and advocacy play crucial roles in shaping viewpoints and potential future resolutions. 📚
• Viewers are invited to reconsider preconceived notions and engage in a more nuanced dialogue about the region. 💭

Overview

"Israelism" is an enlightening documentary that delves into the deep-rooted narratives surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. It offers a comprehensive overview of both historical and current issues, showcasing voices from both sides of the divide. The documentary emphasizes personal stories, making the conflict relatable and highlighting the human element amidst the geopolitical tension.

The film explores how the American Jewish community's perception of Israel is shaped by cultural identity and education. Through interviews and personal anecdotes, it presents varying perspectives, paving the way for a deeper understanding of the ongoing struggle. The documentary challenges audiences to question long-held beliefs and engage in more informed discussions about the Holy Land.

Moreover, "Israelism" focuses on the evolving dialogue within the Jewish community about Zionism and the Israeli identity. It provides a platform for a new generation of Jews who are increasingly questioning traditional narratives and seeking more balanced viewpoints. By presenting these fresh perspectives, the film invites viewers to join a broader conversation on peace and coexistence.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Birthright Israel event This chapter introduces the theme of Jewish identity and the significance of Israel within the Jewish community. It mentions an event related to Birthright Israel, an organization that sponsors free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults, and highlights the disconnect between the Jewish community's strong connection to Israel and the lack of understanding from the non-Jewish community. The use of applause and music suggests a celebratory or significant gathering.
• 03:00 - 10:00: Jewish upbringing and connection to Israel The chapter discusses the Jewish upbringing and connection to Israel, highlighting the significance of events such as the Birthright Israel mega event. The narrative begins with a lively welcome to the 2018 event, emphasizing Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. There is a sense of unity and excitement as attendees from various places, including the United States, are acknowledged. This setting serves as a backdrop to explore the deep-rooted Jewish traditions and the cultural bonds with Israel.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Jewish education and advocacy for Israel This chapter explores the influence of Jewish education and advocacy for Israel among young Jews in the diaspora. It features personal anecdotes, including one from Michael, who hails from Detroit, Michigan. He shares his admiration for Israeli soldiers, describing them as strong and admirable.
• 15:00 - 27:00: Personal experiences and perspectives on Israel and Palestine The chapter presents personal experiences and perspectives on Israel and Palestine, providing insights into the complex dynamics of the region. It captures individual stories and viewpoints, highlighting the nuanced and diverse nature of opinions surrounding the ongoing conflict.
• 27:00 - 38:30: Military service and occupation of Palestinian territories The chapter begins with the author's first visit to the United States, highlighting interactions with Jewish Americans. These individuals express a dichotomous sentiment, indicating they like the author personally but dislike Palestinians as a group, despite knowing only the author personally. Initially, the author takes these comments to heart but eventually understands that people's views are often shaped by limited experiences and perspectives.
• 38:30 - 52:00: American Jewish perspectives and activism This chapter explores the ignorance and lack of awareness among certain groups regarding the situation in Palestine and the experiences of Palestinians. It narrates a personal account of the first impressions and inquiries made upon arriving in Palestine, reflecting on the initial reactions and the stark realities observed. The chapter aims to shed light on the gap in understanding and encourages a deeper engagement with the issues facing Palestinians.
• 52:00 - 64:00: The challenges and conversations within the Jewish community The chapter explores the internal dialogues and challenges faced by individuals within the Jewish community. A young person, curious about a forbidden subject, repeatedly encounters warnings and fear about the potential consequences of pursuing this knowledge. It highlights the tension between curiosity and caution, as well as the broader implications of facing uncomfortable truths.
• 64:00 - 79:00: Activism and voices for change In the chapter titled 'Activism and Voices for Change', the narrative begins with a reflective note as the author stumbles upon remnants at their family's home, specifically bits and pieces related to Hebrew culture and perhaps historical artifacts or documents. This discovery might be suggestive of a deeper exploration into cultural identity, heritage, or a personal journey prompted by these findings. The theme suggests a backdrop of music and a sense of digging into personal or collective history, potentially setting the stage for discussions on activism and social change spurred by these revelations.

