Freedom and Justice for Palestine and its People.
General news items
Under the law, a Palestinian citizen of Israel or a Palestinian in the occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem who holds Israeli residency can be stripped of their status after being convicted or charged for an “act of terrorism” and receiving money from the PA.
At the end of my meeting with Avi Himi, I ask him if there’s anything he would like to add, something important he wants to have included in the interview. His reply leaves us both with misty eyes.
“It’s important for me to say that both my wife, Hana, and I, each of us with our respective background – we’re both from the Israeli periphery, Mizrahim whose parents came here from Morocco – are grateful to the State of Israel, which made it possible for us to accomplish everything we dreamed of accomplishing. No one ever put obstacles in our way. We fulfilled our dreams in this country, we both moved ahead in their career, we raised marvelous daughters, and all of it was made possible in this place, which we love so much.
“Our lives are on the line: If the new government’s revolution is successful, it means that our children will not be able to live in this country, and therefore I feel obligated to pay a price in order to stop this madness. You have left us no choice. We don’t have a lot of time. The weeks ahead are critical, just as the War of Independence was critical.”
By January 21, last Saturday night, it was already clear: Himi, the head of the Israel Bar Association, had become the outstanding leader of the protest against the program of regime change in Israel. In his speech to the masses that packed the Azrieli intersection in Tel Aviv, he fired up the crowd with simple, clear words, with straightforward statements and impressive determination. “Cry, the beloved country!” he bellowed, and the crowd responded, “For shame! A disgrace!”
Himi does not fit the stereotypes of identity politics in Israel; he’s not easily subsumed in any of the tiresomely familiar categories. But that’s not the primary reason he has emerged as a hero of the protest movement. What sets him apart is his clear vision of the danger that lurks in the government’s plans, his sharp call for action and the fact that he is truly willing to make the greatest sacrifice that can be made for the sake of Israeli democracy. His life.
“People lost their lives and their loved ones for the sake of the state in Israel’s wars and military operations,” Himi told Haaretz in an interview just days after his speech last Saturday. “We have lost what is most precious to us. From my point of view, democracy is also a worthy cause to die for. We will not live in a dictatorship, period. Safeguarding democracy is as important as safeguarding the country’s borders. It’s even more important than physical borders, because it’s our spirit, our soul. I see this struggle as parallel to our war against outside enemies.
“These are domestic enemies,” he continues, “and they are no less serious a threat than any other enemy. The prices that I am paying because of my decision to struggle pales in the face of my obligation to do battle against this overthrow of our system.” Himi says that he has been on the receiving end of many telephone death threats, and also that he has lost clients because of his activism.
What should citizens do in order to struggle against the coup?
“Every citizen bears the same responsibility, and has the same ability to influence as I have, I don’t have greater weight. First of all, to come to demonstrations across the country. And then to raise the stakes, and shut down the economy. We will not go to work, we will not send our children to school, we shall all assemble in the streets – children, women, men, the elderly, whoever can – we will block roads, we will all come to the Knesset. A million people will arrive and declare that our democracy is untouchable.”
And those who have influence, such as the head of the Histadrut labor federation, the trade unions, university presidents, top figures in high-tech and so on?
“I expect all of them to understand that this war is the most important we’ve had in the country’s 75 years of existence, and therefore I call on all of them to join.”
What should elected officials from the opposition do?
“To work to have [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu declared ‘incapacitated.’ A serving prime minister who is facing trial on three indictments cannot be part of an overhaul of the judicial system, and therefore can also no longer continue to serve as prime minister. The attorney general must take the lead in this legal procedure. She is a courageous, serious woman, a good attorney general. The unavoidable move – given that the prime minister does not understand the conflict-of-interest agreement in accordance with which he is supposed to be acting – is to declare him incapacitated. After that it will be possible to work on new coalition alliances.”
But the coalition heads have already said that declaring the prime minister incapacitated would constitute an illegal removal from office.
“These developments illustrate the intensity of the attempt to terrorize the system. These are patterns of behavior bordering on the criminal; misbegotten and dangerous moves by a ruthless, fear-stricken, power-intoxicated government.”
Himi, 63, was one of the first public personalities to foresee what is currently taking place. Since 2019, when he became the president of the bar association, the professional guild representing the country’s attorneys, he has been shouting from every platform at his disposal his opposition to what he sees as the crazed idea of weakening the courts, when that notion was still only a threatening theory.
“I know the plans of [Religious Zionism MK] Simcha Rothman, [Finance Minister] Bezalel Smotrich and [Justice Minister] Yariv Levin. How did I first get to know about them? One day [in 2020], all the lawyers in Israel received a fancy, glossy pamphlet put out by the Kohelet Policy Forum, containing a detailed explanation of why the Israel Bar Association should be shut down. We, who represent the citizenry in the face of the government – they want to nationalize our profession, so that the government would decide who will be the head and members, and we won’t be independent anymore. Our task is to preserve the rule of law and human rights. I am a criminal lawyer who does battle against the prosecution as the representative of the state, against the Justice Ministry, against the National Security Ministry, against the harsh decrees of the Finance Ministry. They want to put someone like me under their control, make me a puppet to serve them rather than the citizens?”
