“Israelism” looks at the indoctrination of Jewish students in the US

“What is this thing that is so horrifying that you can’t bear to let me see it?”
--Simone Zimmerman from the film “Israelism”

“Israelism” is a 2023 documentary about Jewish students in the US who are indoctrinated into blind support for Zionism and the state of Israel. Some of them have now become critics. The film makers interview students who attended Jewish day schools, go inside a Hillel group and interview various representatives from pro-Israel Jewish organizations about the growing criticism of Israel coming from Millennial and GenZ Jews. This is interwoven into an overview of the crimes of the Israeli state’s occupation of Palestine. Importantly, we also meet Palestinians who reach out to Israelis and others to show them their lives in the occupied West Bank. It is contacts like this that connect the humanity of Israelis and Palestinians across Apartheid walls.

Controversy: A cancelled screening at University of Pennsylvania

In July of 2023, progressive Jewish student group Penn Chavurah scheduled a November 23rd screening of Israelism. The University of Pennsylvania administration cancelled the screening citing safety concerns (due to tensions on campus after the October 7th, attack by Hamas). “In a statement to CBS News Philadelphia, UPenn said the film screening was postponed for the safety and well-being of the Penn community and are aiming to reschedule the event in February.” Students and members of the community accused Penn officials censoring them and violating their academic freedom.

Congressional Circus

In September of 2023, Penn President Elizabeth Magill, along with conservative Jewish student groups at Penn and various media outlets, denounced a literary event put on by Palestinian students called “Palestine Writes.” Magill engaged in preemptive punishment against Palestinian campus groups.

This was before she was brought before a congressional committee on December 5th, along with two other University presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T. The issue was not unfairness to Palestinian student groups. Rather, the three were accused of being weak on anti-Semitism on their campuses. The star interrogator was Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik from New York.

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?” Stefanik demanded. Her performance was so over the top she was the subject of the Saturday Night Live cold open four days later. The underwhelming answers given by the three presidents seemed designed to avoid legal  ramifications but they came off as avoiding giving an answer. Their answers were so weak that it is understandable that many believed it was important to clarify that anti-Semitism is a threat that must be resisted. What is not discussed is the fact that Stefanik represents the MAGA and White Nationalist segment of the political landscape which is the single largest actual generator of anti-Semitism in the US.

At any rate, the hearings led to demands for all three women to resign their posts. It’s a problem that these University Presidents lacked either the backbone, or political awareness to resist the premises of Stefanik’s disingenuous line of questioning. This is the Ivy League though (Harvard and Penn), so that’s not much of a surprise.

On December 9th, Magill was forced to resign for her alleged failure to protect Jewish students on campus.

Stefanik was then praised by Donald Trump and on December 10th she tweeted her gratitude to him complete with a picture of a speech he gave in New York, broadcast by the extreme Right wing MAGA youtubers Right Side Broadcasting Network. The Presidential candidate who lifts passages from Hitler’s speeches to designate immigrants as “vermin” who “poison the blood” of the US is right there with her to celebrate this great victory against anti-Semitism.

Stefanik shows her MAGA pride

As I prepare to post this, Harvard President Claudine Gay has announced her resignation over a combination of the anti-Semitism charges and a plagiarism scandal. The media has treated us to a headline in which Lawrence Summers, the sexist, racist, neoliberal ghoul and ex-Harvard president has congratulated her for putting Harvard first. Summers was among the most prominent critics condemning Gay for allegedly inadequate responses on behalf of Harvard to the Hamas attack.

The irony of course is that the backdrop was the ongoing bombing of Gaza into rubble after 75 years of occupation, now escalating into an openly intentional genocide. The punitive actions in the US go against Palestinian student groups, progressive Jewish groups, and those not clearly siding with Israel and pro-Israel groups.

While criticism of Israeli state policy and violence against Palestinians is becoming more prevalent among younger US Jews, the institutional bias to defend against criticisms of Israel looks to be as strong as ever.

Controversial Slogans

At many pro-Palestine rallies in the US the chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Honour our Martyrs” along with the term “intifada” are heard by many as calls for genocide against the Jewish people and destruction of the state of Israel. Congresswoman Stefanik cited the “river to the sea” and “intifada” chants as proof of genocidal intent by Palestinian student groups.

River on the right, Sea on the left

“Many Palestinian activists say it’s a call for peace and equality after 75 years of Israeli statehood and decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians. Jews hear a clear demand for Israel’s destruction.”

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was censured (denounced in a formal statement) by the Republican Party controlled congress (the lower house of the US legislative branch) for using the “river to the sea” term. The censure smacked of political opportunism, cynicism, and racism.