Israelism - A never-ending war for the Holy Land? | Israel Palestine War | ENDEVR Documentary Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the non-jewish community does not understand our fixation our obsession with Israel good
• 00:30 - 01:00 evening and welcome to the 2018 to the 2016 2019 tle Birthright Israel winter mega event summer mega event right here in jity the Eternal capital of our people is there anyone here from the United States of America there
• 01:00 - 01:30 go what's your name where you from brother I'm Michael and I'm from Detroit Michigan everybody knows somebody who was in the Army Israeli soldiers they're hot they're awesome they're strong they're everything we could all want to be um my name is Han from Brooklyn New York I came around Birthright in 2016 I joined the army 4 months after I finished birth right it's my flight back
• 01:30 - 02:00 to America and I'm still in the Army now yeah Army SL that's beautiful [Music]
• 02:00 - 02:30 the first time I've been to the United States I met so many nice people Jewish Americans will tell me things like we like you but we don't like Palestinians even though I'm the only Palestinian they know of course around that time I would take it personally but then you come to realize that people do not
• 02:30 - 03:00 know they know nothing about Palestine and Palestinians or have no idea about what Palestinians are going [Music] through coming into Palestine for the first time I remember asking people what
• 03:00 - 03:30 do you think should I do it and the response that I always got was you know you're going to be [Music] killed as a curious young person like what is this thing that is so horrifying that you can't bear to let me see it [Music]
• 03:30 - 04:00 like is it that [Music] bad found in the depths of my family's [Music] house I found some some of my Hebrew
• 04:00 - 04:30 Hebrew textbooks from elementary school isim my Israel congratulations to Simone Zimmerman for winning the Israel Jubilee contest February 1998 I was seven I had like a pretty traditional Jewish upbringing I grew up in La I went to a Jewish Day School kindergarten through the end of high school I went to Jewish youth group Jewish
• 04:30 - 05:00 Camp I have family in Israel I lived in Israel in high school on an exchange program Israel was just treated like a core part of being a Jew so you did prayers and you did Israel [Music]
• 05:00 - 05:30 Israel is something that I feel so passionately about like it's you know it's it's my greatest passion um everything is real I became a Jewish educator after my daughter started Hebrew school I started teaching second grade during the years I did fourth grade also and just to be able to start them on this wonderful
• 05:30 - 06:00 journey I mean if you it gets in your blood and we teach Israel at the day school very well we introduce them to the food and to the music and to the culture in addition to the history and the geography figure out which one is the Israeli flag draw a circle around every time you see the symbol of the state of Israel draw your own symbol of the state of Israel
• 06:00 - 06:30 we also celebrated holidays obviously so Hanukkah Israeli Independence all of it together can you separate Israel in in Judaism I don't know I can't you know some people I think can to me it's the same you you can't separate it Israel is Judaism and Judaism is Israel um and that is who I am and that is my identity and I think every single thing that I experienced along my life has melded into that like there was never you know a divide for
• 06:30 - 07:00 [Music] me I grew up in a conservative Jewish household in Atlanta Georgia Israel was a central part of everything we did in [Music] school my elementary middle school as well as my high school both had organized trips to Israel which was touted as one of the most important things you could
• 07:00 - 07:30 do do you want to go to Israel too to to to to to when I visited Israel for the first time when I was 8 years old I put a note in the cotel in the Western Wall saying that one day I hope to live in Israel and prosper every every one of our kids
• 07:30 - 08:00 should be going over not for 10 days but for a minimum of a semester or a year every time I send somebody over to Israel they come back all of a sudden they feel totally different about who and what they are as Jews when I was a teenager and I went to Israel it was amazing to me to travel in this place where Hebrew was a language that I finally got to speak on the street with people and where Jewish Heroes the streets were named after
• 08:00 - 08:30 them we're planting seeds that eventually are going to Blossom does the average congregant understand that I'm teaching them to become Zionist probably not but it is part of my madness so to speak I learned about Israel as this great miracle of Jewish history for thousands of years we were
• 08:30 - 09:00 persecuted and Israel is the place that you can go to be safe my grandfather's family made it to Israel his immediate family were some of the only ones who escaped the Holocaust many American Jews if not most people I know have family or friends that live in Israel Israel is the insurance policy it's still today a Jew doesn't have to worry
• 09:00 - 09:30 where is he going to go God forbid even here no Holocaust Survivor will say to you it could never happen again uh I was born in Poland 1940 not a good place for a Jewish kid to be [Applause] born my parents were separated my father went through a series of camps
• 09:30 - 10:00 who knows why I survived in a million and a half Jewish children perished and so Israel became very very significant in my life even though 6,000 miles away I probably visited Israel over a 100 times in my lifetime um you know as we sit now my granddaughter is there for two weeks and in high school I did have many friends in Israel growing up and every time I would visit Israel I
• 10:00 - 10:30 felt closer and closer the Jewish summer camps would always bring a big contingency of Israelis to try to drive Israeli culture within the camp and connect the American Jews to Israeli culture
• 10:30 - 11:00 so when I was in high school I went on this Jewish youth trip to Israel and one of the programs we did was called gadna where we spent a day pretending to be soldiers in the Israeli Army we wore army uniforms and stuff like that was just sort of a normal part of what our childhood looked like at summer camp in the middle of the night they would wake us up and take us
• 11:00 - 11:30 out sometimes that was to pull pranks and other times I remember doing military games using the command pataa sneaking around so anytime the commander who was one of our counselors said bataa we would all get on the ground and they made a game out of it simulating being in the military and sneaking around and having to be a part of that
• 11:30 - 12:00 on youth programs that I participated in in Israel you could spend a whole week on an Israeli army base wearing army uniforms and going through a sort of simulation of basic training and that's where some people you know learn to shoot guns for the first time it's not just regular military games it's specifically using Israeli military commands often with Israeli counselors giving them
• 12:00 - 12:30 when you're a young kid that really drills it into you that this is something important and I wanted to be a part of that we often talked about the ways that you could be a good supporter of the Jewish people one was to join the Army and the other was to go become an Israel Advocate there were even clubs within school to work on ad advocating for