Already by then the “black robes protest” had appeared. A large group of lawyers, among them leading people in the field in Israel, protested against what they saw as the dangers inherent in the “override clause.” Himi is one of the leaders of the robes protest, and thus the Israel Bar Association – which hadn’t yet recovered from the blow it suffered because of the behavior of the former president, Effi Naveh, who resigned under a cloud – became a central voice in the struggle.
There’s criticism within the bar association itself of your protest activity.
“The face of the bar association is like the face of the generation. People claim my activity is political, but I say that it’s precisely my critics who are coming from a political position. Under the Bar Association Law, our mission is to fight on behalf of the rule of law and for human rights. And that is what I am doing. I respect other voices, that’s part of the democratic discourse, but from my perspective, I am an apolitical head of the association who is working for the lawyers and the citizens of Israel.”
He adds, “We are in such a complex period. In terms of security, the economy, there is a worldwide inflationary crisis, violence is rife in Israeli society, we have poverty to deal with. And the destruction of the judicial system is what they’re starting with? There are a thousand-and-one issues that relate to the citizenry as such that don’t interest them. They started with a judicial coup so that they could appoint convicted criminals and cronies to key positions. I ask myself: How do the citizens fail to grasp that they are doing all these things in order to become the exclusive masters?”
How can that be explained to the public?
“By saying clearly that the citizenry will be directly harmed by this legal coup. Shula from Dimona, Varda from Hadera, Moshe from Hatzor Haglilit – they will be the ones who are hurt. All the markers that political scientists point to in the rise of dictatorships are visible here, one after the other: kowtowing to the leader, the fact that the more one kowtows the more one moves ahead, the destruction of the judiciary, the crushing of the media. By all scientific criteria, we are marching toward a dictatorship.”
Every person is invited to live here with his worldview – Haredim, Orthodox, LGBTQ people, Arabs – and I will fight so that everyone can live as he chooses. But the foundation is a constitution based on the country’s Declaration of Independence.
With the machine of lies that the government is wielding, will the public understand?
“Definitely. The polling shows that opinion is shifting against them. They wanted one fell swoop, and the people of the protest conveyed to the public what that would mean. If you walk on the streets you will see a great many worried people, and not only in Tel Aviv. I know that with certainty, because people are calling me from all over the country who are fearful of the governmental coup. We are a democratic people. I don’t think people here will forgo democracy so easily.”
Even among opponents of Levin’s plan, there are some who say that the judicial system needs a reform.
“I want all the trouble makers and tongue cluckers who claim that ‘we need a reform’ to explain to me how the reform they are proposing will help the people. Write down something that it’s important for me to say: People talk scornfully about the so-called constitutional revolution fomented by Justice Aharon Barak. But what did he do? He gave the right of standing to anyone who believed he had been harmed, to come to the Supreme Court and stand against the state before the High Court of Justice. Is there anything more just and enlightened than that? What is wrong with that, Lord in heaven? It’s the essence of universal values of justice and equality. He led a revolution in our benefit, they are executing a regime overthrow for themselves. The public has to understand the disparity between the two actions.”
Himi adds that he believes “wholeheartedly that the Supreme Court is the beacon of democracy. It is the fortress of human rights. When ultra-Orthodox, Mizrahi schoolgirls weren’t admitted to Haredi schools run by Ashkenazim, who solved the problem? Did Shas solve the problem? Did Bibi solve the problem? No way – it was the Supreme Court [sitting as the High Court] that solved the problem. I am married to a feminist woman and I am raising two feminist daughters. From our point of view, the High Court decision [in 1995] in the Alice Miller case not only made it possible for her to become an air force pilot: It opened all the combat professions to women. It brought down barriers.
“That’s the society we want to live in, not a society in which women will be compelled to sit at the back of the bus and female soldiers will only be secretaries because of men’s twisted worldview. When I examine each of the 22 laws that our Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, I am proud. I am proud to live in this country, which such laws that were annulled.”
No bowing down
Avi Himi was born and raised in the lower-class Northern Galilee town of Kiryat Shmona. He is the youngest of eight siblings, five of whom were born in Morocco, before the family’s immigration. His parents, who were poor and uneducated, had a store that sold fish and poultry. The family lived in an apartment of 54 square meters (580 sq. ft.), together with a grandmother. Until the age of 12 he shared a bed with his brothers.
He speaks warmly and with great appreciation about his parents, who despite the material dearth, raised eight fine children with no emotional wants. “My parents educated us not to bow down to politicians – and not to rabbis, either, because the connection to God doesn’t need mediators,” he says, recalling his childhood. “In the simple home I grew up in, my parents knew that ours was a democratic, egalitarian country, one that would enable anyone who wanted to, to bloom. We had no money, but we did have the opportunity to acquire an education. Thanks to that, each of the eight brothers and sisters reached the place they dreamed of.”
