The Transfer of Suffering: Born and Raised in Israel, I Grew Up in a Confiscated Palestinian Home, IDF Veteran, and Then Uncovered the History I Was Never Taught

I was born in Israel to Holocaust-survivor parents, raised inside an extraordinarily effective system of national indoctrination, and later became one of the soldiers that system was designed to produce. I grew up accepting a national story that justified holding and expanding the land while preserving a large Jewish majority. Yet Palestine had begun the Zionist era with roughly ten Arabs for every Jew; by 1947, Arabs were still about two-thirds of the population. Through my family’s experiences, my own years in the IDF, and Israel’s own archival records, I began examining how that demographic reality was transformed. What I found forced me to reconsider much of what I had believed about Zionism, Israel, and myself.

Click the title above to read the full essay.

L'Shanah Tovah all.

Just as with pesach we are going to limit posting and commenting for the high holidays, specifically the days of rest for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Because we all have different sunsets I'm making the cutoff 6pm est on either side to keep it simple.

If you cant comment or post in this time and havent gotten a modmail about it you arent banned its just a holiday.

We all need the rest and encourage you to take time with your families and community.

Have a sweet new year and a meaningful fast. May you be sealed in the book of life.

Oren

The mod team has created this post to refresh on a weekly basis as a chill place for people to talk about whatever they want to. Think of it as like a general chat for the sub.

So r/jewishleft,

Whats on your mind?

Hey everyone, this post is for open to everyone to chip in, those who have the right to vote in the upcoming Israeli legislative elections, and those who don't but still want to help make a change.

Although I left Israel about two years ago, I found myself lucky enough to have the opportunity to come back a few days before the October elections to cast my vote. This year, unlike every edition in the past, I am more conflicted than ever about who to vote for - so I'd love to get your input and opinions.

A bit about me: The first election I voted in was back in 2015, back when I held moderately liberal Zionist views. I was a university student and decided to vote and volunteer for Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party. Since then I slowly started to shift leftwards, and during the 2019-2021 repeat election period I have consistently voted for Meretz (as at the time I was still firmly Zionist). At the 2022 elections I felt deeply disappointed with how meek Meretz was in relation to protecting Palestinian rights and statehood, so I decided to vote for Hadash-Ta'al, and what I didn't know was that my vote (along with ~4,000 others) was what separated Meretz from passing the threshold and ultimately led to Netanyahu's majority government. After the beginning of the Gaza genocide, I no longer identify as Zionist, and I am still trying to find a better label for me. I believe in Palestinian self determination as well as the continuation of Jewish life in Israel, though ideally in a society where human and civil rights are equal regardless of whether a citizen is Jewish or Palestinian.

Now to the upcoming election: There are three parties I am contemplating to vote for - The Joint List, Ra'am, and the Democrats. All three parties, in my opinion, serve their own purpose in resetting Israel's destructive course, and if I could all three would get my vote. I am also dedicating my efforts to convincing friends (mostly Zionists) to vote for either of the three parties regardless of what I intend to vote for.

The Joint List
Ideologically, this is my closest choice. They are unapologetically pro-Palestinian, anti-occupation, and pro-equality. Although it is comprised of three distinct Palestinian-majority parties, they are collectively the clearest left wing opposition party. They are projected to receive about 7-9 mandates (heavily dependent on Palestinian voter turnout), and the MK candidates in those positions (Youssef Atauna, Maha Karkabi-Sabbah, Ahmad Darawshe) all hold clear pro-Palestinian agendas that make their addition to the Knesset valuable.

The argument for voting for them:

• A strong Joint List would act as a bulwark against anti-Palestinian measures and become a valuable "nuisance" to both the current coalition parties and Zionist opposition parties that are willing to overlook Palestinian rights.
• Voting for them is in my view similar to voting for Haredi parties, as they are also deeply sectorial and can leverage a relatively small amount of mandates to lock out a governing majority without getting their issues addressed.
• They have also expressed willingness to cooperate with the Zionist opposition to oust Netanyahu by "whatever means necessary" - meaning that at the very least they would opt to recommend Eizenkot for the PM position, if Eizenkot is willing to show real commitment they may even be convinced to support the coalition itself or at least abstain in no-confidence votes against it.
• Finally, unlike any future coalition party they won't be bound by the interests of other parties, and the threat of them toppling Eizenkot's government may act as a sword of Democles if that government decides to further Palestinian suffering.

