The stories we tell matter—they provide the context and the grounding for how we make our decisions and how we live our lives – they determine how we see one another and too often, how we disregard one another.
We have a right to tell our own stories – to explain who we are and where we came from and where we belong to live. We do not have the right to tell another people’s story– to define them and to decide who and what they are.
Over the course of the last few months, I have been following the Instagram account of a local anti-Israel organization here in Rockland County that has been putting together protests and has organized boycotts of local businesses whom they deem support Israel. The group has demonized local politicians and castigated anyone in the local Muslim community who might support a dialogue with the Jewish community.
My goal in following the work of this organization was not to be shocked and angered, but rather, to better understand how they tell our story. How does this particular group tell the story of Israel and Zionism and Jews?
To be clear, the limited social media posts that I have been reading are not aimed at providing the full narrative of Israel and Palestine. This group’s focus is on demanding a ceasefire (without asking for the release of any hostages).
It is clear that this group supports a narrative that is commonplace amongst the pro-Palestine movement – the idea that Israel is an illegitimate foreign invader.
In one particular post, the group goes as far as to say that there is no such thing as an Israeli pro-Palestinian – inferring that any Israeli, by their very identity as an Israeli, is anti-Palestinian. In another post, the group argues that there is no such thing as Israeli food and that any restaurant claiming to serve it is ‘ethnically-cleansing’ Arab and Palestinian food (this food argument led the group to boycott Art Café in Nyack.)
According to this dangerous narrative, there is only one solution to the conflict—the removal of a people who are deemed foreign white colonialists. Israel and Zionism are racist, foreign and illegitimate.
If this group was simply a small subset of the pro-Palestinian movement, I might be less concerned. However, from what I have been learning over the course of the last few months, this narrative about Jews and Israel is commonplace. So many today in the international community consider Israel nothing more than a collection of European wealthy white Jews who came to the middle east and stole Arab land.
This is a false narrative. Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years. The waves of immigration that took place during the 19th and early 20th century reflected a need for a refuge and a sacred yearning to return to the land from which we came. Jews are not only white Europeans but also from Arab and Persian and African lands from which they were forced to leave.
Our claims to the land in Israel are legitimate and while we recognize a need to find a solution with those who have claims of their own, we reject the way we are too often defined by them.
Importantly, Israelis have long accepted partition and two state solutions. Israelis have long understood that there are another people that live in this land who deserve their own rights and self-determination. Despite the rise of bigots and racists in Israeli politics, there have long been overwhelming majorities that have supported two states and that have recognized that there is another people’s story.
But a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict will never take place when the common story amongst pro-Palestinians is that Israel and Israelis are illegitimate and worthy of destruction. It will never take place if the goal for the majority of pro-Palestinians is the removal of Israel from this land.
The stories we tell matter – we have the right to tell our own – we do not have the right to tell another.
Please continue to join us as we move forward with our Israel advocacy and remind the world of our story.