Israelism

A Vision for a Future of American Jews without Israel

As planned, I attended last night’s screening of “Israelism”, at Carleton University. Presented by the Department of Political Science and introduced by Professor Mira Sucharov, the evening also featured the comments of Gili Getz, executive producer of the film in post-production

On one level, the film is a depiction of the stories of two American Jews who became disillusioned with Israel. These two people are Simone Zimmerman and an IDF veteran known to us only as Eitan. The interviews feature first-person accounts of their up-bringing within American Jewish institutions and the experiences which led them to adopt a radical critique of Israel. Through their eyes, the American Jewish community is condemned for teaching them to defend Israel and for allegedly concealing the truth about the experience of the Palestinians. The targets of this critique are Jewish schools, synagogues and American Jewish community organizations such as American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). This is complemented by first person accounts by Palestinians who have encountered this same alleged American Jewish ignorance of the truth about their experience.

On another level the film is a slickly produced propaganda piece aimed at selling the left wing narrative of Israel as a racist settler colonial state. The film presents as fact the claim that Gaza is under Israeli occupation, although Israel removed all troops and Israeli residents of Gaza eighteen years ago. It characterizes Israel as an Apartheid state, though this has never been established in any competent legal forum. The film also promotes the antisemitic claim that the Jewish community uses claims of antisemitism to silence the Palestinian solidarity movement.

Although the film contains lengthy interviews of a number of enthusiastic supporters of Israel it uses these interviews only to establish the strong support of American Jewish institutions for Israel. These people are not asked for their views on the film’s central narrative, on which they would certainly have challenged some of the film’s claims and offered dissenting opinions.

In a horrifying turn, the film pivots toward the end to a series of emotionally charged scenes of American Nazis marching and Donald Trump speaking, with a narrative overlay about how American Jewish institutions have devoted their efforts to attacking and trying to silence American human rights organizations instead of fighting the real threat to Jews from the extreme right. In one particularly disturbing comment, one of the film’s protagonists says, “What won’t the organized Jewish community do to maintain support for the occupation?”

The film is utterly blind to the fact that while conflating Jewish organizations with the promotion of the extreme right in America, it is giving oxygen to the rapidly spreading antisemitism of the extreme left. In particular, the idea that Jews identifying antisemitism within the anti-Israel left are arguing in bad faith in order to silence criticism of Israel is a core message of the film.

As discussed in an earlier article, this is an example of the Livingston Formulation, as described by UK Sociologist David Hirsh. Ken Livingston, former mayor of London and pillar of the Jeremy Corbyn wing of the UK Labour party said antisemitic things about Jews and then deflected the claim that he was antisemitic by saying that he was just criticizing Israel and that Jews were trying to silence him.

The film also suggests through the voice of its Palestinian spokesperson, that America’s Jewish community may have the power to change the attitude of Israel’s leadership and even that of the American government. As mentioned in the earlier critique of the film’s trailer and poster, this exaggerated notion of Jewish power is a classic antisemitic trope.

Photo: Jewish Pioneers Building in Israel

In summary, this film is a well-paced, engrossing and effective piece of propaganda. People with a low level of knowledge of the history of the Israel Palestine conflict will come away with the message that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians and that the American Jewish community is complicit in that oppression. A few brave young Jews have uncovered the terrible truth and are fighting against powerful Jewish opposition to get the word out. This is a message that is fundamentally inaccurate in my opinion. It is also a message that is likely to increase resentment and suspicion of American Jews by those unfamiliar with the history of the Zionist project.

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A more detailed critique of the film is in the works and when it is published we will introduce a new guest writer to Canadian Zionist Forum.

For all those observing, I wish you a meaningful fast on Yom Kippur. May we all do meaningful tshuvah and examine our hearts. Shabbat Shalom.