From early on, it was clear that Himi was clever and a good student, so at 14 he was sent to the prestigious Reali school in Haifa and resided in a military boarding school in the city. He likes to recount how, on the first day of studies, everyone introduced themselves and he grasped the differences between him and the others. One student related that he had just returned with his family from a sabbatical abroad, another said his father was the director of a hospital department. When Himi’s turn came he told his classmates that his father – who, as noted, sold fish and chicken – was “involved with denizens of the sea and winged creatures.”
He did his army service in the Golani infantry brigade, became an officer and at the time of his discharge, after six years, had reached the rank of captain. As he lights a cigarette, he relates with pride that three months ago, he was promoted to major. He insists on continuing to volunteer for reserve duty as a defense counsel (in the office of the Military Advocate General), though at his age it’s no longer called for. He attended law school at Tel Aviv University, working three different jobs in order to pay the tuition.
“In one of the jobs I did a night shift as a guard for Brinks,” he recalls. “I would finish the shift at 6 A.M., jump over the fence of the university, which was closed at that hour of the day, and sleep for two hours on the grass until classes began.”
He met his wife, whose name he speaks with obvious love, in Kiryat Shmona when they were teenagers. They were married immediately after his army service, and their first daughter was born while both were still pursuing higher education – he in law school, she studying first social work and later criminology. Their second daughter was born five years later. Hana is presently the dean of the Faculty of Consultation, Treatment and Educational Support at Beit Berl Academic College. In the past she worked for the nonprofit organization NATAL, the Israel Trauma and Resiliency Center, which provides various services, including psychological support, to victims of terrorism and war. The couple live in the central city of Rosh Ha’ayin. Tal, their elder daughter, is a clinical psychologist who lives in Paris and is the mother of a 5-year-old son. Noam, the younger one, is an events producer who lives in Tel Aviv. “The girls are adults, the grandchild is in Paris, so my wife and I are engaged only in activity on behalf of the country,” he says.
In the course of his career, Himi became one of Israel’s leading criminal lawyers. He has defended heads of crime organizations, among them Shalom Domrani, one of the most fabled crime bosses, has managed many highly publicized cases and his acquittal record is considered very high. In one case, he defended two members of a crime organization who in 2003 murdered a 16-year-old girl, Shaked Shalhov, from Ashkelon, during an attempt to assassinate a rival. The two were acquitted in Haifa District Court by reason of doubt, but the Supreme Court convicted them both on appeal, and they were sentenced to life in prison. “That was one of my most highly charged cases,” Himi notes.
In 2008, in the wake of the murder of criminal-defense attorney Yoram Hacham, Himi decided to change direction. Hacham, who had represented many crime families, was killed by a bomb planted in his car. Nearly a decade later, organized-crime boss Asi Abutbul, who had been one of Hacham’s clients, was accused of the murder. “Yoram Hacham’s murder shocked me,” Himi says. “The next day I decided not to represent people who belong to crime organizations.”
All the markers that point to in the rise of dictatorships are visible: kowtowing to the leader, the fact that the more one kowtows the more one moves ahead, the destruction of the judiciary, the crushing of the media.
But he does represent people accused of white-collar crimes. Among others, he represented Shlomo Benizri, a former cabinet minister from Shas, who was convicted of bribe-taking, breach of trust and obstruction of justice, and former Kiryat Malakhi Mayor Motti Malcha, who was convicted of sexual offenses.
You say you are opposed to government corruption – is that compatible with representing people like Benizri?
“Despite the charges against him, Rabbi Benizri and I developed deep ties of friendship. He is a smart and loving man, a fascinating conversationalist, and today devotes his life to helping others. My fondness and esteem for him only show how far my current campaign against the government’s plan is from being a political matter, and certainly not an ethnic one. The reform will hurt everyone and [undermine] humanitarian and universal values, no matter their religious background.”
Himi was also the defense counsel of one of the youths who burned to death a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, in 2014. The youth was sentenced to 21 years in prison; he was the only one of the three defendants who was not given a life term (because he was seen as only assisting in the actual act of murder).
“That’s a case that reflects the brainwashing we’re undergoing here,” Himi says. “We have to set the value of equality as the most important one in our country. When your point of departure is that we are all equal and you raise your children to love humanity – incidents like that don’t happen. But in recent years what we are witnessing are hatred, incitement, schism, a war of people against their brethren. We must ask ourselves how we came to this pass, and especially how we can stop it. Here am I, Avi Himi, saying loud and clear that Arab and Jew are one, are brothers. We are equal.”
That’s an important statement, but for the past 55 years the Palestinians in the occupied territories have not known democracy.
“I always said that we need to ensure security arrangements and to separate from the Palestinians, because when we behave toward other people as if we are their masters, we sin against the Jewish ethos of respecting the stranger. I will say it clearly, though there are those who would advise me not to: The measures that the government wants to implement amount to the establishment of a halakhic state, the annexation of Judea and Samaria, with the final stage being an apartheid state. Religious Zionism is leading us to that place, which is a very dangerous one.”