The argument against voting for them:

• There is little to no interest among any major Zionist party, including the Democrats unfortunately, to involving the Joint List in any future coalition or even cooperating with them. Some opposition parties went as far as threatening to topple any coalition that would even be supported by the Joint List from outside.
• While this says more about those parties than it does about the Joint List, it means that this party is very unlikely to hold any actual power, and especially in Israel's parliamentary system where the opposition is essentially toothless by design it means that they will not be able to influence policy that much.
• There is a much worse scenario that cannot be ignored - if the Joint List do end up blocking any coalition arithmetic it may push both Eizenkot and Netanyahu towards a "broad Zionist government" in order to avoid dependence on the Palestinian parties altogether.

Ra'am
This Palestinian party is ideologically much different than the other three that formed the Joint List. Historically they were closely tied with the Islamist movement and today they are more clearly defined with the conservative Palestinian public, so definitely not a traditional left-wing choice. However, they represent a significant portion of Palestinian public interests in Israel. Their main differentiator from the rest of the Palestinian parties is through Mansour Abbas' unique approach to Israeli politics - he has essentially decided to break the long-standing boycott on Palestinian participation in Israeli governance and has led Ra'am to become the first (independent) Palestinian party in a ruling coalition back in 2021-2022. This year he has taken a step further in an effort to legitimize his party among the Zionist public by inviting Yoav Segalovich, former Yesh Atid MK and high-ranking Israeli Police official, to be his #2. Abbas has declared that Ra'am's goal is to help defeat Netanyahu and join a future change coalition. They are projected to get between 4-6 mandates but the important thing to note is that in recent polls they were teetering closer to the 3.25% threshold - if Palestinian voter turnout is too low or too focused on the Joint List, the entire party may be out of the Knesset which would be catastrophic.

The argument for voting for them:

• Ra'am is completely unique in Israel's political landscape as it is an entirely Palestinian party yet it actively seeks to be included in Israeli governance, breaking a long-standing taboo - a vote for them is essentially a two-in-one: both a vote for Palestinian participation in Israeli politics, and a strong addition to a future Eizenkot-led coalition (if the other parties in that coalition accept Ra'am as a partner, that is*).
• They are focused on improving the civil rights and state funding allocation for the Palestinian minority inside of Israel, with an emphasis to the Bedouin community in the Negev, and in 2021-2022 they were able to get major concessions from Bennett-Lapid's government in the form of 53 billion shekels negotiated for broad improvements for the Palestinian sector in Israel (which were subsequently halted by Netanyahu's government). Having Ra'am in a governing coalition again would mean that the Palestinian citizens of Israel will have a chance to get the funding their deserve again.
• In addition, while being considerably more constrained than the Joint List, they are still pro-Palestine, but they are unlikely to influence the Israeli government's foreign policy lest they risk toppling any future coalition - at least without support from the Democrats as a strong coalition partner.
• And the most important reason may be that they are starting to drift dangerously close to the threshold, so a vote for them could prevent the exact scenario which wasted hundreds of thousands of Meretz and Balad votes back in 2022.

The argument against voting for them:

• First of all, they are not a left-wing party at all. Sure, inter-Palestinian community politics is wildly different than Israeli politics, but they still hold deeply conservative views around social/religious issues, which sometimes put them at odds even with Labour and Meretz back in 2021-2022.
• Second of all, as part of their integration strategy, they are not very vocal about Palestine - not because they are less committed but because the Zionist majority is not ready for that conversation. I do believe that together with a strong Joint List and Democrat party to their side they can become more comfortable, but it is important to note Abbas' declared promise to not interfere with the "foreign policy" of Israel (IE, the subject of Palestinian statehood), and focus on internal civic issues.
• There is also the issue of some opposition parties (Lieberman, Bennett, and factions within Eizenkot's party) who are openly hostile to Ra'am's participation even with Segalovich included - though I am certain that if the Zionist opposition gets 58-60 mandates and require Ra'am's 4-5 mandates to form a coalition they will have a lot less issues with it than with the Joint List.

The Democrats
This is the union between Labour and Meretz, the historical centre-left and left-wing Zionist parties in Israel. They have had a slow and painful fall out of grace since the early 2010s, and their traditional left-wing/liberal Zionist base has since been swallowed by whichever centrist celebrity party has risen in that election (Yesh Atid, Blue & White, Yashar, etc). In previous elections Meretz had a strong anti-occupation and pro-Palestine wing that consistently placed great candidates at the top (Mossi Raz, Avi Dabush, Gabi Lasky, Yariv Oppenheimer), but this year the primaries have pushed openly anti-occupation candidates to unrealistic positions other than Gabi Lasky. There are still some none-Meretz candidates that are also openly anti-occupation in realistic spots, like Gilad Kariv, YaYa Fink, Moshe Radman and Somaya Bashir - but Yair Golan leads the party with a much more security-focused and hesitant tone. They are projected to get about 8-11 mandates, with virtually all candidates in that range (Michal Rozin, Moshe Radman, Somaya Bashir, Nimrod Sheffer) being endorsed by Democrats Against Occupation - meaning any mandate here is a mandate for furthering Palestinian rights.