• 12:30 - 13:00 Israel my high school sent a delegation to the APAC conference APAC the American Israel public affairs committee they're the people who tell the Congress which legislation affecting Israel they like and which they don't the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today unbreakable tomorrow unbreakable forever ape is just the thing that you do like going to the APAC conference is
• 13:00 - 13:30 just sort of seen as like a community event here with us today are leaders from across the pro-israel community including Abe foxman I learned a long time ago there is no way you can say no to Abe you know I don't know to what extent what anybody makes a difference I try to make a difference Jewish Education is still a major
• 13:30 - 14:00 priority for the future and certainly relationship to Israel if you were to ask me we had $100 million how would you change the future of American Jews I would make trips to Israel available to any Jewish kid who wanted to go make that experience they're doing it now it's called Birthright
• 14:00 - 14:30 [Music] it is up to you to be our soldiers abroad armed with love and knowledge and conviction ready to sway public opinion in Israel favor learning about the quote unquote conflict is something that is part of
• 14:30 - 15:00 programming as something that you have to learn how to defend Israel from the lies that other people are saying and you have to be able to tell people the truth by the time I got to college I had teachers who said to me people hate Israel people are attacking Israel people don't know the truth about Israel and we're the only people who actually know the truth about Israel
• 15:00 - 15:30 if you're a Jewish college student hillo is your central address for Jewish life on campus as a freshman I remember walking into hillo was one of the first places I went when I got to campus it's a place where you can go for meals to meet other young Jewish people pro-israel advocacy is a central part of how they work to engage Jewish young people I'm the director of Engagement in programs here at Hill L and this campus
• 15:30 - 16:00 happens to be very proactive for Israel a lot of people are very passionate a lot of people love Israel and there's a lot of advocacy here on campus in lots of different ways lots of different groups how did you become involved in advocacy for Israel I kind of came to H just cuz I was new in campus I didn't really know where to go and I really did find a lot of friends here I came here on and off but then when I went on the birthright trip and kind of got to know the staff Tom and Jackie a lot better
• 16:00 - 16:30 got to know people at h a lot better and just got to know Israel a lot better I came back and I knew that I wanted to put a lot more of myself into H the Jewish community on campus and just Israel advocacy in General on Birthright we had Israeli Soldiers with us throughout the entire trip you learn so much and you learn the reason that they serve it's just a feeling that I don't think any of us could ever imagine except for my job is is doing Israeli program
• 16:30 - 17:00 on campus and that relates to a Jewish events cultural or political um sorry Israeli events uh uh cultural political I would say name a university in America we probably have a person there I like to talk about the Army a lot because that's an experience that I lived through and I have a lot of personal stories there a couple students who said yeah I'm thinking about joining uh the IDF one day so my first thing is saying
• 17:00 - 17:30 them are you sure because uh it's not an easy it's not an easy decision that being said it would probably end up being the most meaningful experience that you ever go through you're going to tell your kid stories about it uh yeah one of our former young emissaries just graduated into the air force I mean that's the greatest gift you can give you know and and we actually have had quite a few of our
• 17:30 - 18:00 former students join the IDF amazing I mean just amazing it's these are kids these are 18 19y old it's like something I've dreamed about doing since I was 7 years old you have like a you find your sense of purpose all my friends are so proud of me and they understand that this is something that like I have to [Music] do almost 10% of my graduating class at my Jewish High School joined the Israeli Army and I had many friends from my summer camp and youth group who join the
• 18:00 - 18:30 Army as well part of becoming part of Israeli Society is to join the military when I was in high school I told my parents I don't even need to apply to college because I'm going to just join the Israeli military and make aah and live in Israel I honestly have felt for many years years that I fit in better in
• 18:30 - 19:00 Israeli Society than I do in American society even before I moved there and I wanted to defend what I saw as my country so when I enlisted I was a Mist which is a a heavy machine gunst during my basic and Advanced Training and then they put me on a light machine gun we were training for
• 19:00 - 19:30 war training for strategy to conquer hilltops and Conquer Open Spaces one week was focused on Urban Warfare in close quarters and that was simulated in what looked like Arab housing after the 7 months of our training we were deployed to the West Bank
• 19:30 - 20:00 our missions included working in two different checkpoints patrolling villages on foot in full gear and bulletproof vests we would go into apartment buildings go up to the roof and make sure that we could be seen so that we could make our presence
• 20:00 - 20:30 felt we wanted them to know that we were watching that was the goal of the [Music] mission we would set up what's called a checkpost which is a checkpoint that is situated uh at a major intersection at checkpoints we would stop people create a traffic jam check their IDs check their trunks every day on their way to work or on
• 20:30 - 21:00 their way to visit their family to keep them on their toes essentially and they being Palestinians even though Israel was a central part of everything we did in school we never really discussed the Palestinians [Music]
• 21:00 - 21:30 it was presented to us that Israel was basically an empty Wasteland when the Jews arrived there were some Arabs there they said but there was no organized people they had really treated the land poorly yeah there are there are Palestinians and they just want to kill us all and want us to leave the land [Music]
• 21:30 - 22:00 I I just don't think I had any conception of anything about what it means to be a Palestinian besides that it means that you're a person who kills Jews or wants to kill Jews it was always presented to us that the Arabs only know [Music] terrorism ever since I came back from the states I I realized that the best way to help people understand the reality imposed on us by the state of
• 22:00 - 22:30 Israel is for them to be there the one thing that I want to give the rest of my life for is to help people understand the reality that is going on in Palestine I grew up all of my life in this occupation I grew up in Bethlehem in Palestine to be honest I do have my days where I wake up and look in the mirror and ask what is going on and and what
• 22:30 - 23:00 can I even do today to change anything in the situation I remember from the youngest age growing up with my parents always warning me always telling me not to go out not to go on the street not to play on the street because of the soldiers and the settlers of course like your first experience with a soldier is terrorizing you know especially because they would invade your house or your family's house late at night like after they love to work after midnight my first experience with