‘Benighted government’
Himi says he “comes from a Likud environment,” adding, “They are flesh of my flesh and I am theirs. I remember how in childhood I went with my father and my siblings to hear Menachem Begin speak in the commercial center of Kiryat Shmona.”
It’s precisely against that background that he is especially angry at Likud. “The Likud ballot has the letters mem-het-lamed [‘Mahal’], the initials of the National Liberal Movement. They forgot the L and have remained with the M and the H, which [in Hebrew] are the initials for “benighted government.” That’s what’s left of them. I see unworthy MKs who insinuated themselves into the Likud’s slate and lost their self-respect. I don’t believe they all are in favor of what they’re calling a ‘reform,’ yet they are all silent. How can they look at themselves in the mirror?
“I say to my Mizrahi brethren: If anyone is pulling the wool over your eyes, it’s Likud. They have been in power since 1977, more or less, and what have they done for the Mizrahim? Menachem Begin launched Project Renewal in the underprivileged neighborhoods, and since then, nothing. What do we have in common with Yariv Levin? Has he even once done something to advance the cause of social equality for the people? Has [Religious Zionism MK Simcha] Rothman ever done anything for Mizrahi society? Has Smotrich ever improved the periphery?
The measures that the government wants to implement amount to the establishment of a halakhic state, the annexation of Judea and Samaria, with the final stage being an apartheid state.
“We don’t need paternalists, we don’t need to be helped, we know very well how to help ourselves. My dream is that a child in Hatzor Haglilit, or in Kiryat Shmona, or in Yeruham will receive the exact same education package as a child in Ra’anana or Ramat Aviv. That’s the whole story. Just a fishing rod, with which we will catch the most beautiful fish in the pond.”
How do you mobilize broad publics for protest?
“In all the demonstrations I’ve attended I’ve seen people from all across the social spectrum. It cuts across communities. People come in the cold and the rain from both the periphery and from the center of the country. There are those who have tried to create a narrative that these are demonstrations of leftists and Ashkenazim. First of all, I despise that discourse; and second, it’s simply not true. The Mizrahi public is smart and it is showing up in its masses. One of the reasons I embarked on this struggle is that I understood the need, and especially the power, of proper explanation. People are buckling under the burden of routine life and don’t have time to go into things deeply, so you need to explain. What’s important is for the person who hears the words to understand, because the issues are simple.”
Things sound simple from the other side, too. For example, when it’s claimed that in the Dery decision [disqualifying Arye Dery from serving as a cabinet minister, following his conviction a year ago on tax-evasion charges – the second time he was convicted of white-collar crimes], the High Court nullified the votes of the 400,000 Shas voters.
“It’s Dery himself who hurt them. He and his friends in the government are experts at bringing hot potatoes to the court so they can attack it later. Mr. Dery, in your last trial, you declared to the court that you would resign [from politics], and because of that fictitious resignation, the court did not categorize your offenses as crimes of ‘moral turpitude’ [which, if imposed, would have kept him out of politics for seven years]. So, before you run in an election, go to the Central Elections Committee and check whether you are entitled to head a party.
“The court did not hurt your voters, all it did was to set a logical and reasonable norm, one that the majority of the public agrees with: that a twice-convicted [criminal] offender cannot serve in the government of Israel. You hurt the voters when you committed corruption offenses. In Israel, a convicted criminal cannot be a taxi driver or a security guard in a school, so how can he serve as a cabinet minister or deputy prime minister? Inconceivable.”
What do you think about the recent calls to establish a broad committee to discuss the judicial overhaul?
“For us to talk to them [the government], they have to declare a cease-fire, because you can’t negotiate under fire. We need to say clearly that the values of the Declaration of Independence must be the basis for a dialogue. Only if they agree with us on that will there be anything to talk about. Until then, there must be a determined struggle. A revolution [mahapeikha] is for the good of the people, a coup [hafikha] is against the people. They are currently carrying out a coup, whose entire goal is to debilitate the judiciary so that they will be able to carry out all the other things they have planned: to shut down the free media, to take over culture, restrict public transportation and more. We will talk to them only if the coalition says, ‘All right, we understand. It was too fast, sharp and evil. We are taking a pause and establishing an objective committee, which might produce different results.”
You concluded your speech last Saturday with a call for Israel to write a constitution.
“The people of Israel has to understand that we must broaden the common denominator between us, and that that is possible only on a basis of shared and indisputable civil values. Every person is invited to live here with his worldview – Haredim, Orthodox, LGBTQ people, Arabs – and I will fight so that everyone can live as he chooses. But the foundation is a constitution based on the country’s Declaration of Independence.”
You have already announced that you will not seek a second term as president of the bar association. Do you intend to enter politics?
“I don’t have any such plan. After I conclude my term this June, I want to contribute to society by helping organizations in the nonprofit sphere – for at-risk youth and disabled children. That’s what’s important for me. [In 2008, Himi established an NGO called “A Future for the Young,” which assists addicted and violent adolescents.] The way politics works in Israel today, I would have to forgo my values and my beliefs to be active politically. I esteem everyone who enters public life for the sake of the people and democracy, because they are truly making a great sacrifice. It’s no easy thing to be a public person in Israel who wants to do good.
