The dilemma of a Diaspora Jew at an Israeli peace rally

[oberliner]

On a visit to Israel recently, I noticed on my Facebook feed that Peace Now was partnering with a handful of other organizations in holding a peace march in Tel Aviv. Usually I read Peace Now missives from my home in Ottawa, far from the actual fray. But staying just a few blocks away, sympathetic to the cause, and looking for all experiences Israeli, I couldn’t help but attend.

Take a Canadian Jewish political scientist on a balmy Saturday night in Tel Aviv, armed with an iPhone camera and a heady dose of progressive Zionism and put her amidst clusters of political activists milling about with colorful and witty placards, and she feels right at home.

As the throng started to move, a young woman handed me a Peace Now flag. I have a decade of summer camp summers under my belt. So when I heard Hebrew cheers being issued through a megaphone (at my camp, everything was done in Hebrew), I dutifully repeated them. “Bibi, recognize Palestine. Two states for two peoples!” Other cheers were issued, some too sophomoric for the tastes of the older generation judging by some scowls, but I good-naturedly followed along.

Soon I found myself - a flag-carrying, slogan-chanting, Hebrew-speaking, leftist Zionist, Canadian political scientist - in the front row of thousands of marchers. It was exhilarating and meaningful, until it sank in that I was protesting a government that is not my own.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-dilemma-of-a-diaspora-jew-at-an-israeli-peace-rally-1.368540

[Taverner]

1. Awesome! And thanks for using the correct definition of 'Zionism'

Which means only that one believes the State of Israel has a right to exist