Sifry affirms his commitment “to the concept of Zionism as a movement of Jewish national self-determination.” Nevertheless, he adds, “I deplore, however, the racist and militarist forms it has taken from early on.”
Going back to the reality of how Israelis and Jews around the world were raised, Wishnitzer said flatly, “We were the good guys, erasing everything that didn’t fit that narrative.”
My biggest takeaway was the constant reminder of the Indigenous lands on which Montreal was built and the efforts to educate the population and visitors about the history of those peoples. The recognition spanned the earliest days of colonization through the abuse by the Canadian government in the 20th century.
“Ministers of Chaos,” profiling Itamr Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich,
takes a deep look at the tentacles of racism and ethnonationalism in today’s state of Israel.
Barber tells of his trip to various schools throughout the Strip in 1995 to meet students. A young man implores him:
“Please go home and tell the world that we are not all terrorists.”
With a call to recognize a “shared humanity” as a basis for moving forward, Green repeated the oft-stated phrase: “No one is going anywhere.” Which led back to Lander’s question, “What kind of relationship do we want to be in with each other?”
“We need to go back to the Judaism of our prophets,” Maoz told me. “The opposite of what Israel is now. We can’t wait for the prophets. Where is Shalom?”
A voiceover comments on Israelis and Palestinians. “We find that we actually have something in common. That willingness to kill people we don’t know.”
The contrast between the utter destruction of decimated buildings with the beach and waves of the Mediterranean Sea is palpable. There is a metaphorical analogy between stark constriction and elusive freedom.
Levy last visited Gaza eighteen years ago, before the government prohibited Israeli journalists from entering. He had been a regular visitor from 1987 through 2006. His goal was to serve as an interlocutor on “life and death under Israeli occupation—where freedom and basic human rights were denied.”
"The Jump Rope Line" by Marcia G. Yerman is included in the Seal Press anthology Dancing at the Shame Prom.
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