“They are saying that a judicial overhaul is necessary because the public has increasingly less confidence in the judiciary,” Himi adds. “If that’s the parameter, then we actually need an overhaul of the government, because the public’s confidence in politicians stands at minus 10. In Israel we have succeeded economically, in security, we have reached outer space, the media here is highly developed, as is high-tech – it’s a glorious country. But we have one big failure: our politicians.”
Karim Younis, 66, has been released from Israeli prisons after serving 40 years for the killing of an Israeli soldier.
Occupied East Jerusalem – The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, Karim Younis, has been released after serving 40 years in Israeli prisons.
Israeli prison authorities released Younis, 66, from Hadarim prison just north of Tel Aviv at dawn on Thursday morning.
He was arrested in 1983 and charged in Israeli courts with the killing of an Israeli soldier in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights three years prior.
Younis hails from the Palestinian village of Ara within Israel, where large crowds of relatives and friends greeted him on Thursday.
Younis spoke to Al Jazeera shortly after his release, comparing it to a “military operation”.
He said that he had been moved between different police cars before being dropped off at a location that turned out to be a bus station in Ranana, a town north of Tel Aviv. There, he was able to get in contact with his family, with the help of a passer-by.
Reporting from Ara, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said Younis was released at 5:30am (02:30GMT) and that people had poured into the streets of his village to welcome him.
“He was a key figure in the Palestinian struggle,” said Khan. “He is seen as somebody who was a rising star within Palestinian politics when he was arrested and charged with murder.”
While the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are from the occupied West Bank, Younis is a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
“The Palestinians say he was simply resisting the occupation, the Israelis say this was an internal Israeli matter. He was originally sentenced to life, which was then commuted to 40 years. He is being released simply for the fact that he served his sentence,” added Khan.
Israeli military intelligence visited Younis’ family prior to his release and “told them not to mark it”, said Khan. However, it appears that the family and villagers in Ara have disregarded those instructions.
Younis said that officers came to his cell in the early hours of the morning and told him he was to be released. “I wanted to shower and get ready, but they prevented me,” he said.
Younis was eventually picked up by a relative and brought to his hometown of Ara.
Israeli authorities have not commented on the reports.
Upon his release, Younis visited the grave of his mother who died eight months ago, with images of him emotional at the grave shared by local and international media outlets.
There are some 4,700 Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons, including 150 children and 835 people held without trial or charge.
Defending the Indefensible’: What Israel’s New Government Means for Jewish Students Abroad
As Israel’s most right-wing and reactionary government to date begins enacting its policies, Jewish students thousands of miles away feel the burden of being identified with it (Haaretz, 10th January, 2023)
Until the recent election, though, Israel still had the benefit of being viewed by most of the Western world as a democracy, albeit a fragile one. But that election, held just over two months ago, has brought into power the most right-wing and reactionary government in Israeli history. Headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, it is planning crackdowns on the judicial system as well as basic civil and minority rights, leaving the country’s status as a democracy in limbo.
Among those certain to be impacted by this new government are those Jewish students abroad who, for no fault of their own, may be held accountable for its actions. Some are already pushing back.
Within days of the election, the Union of Jewish Students in the United Kingdom issued a statement saying it would not be able to support a government that includes the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – now the national security and finance ministers, respectively.
Bottom of Form
“If we as a community call out the Far Right in Britain and elsewhere, we must not turn a blind eye to the Far Right in Israel,” the statement said. It noted that these two leaders of the Israeli far right “do not represent the Jewish values we hold dear.”
Even before the election, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, which represents students at schools throughout Australia and New Zealand, issued its own statement expressing concerns about the possible impact of events taking place thousands of miles away. “While we cannot vote in the Israeli elections, as Jewish students in the Diaspora, we are significantly invested in and affected by political developments in the Jewish State, whether we like it or not,” it said.
The student union expressed deep concerns that a party running on a platform of homophobia and racism – the Religious Zionism party led by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir – was likely to emerge as the third-largest party in the country, which it did. Referring to the two lawmakers, the statement said: “We cannot allow these men to co-opt the ideologies we hold so dear, and it is for this reason that we say Lo bishmenu – not in our name.”
In conversations with Haaretz, 15 Jewish students from the Diaspora share their thoughts about the new government in Israel, and what it will mean for them and their campus discourse.
Betsy Cohen, 21, fourth year student at Leeds University, England
Cohen, who was raised in North London in a Modern Orthodox family, had been considering aliyah. But following the November 1 election, she is having second thoughts: “I’m waiting to see how things pan out,” she says.
A member of the British Labour party, Cohen describes herself as left wing and “culturally religious,” though she isn’t especially active in Jewish life at her university.
The rise of the extreme right in Israel, she believes, has brought the cultural divide between Israeli and Diaspora Jews to the forefront. “At the end of the day, Israelis voted for a radical far-right government,” says Cohen. “I think we have to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions about what this reveals about the country and the headspace its citizens are in.”
