Typical Left, Or simply right?

A True Friend of Israel Is No Friend of Netanyahu.

By Jonathan Leader, Senior Leader of the Habonim Dror UK Youth Movement

In recent times, our movements on the left, like the Habonim Dror youth movement, have suffered the same criticism, from many different people. This criticism usually can be summed up in the following simple phrase “Habonim, aren’t you guys the anti-Zionists?” That question, albeit asked in various forms is a question I hear all too often! Be it from religious Zionists, who believe the modern state of Israel should follow the halachic doctrine of the Torah to the strictest of levels, or even  those within the disengaged, secular mainstream in our community.

 Now for a while, I asked myself the following question, “Why do these people believe something which I know for a fact to be untrue?” In fairness the answer came to me quite quickly, and forgive me if the answer I’ve came to seems too simplistic, but here it is. These people don’t truly understand what the Zionist vision and ethos is really about. They mistake an ideology, which in its modern inception was a socialist and liberal one, with an ideology of “supporting the Israeli government”. This is, to my mind a farcical mutation of the original Zionist dream. A dream which aimed to recreate and revolutionise the way Jews all over the world related to themselves and their identities. This is the key aspect of Zionism which our critics seem unable to grasp. Zionism is a revolutionary force. At a time when religious Orthodox Judaism was offering less and less answers to less and less people, secular Zionism aimed to unite the Jewish people around the idea of nationhood. The idea that as Jews we are responsible for our own collective wellbeing and consciousness! That in fact we are not simply individuals but part of a larger and more meaningful collective.

            Now I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the current state Israel finds itself is not the state in which we, as a movement wish to see it. For a long time now, I believe that for the most part the revolutionary view of Zionism, which we as a movement hold dear and what was intended by its creators is slowly dying out. The values of Jewish collective responsibility and social justice have been eroded by the values of individualism and the need to make a fast shekel. The Declaration of Independence’s pledge that the state will “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” has been replaced by the exclusion of Arabs, of Ethiopians of the poor and even, in some places of women. 

The Israel we long for, an Israel based upon that pledge is quickly slipping from our finger tips. A state which at one time aimed to take responsibility over each and every Jewish person who wished to be a part of the revolution has relinquished that wish. So much can be seen from the neighbourhood of boxes in South Tel-Aviv. The genesis of this neighbourhood began with the government deciding to relieve itself of having responsibility for the inhabitant’s lives and selling the land to a private contractor, who in turn allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point it’s gotten to today.

Those who criticise us for criticising the government forget why we do so. We don’t criticise Netanyahu out of hate for Israel, or out of a wish to delegitimise the state. We do so out of a love for OUR nation. We will no longer stand by whilst its people are being exploited or neglected, its democracy being eroded or its society being divided. We criticise because of the direction the Zionist revolution has been taken. It’s gone from one aimed at improving the collective well-being of the Jewish people, to one aimed at securing the most land in the West Bank. 

I for one am not happy that the modern Israel today has the second highest social gap in the world. I am not happy that so many Israelis can’t even afford to live in a country built for them! By their own ancestors! And most of all I am not happy about the fact that the government simply do not seem to care about their own people. Netanyahu, and his partner in crime (or partner in the systematic deterioration of Israeli democracy…however you want to view it) Lieberman are failing not only Palestinians, which seems to take up most of our energies. But Israelis also, both Jewish and Arab.

In conclusion I will leave this demand of the leftist movement, let us not stand idly by while our country is being torn apart by inequality and injustice. Let us stand up When those who wish to transform Israel into something we can be proud of are marginalised and even criminalised, and at the same time those who wish to ensure Israel stays on the same path to its own destruction prosper. And most importantly, let us educate ourselves, our membership and our communities about what real Zionism about, and the unfortunate but poignant truth. A true friend of Israel, is no friend of Netanyahu. 

Aaleh Ve’Haghem.