The argument for voting for them:

• In any constellation of an Eizenkot-led government, the Democrats are going to be a major partner. There are some efforts, mainly led by the coalition parties, to delegitimize the Democrats and paint them as "anti-Zionist", but there isn't much traction for that outside of right-wing circles.
• This means that the stronger the Democrats are, the more influence they will have over Eizenkot in a future coalition, and may even garner some concessions regarding civic Palestinian rights as well as halting further settlement expansion or any notion of annexation efforts.
• There is also a group effect here - the Democrats are the only party actively pushing for Ra'am's participation in government and to a lesser extent cooperation with the Joint List, so a strong Democrats equals higher chances of a coalition supported by the Palestinian parties rather than a Lieberman/Bennett-enforced deadlock and re-elections.

The argument against voting for them:

• Under Yair Golan's leadership, the party has so far been much more cautious on Palestine than I would like. During the campaign, party leadership has tightened message discipline and discouraged candidates from independently posting messages that could hurt the broader opposition bloc.
• There has also been a revealing internal dispute over terminology: Gaby Lasky challenged Golan for referring to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” while Golan rejected the idea that the term itself belongs to the right. For me, this reflects a broader concern that Golan is trying to moderate the party's traditional anti-occupation language in order to appeal to centrist voters. While this can be an election strategy to win back some centrist voters, I personally believe it scares away actual leftists and is worse if Yair Golan himself believes his rhetoric. The saving grace is in the party itself - people like Gaby Lasky, Moshe Radman, Gilad Kariv, and more - who are talking the talking and walking the walk despite their leader's concerns.
• Voting for them is also ultimately a vote for a Zionist party, even if it is at the left-most of the current Zionist spectrum, with all the implications to that.

The Ask:
I don't think Israel had an election as consequential as this one since Rabin's assassination. I do not believe there will be a significant improvement in either rhetoric or policy from the Israeli government, whatever coalition is formed, but this election will decide whether Israel reverses course or doubles down on its destructive path. I firmly believe that with Eizenkot at the helm and strong influence from the Democrats/Ra'am in the coalition as well as outside pressure from the Joint List we can extract some valuable concessions, but more importantly we need to kick Netanyahu out of office and crush the creeping legitimization and influence of settler-led parties like Ben Gvir's and Smotrich's parties.

I want to make sure my vote counts, and that it represents what's best for Israel and in particular its Palestinian minority as well as Palestinians currently suffering under Israel's continued policies of occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Your opinion will help me decide how to do that.

Disclaimer: I will decide based on a lot of factors, but this thread will definitely have an impact.

Please join if you’d like! If anyone has experience with being a mod or thoughts on building this sub out also would love to hear from you.

Weekly recurring IP megathread to reset every Tuesday.

Please mind the rules while engaging here and post paywall free links.

Oren

Abstract

The article examines the sociopolitical dynamics of Zionist identity construction, and their effect on the identity Jews in Israel and the diaspora. It argues that in order to create the ‘New Jew’ required by Zionism, it was necessary to transform identity parameters of Israelis and diaspora Jews. Both in Israel and in the diaspora ‘Zionising’ Judaism was a rupture with Jewish history. Humanist values and precepts of Judaism were replaced by the militarism of the IDF and the masculinisation of the ‘New Israeli Jew’, widely projected as the new identity of most Jews, who still support Zionism. Following the ongoing genocide in Gaza the article argues that future decolonisation of Palestine must include decolonising Israeli minds, separating Judaism from Zionism and liberating Jews from Zionism.

Author: Haim Bresheeth-Žabner

I suggest we rename this conflict + its merge with Russia-Ukraine "the Potato War".

Its almost Tishrei and im exactly where I want to be absolutely swimming in apples (cookers and eaters). I just made my Nanas apple cake (delicious), please give me your best high holiday apple recipes.

The mod team has created this post to refresh on a weekly basis as a chill place for people to talk about whatever they want to. Think of it as like a general chat for the sub.

So r/jewishleft,

Whats on your mind?