Cohen still identifies as a Zionist and says she can’t imagine the day when she would sever ties completely with Israel. “That said,” she adds, “it no longer feels like the country I knew and was taught to love growing up.”
The rise of the far right has made it more difficult for students like her to defend Israel, says Cohen, “because the optics are so bad.”
Bottom of Form
“We have to be able to separate Israel’s government from Israel as a whole,” she adds. “But that’s not a super clear or strong argument for Jewish students to pedal.”
Asher Dayanim, 20, third-year student at Columbia University, United States
Dayanim, the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Iran, describes himself as a Zionist with strong cultural and emotional ties to Israel. Although his commitment to Israel has not waned because of the election results, he says, defending the country has become “trickier” – especially on a campus where students and faculty tend to be very left-wing and critical of Israel.
“It feels like the election results have confirmed all their biases,” says the Philadelphia native. “I also know some Jewish students who have been on the fence about Zionism, and this hasn’t helped.”
Dayanim takes solace, however, in the fact that Israel’s previous government, albeit short-lived, was the most diverse in the country’s history. “I think this shows that there hasn’t been a fundamental shift in the political outlook among Israelis, but rather that Israeli politics are an absolute mess,” he says. “There’s still a sense that we can all ride this out.”
Brad Gottschalk, 21, third-year student at Cape Town University, South Africa
Gottschalk grew up in Johannesburg, where he was active in Habonim Dror, the left-wing Zionist youth movement. He is now a member of the South African Union of Jewish Students.
Because the Jewish community of South Africa tends to be quite conservative with regards to Israel, he says most of his peers are unfazed by the recent election results. “In fact, Bibi is a popular figure here,” he says, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In South Africa, he explains, it’s hard to find Jews with a nuanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “You are either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine,” says Gottschalk.
That makes life particularly challenging these days for an outlier like him. “Being a left-wing Zionist involves a lot of mental gymnastics,” he says. “I feel like I’m having a particularly rigorous workout.”
As someone who follows Israeli politics closely, Gottschalk says, he wasn’t particularly shocked by the election results. “That said, I think for a lot of my contemporaries, it came as a
“It no longer feels like the country I knew and was taught to love growing up”
huge and unwelcome surprise,” he adds. “Many students in South Africa are what I term ‘blind Zionists,’ and fascism in Israel doesn’t fit the narrative of the Herzl spiel we all grew up on.”
Jaron Rykiss, 21, third-year student at the University of Manitoba, Canada
Rykiss, who describes himself as a “Zionist with caveats,” is president of the student union at his university.
Disappointed with the new political situation in Israel, he says: “I’m trying to be calm and take a wait-and-see approach, but Israel needs to be a country that provides a safe space to all its citizens – at least that’s the ideal we should all be striving for.”
“Fascism in Israel doesn’t fit the narrative of the Herzl spiel we all grew up on”
He says he wouldn’t blame young Jews for turning their backs on Israel, given the composition of the new government, and notes that the process has already begun.
“I think part of the issue is that Diaspora Jews are taught that Israel is a magical land, and they’re not give a counter-narrative,” says Rykiss. “Once they get to campus and meet pro-Palestinians for the first time, it makes for a jarring experience.”
Leonardo Shaw, 20, third year student at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Shaw, who defines himself as “culturally and ethnically Jewish,” is not aware of his Jewish friends pulling away from Israel because of the new government. and assumes this is because they are able to distinguish between the state and the government.
“Britain also has a very right-wing government in power, so it could be that it’s easier for us to make this distinction,” he posits.
While the political situation in Israel is “upsetting,” he says, his feelings toward the country haven’t changed.
“I was hoping to visit this summer, and funds permitting, I will,” says Shaw. “Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, but politics are temporary, and things can always change for the better.”
“As Jews, we end up spending most of our time defending the idea that the Jewish people have a right to a national homeland”
He doesn’t expect it to become more difficult to defend Israel on campus for the simple reason, he says, that most students tend to be pretty ignorant about the situation in the country. Indeed, Shaw says he would be shocked if students on his campus knew anything about Itamar Ben-Gvir, widely considered to be the most controversial member of Israel’s new government.
“Most non-Jews I meet on campus don’t even know that Israel’s a democracy, let alone keep up with the country’s politics,” he says. “The type of debates we have on campus are way more basic. In fact, as Jews, we end up spending most of our time defending the idea that the Jewish people have a right to a national homeland.”
Josh Cohen, 21, third year student at Nottingham Trent University, England
Cohen, president of the JSoc (the Jewish students society) on his campus, identifies as Modern Orthodox religiously and center-left politically. Describing himself as an “unapologetic Zionist,” he believes it is important for students to continue engaging with Israel, but at the same time, to be “vocal in our opposition to the new government.”
Cohen does not anticipate tough times ahead for Jewish students on campus: “The vast majority of students, Jews and non-Jews alike, aren’t interested in Israel’s internal affairs.”