• 23:00 - 23:30 with soldiers as a child was an experience that put fear uh in me an American Jewish Soldier talking to my father and yelling at him and shouting at him which of course as a child you feel very ashamed and insulted and then my father because ironically we are American citizens as well turned to him in an American accent and asked him where he was from and then the soldier
• 23:30 - 24:00 was almost like shocked by this by this question uh because for his mind you know he wants to say Israel and Jewish people but he's talking to an American now and he told him like from Chicago and and just this this reality that like even as a child I remember this this this American soldier who just moved here to be part of an army to play Cowboys and Indians somebody who comes here from New York or from Chicago and claiming that this land is
• 24:00 - 24:30 theirs what makes like an 18 years old American kid who was given 10 days trip for free in Palestine what made them want to come in and sacrifice his life why would the Foreigner think it's okay to have Superior rights to the rights of the indigenous population because somebody told them it's home this is our Land This Is Ours
• 24:30 - 25:00 that's what was conveyed to us it's got to me that people look at Palestine and Palestinians from the point of view of the oppressor not from the point of view of the oppressed I think what I knew about who was in Israel before the state was created is basically there were some Jews always there most Jews in Exile we'd always yearned to go
• 25:00 - 25:30 [Music] back the idea that there were Native inhabitants that lived there was not even part of my frame of reference [Music] [Music]
• 25:30 - 26:00 [Music] this restaurant makes the most delicious humus and ffu in
• 26:00 - 26:30 town the family is not from the town of bam just like my mother's family they were expelled from the city of fiafa back in 1948 I was born to a family of victims of the ethnic lending of Palestine the ethnic lending that was carried out by the founders of the state of Israel my mother's family were expelled from the largest Palestinian City pre1
• 26:30 - 27:00 1948 which was the city of yaat my father was a newborn at that time he was carried by his family they ended up in Bethlehem waiting for the atrocities to come to an end so they would be able to go back home of course none of those people were ever allowed back home my father father's family was in
• 27:00 - 27:30 Jerusalem up until 1948 When The War happened he was shot by a sniper and was killed on the spot uh his children actually dragged his body down and buried it in the courtyard of the house a few days later when the Jewish forces took over that neighborhood uh they demanded that all the non-jews of that neighborhood be evicted it was the biggest Mass Exodus
• 27:30 - 28:00 percentage wise of a people from their land in modern history the ethnic lending of Palestine the term neba the catastrophe is the tragedy or catastrophe that hit almost every single Palestinian family nearly 750,000 victims is traumatizing in almost every possible level [Music]
• 28:00 - 28:30 nearly 78% of the land of Palestine became under the control of the state of Israel what else was I told about Israel we were told it was a land without a people for a people without a land and we came back from the ashes of the Holocaust the state of Israel was birthed [Music]
• 28:30 - 29:00 the rights of the people that lived here does not exist in that narrative and other than us being an obstacle the NBA continues it started in 1948 and continues until this [Music] day in 1967 the state of Israel managed to complete its control over Palestine by taking over the territory of the West
• 29:00 - 29:30 Bank and the territory of Gaza okay here's the good stuff more maps of Greater Israel that's just sort of you know the whole land we're always taught that the whole land was ours I mean you know that's sort of what they teach you after the 1967 war Israel put a very forceful very violent military force to
• 29:30 - 30:00 dominate and control the lives of the Palestinians that continues until this day the intention of Israeli control over the land of Palestine is complete
• 30:00 - 30:30 colonization of the territory building homes for those who were born to Jewish families and also demolishing the homes of those who were born for Palestinian families Palestinians kicked out from their homes confiscated by settlers you are stealing my house and if I don't steal it someone else is going to steal it no no one is allowed to steal
• 30:30 - 31:00 it a massive movement to confiscate land to build settlements to expand settlements before we were even fully trained we were deployed to protect settlements it was all for the security of the settlements this fil the occupied West M with Jo ises living in different
• 31:00 - 31:30 colonies and settlements throughout the region and those individuals are subject to Israeli civil law while you have Palestinians living within the exact same territory that are subject to an Israeli military [Music] law when an American citizen comes here he has more rights than I would have my entire life
• 31:30 - 32:00 [Music] we are in the quote unquote West Bank we're in the quote unquote settlements this is one of the roadblocks that kind of ensured that the cars get checked to that no terrorists are coming
• 32:00 - 32:30 in I lived in America and then I came back to Israel by myself at the age of 17 to serve in the Army and there are elements what I would call the jihadist elements that don't accept our presence here but they'll It's just tough for them it's a great vision coming to fruition in our time and there's nothing going to stop us [Music]
• 32:30 - 33:00 from the day you are born you live in day in day out day in day out without experiencing a day of Freedom Palestinians have to be forced to live in cages so I um I'm Israeli born and
• 33:00 - 33:30 raised as a young Israeli growing up my grandparents lived in the center of Jerusalem the battle for Jerusalem at least 26 people are reported dead people I knew were injured and killed and from a very young age I knew I'm going to be joining the military I was never in a Palestinian house till I barge into one in the middle of the night [Music]
• 33:30 - 34:00 one of things that I did routinely was a mission where you are ordered to take over a Palestinian family's home and use that house as a military point no warrant you don't call in advance it's a military occupation and during my service there were many moments where I saw myself acting violent ly and there were moments of um of
• 34:00 - 34:30 shame we can detain any Palestinian just because he looked at us in the wrong way that's a system that's based on violence what are you doing
• 34:30 - 35:00 we have a security matter you know security it's about security is this security I don't know we'll see this is a thre for you you don't know [Applause] yet when I was stationed in the West Bank one day one of my commanders came and grabbed me and one other Soldier and said the there is a detainee at the haa
• 35:00 - 35:30 checkpoint and we need to go pick him up and bring him to the Detention Center that's in the base when we got there the Palestinian detainee who was maximum in his early 20s was sitting on the curb with his hands tied behind his back with zip ties and blindfolded we got to the Detention Center within the base and right outside there were about eight soldiers waiting for
• 35:30 - 36:00 us they saw us come they grabbed the detainee from our hands and threw him to the ground while he's still blindfolded in hands tied behind his back and they started kicking him for a good few minutes I was responsible for this man's well-being I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the Detention