Tlaib responded to her censure with a moving speech, reminding her fellow representatives that “I’m the only Palestinian American serving in congress Mr. Chair and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words.” Nearly breaking into tears she added “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Pa...[long pause] Palestinian people are not disposable.” She clarified that her goal was peace for both Israelis and Palestinians with the immediate goal for a ceasefire. She praised “the peace movement, with countless Jewish Americans across the country standing up and lovingly saying ‘not in our name.’”

For some chanting these slogans, they may actually support Hamas. There are tankies and old Stalinist groups that give them outright or conditional support as do various campist anti-imperialists. It can’t be surprising that some activists and many inside Gaza would to some degree throw support to Hamas, who have weapons to fight back, however hopelessly, against the Israeli forces. No other group seems equipped to do so. The very existence of the Israeli occupation, of the ongoing siege of Gaza even after Israeli apologists claim the region has been independently run as a free territory since 2005, makes outbursts of violence inevitable.

This does not mean that people outside Gaza must “support Hamas.” The 1988 Hamas Covenant cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion when describing Zionism, and this is a good indicator of their reactionary ideology. Very often the US groups who support Hamas are the same groups that present Putin, Assad, and Xi as “anti-imperialists” worthy of “Western activists” support.

At a November 27th Oakland City Council meeting, some activists protested that “Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous, racist, and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media...” Bill Weinberg quoted them in the December 2nd episode of Countervortex, and offered an alternative description. Hamas "is an authoritarian, mass-murdering, clerical reactionary organization."

Others in this vocal pro-Hamas group claimed that there was actually no massacre of Jews on October 7th and that the IDF had actually killed them all.

Another claimed that Hamas are the "armed wing of a unified Palestinian resistance.” To this, Weinberg counters "No it isn't. It's a political movement that controls the government of the Gaza strip, that has its own military wing: the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and there isn't any unified Palestinian Resistance." Weinberg sides with the Palestinian people against occupation and genocide but does not legitimize Hamas or romanticize their ideology, politics, or actions.

I recommend Weinberg’s Countervortex podcast in general, but specifically his two episodes entitled “Whither ‘From the River to the Sea?’” and another two episodes called “Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism: parsing the difference”

“If only they wanted peace like we do.”

Palestinian students have faced censorship on college campuses for decades and there has long been a pattern in which punitive actions toward Palestinian civil society and student groups increases in proportion to the levels of violence in Israel-Palestine. The narrative around campus tensions between pro-Israel groups like Hillel and pro-Palestinian groups often approaches mass hysteria that can reach national audiences.

I witnessed this when I attended San Francisco State University (2000-2006). I’ll include this brief personal aside because it shows how little has changed since two decades ago.

I would often see the two sides at the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies exchanging insults. For example, Hillel would hold a “peace rally” usually making all manner of demands on the occupied Palestinians, blaming them for any violence arising out of the occupation, and lamenting the alleged absence of a “partner for peace.” The speeches often seemed designed to push the buttons of Palestinian counter protesters (speakers on stage admonishing Palestinians in the crowd with “shame on you!” and so on).

After one such rally in 2002, a Jewish Studies professor and wife of a Hillel Rabbi wrote a sensationalized post to Indymedia entitled “Where is the outrage? Pogrom at SF State.” I was at the rally she described and I can assure you there was no pogrom. To me it simply fit the pattern I was learning about in which conservative pro-Israeli spokespeople played the victim, seemingly blind to the ongoing genocide they regularly excused. During my years at SF State, the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) was sanctioned, shut down, and or put on probation more than once, while the Hillel group would receive a reprimand at worst.

I took two Jewish studies classes at SF State (from a different professor than the one who penned the indymedia post). During the first week of one of the classes this professor invited an Israeli expert on the demographics in the Jewish state. During his presentation he outlined the terrible threat of increasing Palestinian birth rates and why it was important to bring that under control. It was a chillingly open and honest eugenics-based take on Israeli nationalism. He challenged anyone in the class to prove him wrong, but as a freshman I wasn’t at all prepared for a debate and said nothing.

The professor often told us about holding joint events between Hillel and GUPS where ethnic foods and culture were shared. He was deeply disappointed that the Palestinian students had stopped participating. He didn’t seem to take into account that the ongoing settler expansion and violence, bulldozed Palestinian homes, IDF incursions and killings, Ariel Sharon’s belligerent dehumanizing of Palestinians, Israel’s Apartheid legal system, and the occupation of Palestine since 1948, after the ethnic cleansing known as the Nakba, might make a sit down meal with Hillel students (who seemingly didn’t want to grapple with any of that) less fun. The professor was genuinely baffled that, as he saw it, the Palestinian students couldn’t act in a civil manner as the believed he Jewish students did.