Gabriel Gluskin-Braun, 23, graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Gluskin-Braun, the son of a Reconstructionist rabbi, was active in the Habonim Dror Zionist youth movement but now identifies as anti-Zionist. The rise of the far right in Israel, he predicts, will push growing numbers of young American Jews into his camp.
“The idea that Israel represents the interests of global Jewry has, I think, been largely disproven,” says the Philadelphia native, who is studying Eastern languages and culture, with a specialization in Arabic.
“In the past, Diaspora Jews were hesitant to criticize Israel in public for fear of being labeled ‘self-hating’ or even ‘antisemitic.’ Now, a lot of young Jews have reached the end of their tether and are questioning how much longer they can defend the indefensible and engage with a country whose values don’t align with theirs.”
He describes the predominance of extremists in Israel’s new government as “another straw on the camel’s back.”
George Aminoff, 23, fourth-year student at Aston University, England
Aminoff, a member of the Birmingham JSoc, was raised in London and comes from a traditional Jewish background. Although he remains a Zionist, he says he will find it much harder now to continue defending Israel. “I don’t want to excuse the country’s swing to the hard right,” he says.
At the same time, he doesn’t expect the rise of the far right in Israel to radically change the views of his Jewish
“People think Israel is a dictatorship, comparable to a theocratic regime like Iran”
friends. “On campus, a lot of young Jews are increasingly critical of Israel, but I don’t think the election results alone are going to turn people into anti-Zionists,” he says.
Paris Enten, 20, second-year student at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia
Enten, who serves as advocacy and communications coordinator for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, says that this is the first time she can remember so many young Jews fundamentally opposed to the Israeli government.
She describes the situation as “challenging,” but does not think the election results will cause young Jewish Australians to distance themselves from Israel. “Our relationship with Israel isn’t based on the government of the day but on the idea of supporting a Jewish homeland,” she says.
Growing up at a time when Israel is under constant international criticism – often unfairly so in Enten’s view – has strengthened the resolve of her and her peers to stand up for the Jewish state. “It has hardened our Zionist beliefs,” she says.
Enten takes consolation in the fact that most of Israel’s major critics on Australia are relatively clueless about domestic politics in the country.
“Debates are not happening on our campuses at a such a sophisticated level,” she says. “People think Israel is a dictatorship, comparable to a theocratic regime like Iran. So, we don’t spend our time discussing nuances, but rather, dispelling basic lies.”
Kayla Lior Vardi, 22, third-year student at University of Cape Town, South Africa
Vardi, who was born in London and grew up in Johannesburg, identifies as a secular Zionist, but is active in Chabad, the Orthodox outreach movement.
As someone who has long advocated for Israel on her campus, she anticipates greater difficulties ahead. “In South Africa, the antisemitism I’ve experienced has always stemmed from anti-Zionism, and the composition of the new government is bound to provide more fodder.”
With Israel moving away from democracy, says Vardi, it will become harder for students like her to advocate for it. “I’ll be having to defend a government I disagree with on just about everything,” she says.
Having said that, Vardi does not think many young South African Jews will disengage from Israel because of the new government.
“Even the most liberal Jewish schools in South Africa are staunchly Zionist, and so, I don’t think the trend we see worldwide is relevant for young Jews in my country,” she says. “One election – albeit unprecedented in terms of the extremist results – is unlikely to make us turn our backs on
“I would delete my social media and [move to Israel] very quietly, because I’m worried about being canceled”
Israel.”
Vardi has considered immigrating to Israel, but says she was always hesitant “for fear of a backlash from my non-Jewish friends.”
If she were to move now, she says, “I would delete my social media and do it very quietly, because I’m worried about being canceled.”
Josh Feldman, 22, fourth-year student at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia
Feldman, who describes himself as a centrist Zionist, runs the blog for the Jewish Student Society at his university and follows events in Israel closely.
He thinks it would be “short-sighted and wrong” for young Jews to abandon Israel, and believes most of his peers in Australia share his view. “Young Australian Jews are very Zionist – even more than our parents and grandparents were, and I highly doubt this election will change people’s feelings toward Israel,” he says.
“Rather than distancing themselves, I think a lot of Jewish students are interested in learning why a person like Ben-Gvir has managed to become so popular,” he adds. “In this regard, there’s a perverse sense of renewed interest in the country.”
Rose Zelezniak, 21, third-year student at University of Cape Town, South Africa
Zelezniak, who identifies as a left-wing Zionist, says she is feeling “pretty hopeless” about Israel these days.
“But I’ve accepted the fact that as a Diaspora Jew, there’s very little I can do,” she says.
Rather than feed into the anti-Israel atmosphere on her campus, Zelezniak says, she has resolved to keep her thoughts to herself. “On campus, I still advocate just as fervently for Israel as I did before the election,” she says.
Zelezniak expects life to become even more challenging for Jewish students like herself because of the Israeli government’s orientation.