• 36:00 - 36:30 Center that was my job and right outside the fence of the Detention Center they grab him from me and they start beating him I I felt responsible but my commander wasn't saying anything so how could I say anything the entire time that this was happening a military police officer was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cig as soon as these guys were done kicking
• 36:30 - 37:00 this Palestinian man the military police officer tossed his cigarette he came brought him inside the detention center and I didn't even speak up I didn't speak up and that's just one of many stories uh that I have from My Time in the West Bank
• 37:00 - 37:30 it took many years for me to really come to terms with my part in it only after I got out of the army did I begin to realize that the stuff that I did in the daytoday just working in checkpoints patrolling Villages that in and of itself was immoral Palestinians in the West Bank even
• 37:30 - 38:00 though their lives are controlled by the state of Israel from morning noon and night are not even theoretically citizens of the country in which they live you see in some ways what non-democracy looks like up close when people look at the West Bank today and say this is an aparti system it's not just throwing out a word a Palestinian lives under a different legal system than an Israeli settler living next
• 38:00 - 38:30 [Music] door anyone who you know sees these facts on the grounds or speaks to Palestinians would understand that this is a process of settler colonization of an apari regime I remembered Crossing that checkpoint into Bethlehem and before this I had been very much opposed to ever using the word apartheid but seeing
• 38:30 - 39:00 the sort of Night and Day difference just by Crossing this wall changed that for me in an instant serving in serving in the Israeli Army is obviously one way of supporting Israel but there's also another modern battle that is happening on campuses each and every single day
• 39:00 - 39:30 and you are standing in the front of it and um I mean the Israeli government Israeli people thank you for that and that's why they put me here probably and I thank you for that so we need PR you uh there's a lot of PR to be made this University thank God is fairly apolitical but I've heard all over the place how universities are these hot beds of anti-Semitic and anti-israel
• 39:30 - 40:00 work I remember very vividly I was sitting in my dorm room with a friend of mine we got a phone call that an anti-israel bill was being introduced in the student government we bolted on the way called our parents both got sent talking points and then we went into this Student
• 40:00 - 40:30 Government meeting everybody take seat the student Senate at the University of California Berkeley calling on campus officials to divest from companies that Supply weapons that Israel uses in its occupation of the Palestinian territories you are siding with the
• 40:30 - 41:00 Palestinians on the Israeli Palestinian conflict there's just no question about it I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight it is anti-Semitism it is if you are trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus and I remember all of us going well uh you shouldn't boycott Israel because uh it's applying a double standard and you shouldn't boycott Israel because it's unfair to single out Israel please I beg of you I beg you please to
• 41:00 - 41:30 have compassion and to remember that we are alienating students and I am devastated by spell I am a human being I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said you know Jewish students you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized you know my aunts and cousins didn't sleep for weeks while bombs were falling overhead and Gaza what do you have to say to that if divestment is hostile then then where do
• 41:30 - 42:00 we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation I was thrown into all these conversations where people were throwing around all these words that I'd never heard before occupation settlement apartheid ethnic cleansing I just never heard anyone use any of these terms before I thought I knew so much about Israel but I didn't really know what anybody was talking about when they were talking about all these things
• 42:00 - 42:30 I remember coming to Hillel and saying why aren't we answering Palestinian students questions I felt really embarrassed by it because mostly I felt like we weren't doing a good job refuting their arguments do we not have an actual counterargument besides like rockets double standard anti-Semitism I people people I I couldn't get an answer from anybody and that was really disturbing for me I mean there are these people called
• 42:30 - 43:00 Palestinians who think that Israel wields all this power over their lives and don't have rights don't have water what like literally what is this how is this happening how do I how do I respond to it people that have a problem with Israel there's a good chance they're misguided somewhere or another everyone have the freedom in Israel like you can have any religion you could do whatever you want in Israel but only in Israel in
• 43:00 - 43:30 the Middle East a lot of like it's a lot of it's a lot of misinformation some of it comes from misinformation some of it comes from ignorance some of it comes from lies and it's very hard to deal with that in any kind of a of a positive way when they're coming from such a place of not understanding what the reality the situation when they just have this in their in their head all this misinformation and all these lies I mean somehow Pro Palestinian has become pro-
• 43:30 - 44:00 social justice I wanted to know answers from within my own community and nobody could answer those questions for me how is it that I I'm like the best the Jewish Community has to offer I've been through all the trainings all the programs and I don't know what the occupation is I I don't know what the settlements [Music] are eventually it got to a point where I found my s wanting answers to the questions the Palestinian students were
• 44:00 - 44:30 asking and so it led me on a process of trying to go figure those things out for myself what is this thing that is so horrifying that you can't bear to let me see it the summer after my freshman year I went to Palestine and I knowingly crossed line for the first
• 44:30 - 45:00 [Music] time I don't think I realize the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground would really Shock Me and horrify me so if you look at your map um we're standing again right before um
• 45:00 - 45:30 is going to turn red just so we here where the soldiers are standing um so just look behind you guys this is a block of houses the people living in all these apartments here were not allowed to walk on this main road so this was what like a a red Road a sterilized Road and imagine if you're family living here you can't open the front door of your house and walk out I listening to Palestinian students talking about what it was like being beaten at a checkpoint and sitting down
• 45:30 - 46:00 with a Palestinian family and hearing their story about being displaced by Israeli settlers and even when we fix the water wells and and we try to cultivate the rainwater to come into the water wells even those things are being attacked by the settlers either they throw throw stones in them or they throw chemicals in them or they throw dead animals in the
• 46:00 - 46:30 wells so he's saying first he welcomes you and you know thank you very much for coming especially because you're Jewish the area here is populated by Palestinian Farmers Supreme Court in Israel ruled that they're allowed to live in the caves that are here they're not allowed to build anything today the Civil Administration and the Army came and demolished some of the tents
• 46:30 - 47:00 here something is deeply wrong here and it's it's breaking my heart what we've been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe and I guess the more I learned about that the more I came to see that as a
• 47:00 - 47:30 lie so this is the checkpoint that divides uh Jerusalem from Bethlehem Palestinians definitely cannot drive on this road so you can see that we're basically driving with walls on both sides of us right now
• 47:30 - 48:00 you want to go to like the M square or where do you want to go we're in your head man this is this is my barber
• 48:00 - 48:30 as someone who came to see Jerusalem or Tel Aviv as places that I should imagine as home I remember coming into the West Bank for the first time and actually seeing this place as someone else's home this is a normal place where people are just trying to live their lives for me to get to Jerusalem I have to think of first of all having the permit getting to the checkpoint waiting in lines for the checkpoint getting to the
• 48:30 - 49:00 soldiers at the checkpoint the soldier might do anything to me at that point including sending me back and then crossing the checkpoint and then having to take public transportation I just the fact that I cannot drive right as a Palestinian I cannot drive in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel right so we drove here today and and if I'm at home by 10: p.m. and I get caught on the other side then I could be detained I could lose my permit for good I could be put in prison I could be beaten up by soldiers who knows what
• 49:00 - 49:30 will happen to me almost any rooftop you stand on in Bethlehem you look one way or the other you will see a settlement built around you I started coming here in 2010 I heard you speak to a group about anti-Semitism and inherited trauma and started thinking a lot about what it means to challenge my community around the Deep ingrained traumas that are
• 49:30 - 50:00 totally stopping us from any sort of movement on this issue my first learning experience was uh when I was invited to go to aitz on a bearing witness Retreat I actually say in alitz I discovered one of the main reasons why this conflict exists today which is this inherited trauma that exists in the Jewish Community where the feeling is that as Jews were always attacked we've always been attacked we will always be attacked and
• 50:00 - 50:30 therefore the only way to maintain oursel is to create this very suppressive security mechanism that would prevent this from happening again I mean that's what I learned yeah that that's what I heard what what is important for many of the Israeli Jews and the Jews from around the world we talk to is is the simp full recognition and acknowledgement of the story and that
• 50:30 - 51:00 story is where the healing work begins to happen as an activist I think for many activists what keeps us going is our ability to be able to look towards the future I I really believe that there is an emerging Awakening within the American Jewish community I've had even some American Jews who
• 51:00 - 51:30 come here and they say we came to Israel and we left from Palestine for American Jews coming here and listening to us in hearing us and seeing our humanity and understanding that we are not just out sitting in bunkers planning the next attack against Israelis that we do have a desire to live in peace and to have our freedom and to they walk in our streets and they eat in our restaurants and like we I mean it's crazy that I have to say this
• 51:30 - 52:00 that we are real human beings that just want to survive and live and like all other people in this world the moment they see this and experience this for themselves it creates something in them it shifts something in them what they do with it when they go back it becomes their responsibility
• 52:00 - 52:30 I came home and spoke out and I think initially it was very painful and shocking for a lot of people I had friends from high school and from college who didn't know how to speak to me at the beginning because these conversations were forbidden for us growing up I've grown up very much as a product of this Mass mobilization across the
• 52:30 - 53:00 community to ensure that young people stay engaged in pro-israel politics for most people I know who actually took the time to see with their own eyes what was happening it very quickly challenges everything we've been taught it's very painful because it is so intimately bound up with the identity of the community
• 53:00 - 53:30 there have always been Jews who have spoken out for Palestinian rights and more and more people are willing to take off their blinders looking at this reality saying this is intolerable [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I continued to meet more and more young
• 53:30 - 54:00 people like me who were having similar [Music] experiences and it made me realize that I was part of a bigger story of something that was happening not just to me but to young people around the country we decided to bring the crisis of American Jewish support from Israel to the doorsteps of Jewish institutions to force that conversation in
• 54:00 - 54:30 [Music] public uh first of all all my friends at P stopped talking to me I've lost many childhood friends over
• 54:30 - 55:00 this also many friends have like come along politically with me over the years many in my family have also many in my family also deeply disagree with [Music] me every time I've have protested outside of a Jewish communal event of some kind I have seen a friend a family friend a parent of a friend on the other side of the barricade we're literally talking about parents and
• 55:00 - 55:30 children young Jews they go to the Jewish federations they go to the reform movement they go to their day schools and they say you mobilized me to be a a soldier for Israel but I had been completely misled we are also in a moment when there is the possibility of of some kind of alternative I see it hundreds of times over and over again and those hundreds speak for thousands and they went to the
• 55:30 - 56:00 Jewish camps and they went to the day schools and they went to the synagogue Hebrew Schools they're really really angry at the way they were educated and the way that they were indoctrinated uh about these issues and justifiably so the indoctrination is so severe it's almost hard to have a conversation about it it's heartbreaking it is
• 56:00 - 56:30 heartbreaking our community right now has to Grapple with our complicity and we want to welcome you to the [Music] Jewish Jewish opinion is split some Jewish groups vocally oppose Israel's military policies more than a thousand Jewish activists descended on Washington DC Sunday to protest APAC so we tell
• 56:30 - 57:00 some of our more conservative brothers and sisters on the inside that you do not represent the best of the Jewish prophetic tradition and we here to Bow wi it's a new day now I mean you got a number of young Jewish brothers and sisters who are undergoing moral and spiritual awakening they're deeply concerned about the suffering of Palestinians and they come from a people who who have been hated but they don't want to see the cycle of hate
• 57:00 - 57:30 perpetrated even by Jews themselves Israel it's been part of my life since early childhood within the Jewish Community oh there's been a striking change and Israel is well aware of it human will and commitment can change things my name is Talia this is the first time I am using my full real name