“Now we have to contend with the idea that a fascist party will be part of the new government, and that is the last thing we need on our plate,” she says. “If I were to sum up, I’d say that the Israeli election has made an already desperate situation even more toxic.”
Sheli Cohen, 22, recent graduate of University of Kansas, United States
Cohen, who grew up fairly observant, describes herself as a “cultural Jew” with left-of-center political views.
After graduating this summer, she moved to Tel Aviv, where she is working in the film industry. Despite the temptation to pick up and leave in despair over the new government, she says, she felt “the brave thing to do was to stay and fight.”
Cohen finds it disheartening that most of the American Jews she has recently encountered who moved to Israel tend to see eye-to-eye with the new government. “They’re changing the demographics of the country, and it is hard for me to engage with them,” she says.
The situation in Israel today reminds Cohen of how things felt in the United States right after Donald Trump was elected president. “It enabled the extremists to become more extreme, and led to super-polarization,” she says.
Adam Levy, 23, fourth-year student at University of Sydney, Australia
Levy, who describes himself as left-wing, is concerned that if the new Israeli government begins to act on some of its declarations, life could become far more challenging for Jewish students on campus.
“This is bound to further enrage the anti-Israeli activists on campus and make the environment even more hostile to us”
“All these horrendous laws will end up creating more violence against the Palestinians, and this is bound to further enrage the anti-Israeli activists on campus and make the environment even more hostile to us,” he says.
Levy, who plans to immigrate to Israel within the next few years, believes it is easier for him, as a Diaspora Jew, to distinguish between his feelings toward the state and his feeling toward the government. “I understand that’s a privilege not afforded to Israelis,” he says.
Beitha Milner, 20, second-year student at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Milner, the national chairperson of the South African Union of Jewish Students, is not particularly disturbed by recent political developments in Israel. “Israeli politics are not super relevant to me, because my ties to the land are historical, cultural and religious,” she explains.
Neither does she anticipate that life will become more difficult for Jewish students on South African campuses. “The pro-BDS students in South Africa have never cared about who’s in power in Israel,” she explains. “The election for them is irrelevant, and I doubt they even knew one had taken place.”
Although she cares deeply for Israel, Milner says she would never speak out publicly against the new government. “Who the Israelis choose to elect isn’t really my business,” she says. “I’m not a citizen of the country, and I don’t pay taxes there.”
The federal coalition will take the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to the next election.
The Labor government reversed a 2018 decision by then prime minister Scott Morrison to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move Australia’s embassy.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said the decision broke from decades of bipartisanship to have the issue resolved by Israel and Palestine.
Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital.
She accused Mr Morrison of using the issue as a political football to win votes.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham told AAP the coalition’s position had not changed.
“It remains the coalition’s view that West Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” he said.
“It functions as the capital for the Israeli government in all purposes.
“So long as it remains Israel’s choice, their functional capital going forward, that will be the view we take into the next election and into government if we are re-elected.”
But he maintained the final boundaries for Israel and Palestine and the status of East Jerusalem were to be negotiated by the two parties.
The coalition expressed anger at the reversal and how it had been handled by the government, with it being announced on a Jewish holiday and catching the Israeli government off guard.
But when asked why West Jerusalem should be Israel’s recognised capital in light of the reversal, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said: “We took a policy to the last election, we will make an announcement about our policy in the run-up to the next election.”
Senator Birmingham said a Liberal-National government would handle the matter more sensitively and consult with all parties if elected.
by Dominic Giannini
Australian Associated Press
Free Palestine Melbourne is planning an exhibition/cultural event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba in May 2023.
We are proposing a theme along the lines of “Palestine is …” (tentative working title only and open to suggestions) as we would like to make a positive statement that Palestine not only exists but is a vibrant creative, passionate community.
We are calling on all creatives and activists to come forward to be part of this exhibition/event in whatever medium they wish; be it painting, installations, political cartoons, posters, infographics, embroidery, literature, music, film, dance, digital and a whole lot more.
Once responses to the initial callout are received, we will facilitate a curatorial group to further develop and implement the project.
Please submit expressions of interest to Free Palestine Melbourne at [email protected] with the subject line: Nakba Exhibition EOI by 30 November 2022.
At 22 years old, I set foot in my country for the first time. My parents were Palestinian, but in 1970 they had gone into exile. We had been living in Cyprus after fleeing the war in Lebanon. Now, a new era of reconciliation had arrived.
Labor councillor Christopher Cahill will move a motion at Thursday’s council meeting to recognise the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, how it is of concern to Canterbury-Bankstown residents and note how the Palestine perspective is rarely given media attention.
On the 15th August, 2022, the University of Melbourne’s Student Union passed a resolution against anti-Semitism and apartheid Israel (see https://bdsaustralia.net.au/university-of-melbourne-student-union-stands-with-palestine-and-supports-bds/ ). One student of Melbourne University thinks this resolution is “anti-Semitic”, published this perversity in mainstream media and threatens legal action against the Student Union.[1] The fallacy that being against racism in all its manifestations is “anti-Semitism”, is a product of the recent history of Israeli propaganda. Let’s look at it.