• 57:30 - 58:00 um to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and I never thought in my life that I would be standing with this many Jews for Palestine I'm a rabbi as long as Palestinian lives are treated as disposable our house as a people is not in order tomorrow we show up and we March following the leadership of Palestinians
• 58:00 - 58:30 [Music] congresswoman Rashida I am the only Palestinian American member of Congress now how many Palestinians have to die for their lives to matter life under apartheid strips Palestinians of their human dignity how many more decades do they need to endure this subjugation before there is a shift in this unreasonable status quo
• 58:30 - 59:00 and what would you recommend I would recommend Freedom the real challenge is trying to keep that moral and spiritual Dimension strong cuz anytime you cut Against the Grain you're going to catch hell [Applause]
• 59:00 - 59:30 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] anti-occupation Jews are blocking Damascus gate and the occation
• 59:30 - 60:00 Israel bush [Applause] [Music] I I don't think it's as serious as it's made up to be okay they're they're
• 60:00 - 60:30 entitled that's fine okay I don't think they represent much I think they're a little super naive I think the most American Jews even though they have different views on settlements or occupation I think that's still a decision at the end of the day they're going to leave for the Israelis to make as long as Israel is under threat and as strong as it is and as Dynam damic as it is it's still under threat from its neighbors and 100,000 missiles we
• 60:30 - 61:00 postpone that philosophical debate to another time Palestinians are so dehumanized in the community that it's really hard for people to figure out how to even understand Palestinians legitimate rights and claims to the
• 61:00 - 61:30 land Palestinians gathered for protest as the Israeli Gaza border they're demanding the right to return to lands from which they were forced out in 1948 at least 55 Palestinians died Monday during mass protests Israeli troops fired on the demonstrators need [Music]
• 61:30 - 62:00 to look at the more recent Gaza demonstrations ask yourself the question if the Mexicans stood at the Border in March a million Mexicans or 20,000 Mexicans what would America do you know first they would try tear gas and then it would not and eventually would have to shoot there are a lot of Jewish young people who see a Jewish establishment that is racist that is
• 62:00 - 62:30 nationalistic Israel is in the mid Middle East and not the Midwest so the neighbors are not necessarily the Jones or The Smiths I don't want war but it's been a p on us so we should do right and defeat the terrorist we don't want to be a part of that but we are actually building an alternative I've been involved in this work for
• 62:30 - 63:00 about a decade I was seen as a face of this young growing Jewish resistance to the American Jewish establishment it made perfect sense to me that Bernie would hire someone like me as a Jewish Outreach coordinator within about 48 Hours of being on the campaign the attack started rolling in these old men from the Jewish establishment came out to say you know
• 63:00 - 63:30 that I was dangerous that I was a threat a journalist wrote an article about me the headline was Bernie Sanders new Jewish Outreach coordinator is an outspoken critic of Israeli occupation the next headline that I found out about when I walked into work was Abe foxman calls on Sanders to fire new Jewish Community liaison for quote anti-israel comments on Thursday the Sanders
• 63:30 - 64:00 campaign suspended its new National Jewish Outreach coordinator Simone Zimmerman two days after she was hired so as far as I'm aware this was Abe foxman's first comment in public since his retirement from the ADL and uh he came out of retirement to defend the world from the great threat of Zimmerman it hurts me for a Jewish kid
• 64:00 - 64:30 to stand up there and say justice for the Palestinians are not saying Justice for the Israelis troubles me hurts me bothers me means we failed we failed in educating and explaining Etc when we talk about we're losing the kids we're not we lost them Birthright participant staged a protest test walk out five of us will be leaving to learn about the occupation um
• 64:30 - 65:00 from the perspective of Palestinians and IDE have soldiers you cannot be a tyrant on this bus get off the bus we're seeing that uh many Millennials are becoming dis disenchanted with Israel and um I take a very approach on this I say to them we need to love Israel even
• 65:00 - 65:30 moreth that's our [Music] Noe it it means that we who are the older generation have much more work to do this whole communal obsession with defending Israel has basically warped into seeing someone like me as a threat to the community the word that I used to hear a
• 65:30 - 66:00 lot was self-hating Jew like the only way that a Jewish person could possibly care about the humanity of Palestinians is if you hate yourself let's see what I find in here you are a self-loathing Jew go kill yourself with Jews Like You who needs ignorant racist bigot Arabs you work against our people you're an
• 66:00 - 66:30 anti-semitic Jew you've been working for the enemy Simone Zimmerman another member of The Lunatic anti-semitic farle there's always been this argument of oh you can't criticize Israel criticizing Israel feeds anti-Semitism criticizing Israel helps the enemies of Israel as more and more American Jews are speaking out in support of Palestinian Freedom now they just say instead we're
• 66:30 - 67:00 overt anti-semites we hate all Jewish people or even worse that we're not Jewish at all we are attacked as being not really Jewish if we are not supportive of Israel and that's where you start seeing just the blanket delegitimization of an entire sector of American Jewish Society focusing on this so-called new anti-Semitism and then came the new anti- iism which was the anti-Semitism relating to Israel what
• 67:00 - 67:30 what some have said the Israel became the Jew of the Nations uh in the same way that historically uh you know whatever was permitted for everybody else was not permitted for the Jew now Israel was singled out so many of the self-appointed leaders of our community have been trying to equate the idea of supporting Palestinian rights itself with anti-Semitism this is about anti-israel anti-semitic attitudes classic new anti-Semitism the extreme
• 67:30 - 68:00 left has a long history of anti-Semitism of of anti-israel hatred how stupid have they been for all these years voting for Obama and other anti-semites like him unwillingness to Grapple with Palestinian suffering is putting a lot of American Jews in a really dangerous and sad position how far will Jewish Americans go in the effort to quash pressure on
• 68:00 - 68:30 Israel you know how far will people go it's hard to see how far they won't go if this is where things are today at the end of the day pro-israel leaders want to be in the room with the people in power they will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel thank you when I become president the days of
• 68:30 - 69:00 treating Israel like a second class citizen will end on day [Applause] one history is not going to judge us kindly I'd like to say that we were blessed by heaven with Donald Trump being elected president of the United States we should pray that they should remain in office and that he should continue to do the great things he does on behalf of the United States of America and on behalf of
• 69:00 - 69:30 Israel we're seeing like a horrifying culmination of what support of Israel at all costs has led to disregarding any lesson of History disregarding any sort of [Music] morality the great irony of having this be where we are today within the Jewish community is that there actually is resurgent anti-Semitism the kind that I think my
• 69:30 - 70:00 generation and the generations that have come after me never thought we'd see in our lifetimes hail Trump hail our people hail victory in the US couple of things have been happening and then we we'll go to Trump but trumpism it's not question is he a bigot isn't I don't think he's a bigot I think he is what he is I don't think he's a racist I don't think he's an anti-semite I think you can call them all kinds of things the community has spent so much
• 70:00 - 70:30 time attacking anyone who criticizes Israel when they're actual threats to our community that's LED our communal institutions to basically be silent in the face of rising white nationalism Jews will not replace us will not replace us Jews will not replace us the way that we talk about anti-Semitism isn't about protecting Jews it's about protecting
• 70:30 - 71:00 Israel how dangerous is that at this moment with the rise of anti-Semitism and often when American politicians are asked about anti-Semitism they talk about their support for Israel support for Israel today is actually replacing what it means to be a Jew these people have basically decided that support for Israel is more
• 71:00 - 71:30 important than the safety of Jew we're not going to say anything about the spreading of these anti-semitic conspiracy theories we have seen a tremendous amount of this use of vile anti-semitic tropes the thread talks about a Jewish plot to enslave people in the United States anti-semitic flyers steeped in covid-19 conspiracies saying every single aspect of the co agenda is Jewish that's the way the Jews work they're
• 71:30 - 72:00 they are deceivers they plot they lie they do whatever they have to [Music] do the gunman told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die and that they were committing genocide against his people
• 72:00 - 72:30 [Music] it's a profoundly sad moment and I think it's a tipping [Music] moment these anti-semitic nightmares that we all like it's all coming to life in front of our [Music] eyes I can't help but think about all the American Jewish organ gations that have spent the last decade pouring millions of dollars into smearing and
• 72:30 - 73:00 marginalizing human rights Advocates Jewish Palestinian and not trying to Brand Palestinian protest as anti-semitic when there were neo-nazis trying to kill us in our synagogues my parents and grandparents generation grew up in a World in which Jews were not safe they invested so much in the idea
• 73:00 - 73:30 that Jews could only be safe through Israel but our safety and our security is actually bound up in the safety and the security of all people the most powerful pro-israel Lobby in the country are now donating money to Republican politicians who either incited or continue to support the riers who stormed the capital on January
• 73:30 - 74:00 6th that's part of a politics of solidarity and it feels totally morally coherent and morally urgent to support freedom and dignity for all people in all the places that we [Music] live Palestinians have already been telling us this for decades so guys here is the the world but the world is finally coming to catch
• 74:00 - 74:30 up building in this for me I would say if anybody has any influence on Israeli policy and I say this with a big F it is the American Jewish Community the American Jewish Community have the potential to have the greatest influence in shifting our reality outside of this land for many many people around the world when they see the voice of the Jewish Community rise
• 74:30 - 75:00 and protest against this occupation it will allow other voices to say yes we could also have a voice in it as well now we're doing joint work in trying to end this occupation and bringing peace and Justice into this land the most inspiring experiences I had are with Jewish Americans that come in and take a stand we're going to hear tonight a number of personal stories at some point you guys decided
• 75:00 - 75:30 to quote unquote break the silence and I'm interested was there a particular moment that led you to this 2008 I I joined the military in America we have this concept of innocent until proven guilty there is no innocent Palestinian according to the Army that's so not true in occupied territory doubt please I mean come on you're lying that's a lie she said there's no it's not a lie what
• 75:30 - 76:00 we're talking about is not giving Palestinians the right that we of Israelis have and that's a part time to go against the grain is not an easy thing to do so I did not speak about my experiences in the occupation publicly until very recently I was afraid that I would be demonized I've seen friends of mine be demonized for speaking out about the same
• 76:00 - 76:30 [Music] things the first time I ever spoke publicly about my experiences I cried the whole time that I was speaking it's gotten a little bit easier to talk about since then because I have taken the time to process it but that doesn't mean it's easy anytime I talk about these experiences but we can't wait any
• 76:30 - 77:00 [Music] longer I've been longing for this Jewish conversation for 17 years we're here today um to talk about some things that are often confus impossible in the Jewish Community these conversations can happen
• 77:00 - 77:30 we are not risking our Jewish history you are not closing a door to the rest of your Jewish life all that we have to risk is our denial I can start my high school had an Israel studies class all about when you get to college and people start telling you about Israel being in a hightide state this is how you respond from my like summer camp and my youth movement one of the core tenants of it was the Jewish State needed to be built and just no questioning of what price we were really willing to pay uh or willing to
• 77:30 - 78:00 make Palestinians pay is in Israeli the Palestinian identity itself is not something I had to to learn that it exists right so slowly as I came to learn that the occupation exists I started learning that there is another narrative we're here to talk about the history that's often referred to as the Naka 700 50,000 people displaced from their homes at least 400 Villages undone
• 78:00 - 78:30 in their entirety the colonization is also ongoing the ongoing nakba the continued not just the historical but the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians I have been blessed to witness the ways that Palestinian Society continue to find ways to thrive but we can't deny that there has been catastrophe and that it's been catastrophic the scale of loss we're really here to teach each other but I think nothing's as important
• 78:30 - 79:00 as action because we are talking about ongoing displacement people might tell you that if you stand up for Palestinian rights that you aren't really Jewish that you're maybe a self-hating Jew as a rabbi what I see when I look at the work of solidarity is a long chain of Jewish history this chain of people of ancestors and texts and traditions that are about Justice and fighting for it Jewish tradition tells us to Envision a
• 79:00 - 79:30 world where all people are safe and free to never stop fighting for that world so may you all feel blessed in a tradition of Liberation and may you be blessed to know you're not alone and let's get to work