Israelism is about indoctrination

After watching Israelism I realized that my personal experience two decades ago was very similar to young students’ experiences today. Pro-Israel spokespeople represent themselves and the situation in Israel-Palestine as I remember them doing back then. They are the victims facing the ignorant and violent hordes of pro-Palestinian maniacs and searching in vain for partners in peace.

The University of Connecticut Hillel coordinator speaks in the film with her student members who sit around a table: “This University, thank God, is fairly apolitical. But I’ve heard all over the place how universities are these hotbeds of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel work.” They all agree that they’ve never met anyone who is critical of Israel who isn’t also either ignorant or confused, victims of misinformation.

Simone Zimmerman is one of the students the film follows, who grew up attending Jewish Day school, doing trips to Israel, and uncritically believing everything she was taught about Israel. When she got to college at Berkeley she was deeply involved with Hillel. One day there was a rally on campus in which the student government was promoting a resolution for the University to divest from Israel. She and her friends got talking points from their parents on their phones and rushed over to testify against the resolution, some of them seen breaking into tears in the footage. But Simone started to wonder about the things she had never heard about before, that the Palestinian students brought up. Occupation. Apartheid. Settlements. Ethnic Cleansing. She asked her fellow Hillel members if they could rebut the accusations but no one could answer her. This is what started her on a journey to learn more about the people in Palestine, whom she had considered Jew-murdering terrorists or at least anti-Semites before.

“How is it that I’m the best the Jewish community has to offer, I’ve been through all the trainings, all the programs, and I don’t know what the occupation is; I don’t know what the settlements are?”

We also meet Eitan, an ex-IDF soldier who grew up in a conservative Jewish family in Atlanta, Georgia. He decided to forego college and instead move to Israel and join the IDF where, after seven months of training, he was sent to patrol the occupied West Bank. He did not like his experience. It was mostly setting up check points at major intersections to harass Palestinians on a daily basis to “keep them on their toes.” They would also take up rooftop positions in villages to “make our presence felt.”

Some of the people who grew up there are interviewed too, and describe how they felt terrorized and humiliated, and even had friends and close family killed. Some of their grandparents and parents had fled the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians by Israeli forces during the 1948 War. There is a lot of history woven in and we see the settlements, and learn how in the 1967 War, Israel consolidated control over the entirety of the territory by occupying Gaza and the West Bank.

Eitan explains that his education in aUS Jewish day school had not prepared him for the reality of the West Bank: “We never really discussed the Palestinians” in school. “It was presented to us that Israel was basically an empty wasteland when the Jews arrived. There were some Arabs there they said, but there was no organized people. They had really treated the land poorly. Yeah there are Palestinians and they just want to kill us all and want us to leave the land.”

Generational Shift

By the time the film passes the halfway point, we the audience have a better understanding of the reasons young Jews in the US are protesting the occupation. There is footage of large protests by Jewish students at the Anti-Defamation League and Birthright Israel headquarters. Jewish spokespeople for left leaning Jewish organizations explain that these students are “really really angry about the way they were educated and the way they were indoctrinated.”

We see anti-occupation youth in Israel protesting, and facing attacks from angry Zionists. Fade to Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) calling these youth “super-naive” and saying the anti-occupation protesters don’t add up to much. Foxman believes these decisions are not for Jews or anyone else in the US to make but only for Israelis to decide. And this is a classic tactic of removing agency both from Jews who don’t support occupation, but also from critics in the US whose tax dollars and government’s export of weapons to Israel are a significant part of what props up the Israeli occupation.

Foxman says that “As long as Israel is under threat” as US Jews “we postpone that philosophical debate.” “Philosophical” implying not of material concern, but he’s not asking Palestinians. Letting down his mask briefly, Foxman goes for an openly racist appeal to the Right in the US: “Look at the most recent Gaza demonstrations. Ask yourself the question: If the Mexicans stood at the border and marched, a million Mexicans or twenty thousand Mexicans, what would America do? You know, first they would try tear gas and eventually they would have to shoot!”

Abe Foxman being interviewed in Israelism

We learn that Foxman demanded that Bernie Sanders fire political advisor Simone Zimmerman, one of the stars of the film, for being an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation. And Bernie complied.

Another telling Foxman moment follows: “When we talk about losing the kids....we’re not talking about...We lost them!” If the quote isn’t clear in written form, he’s saying the Jewish youth are already turning against their indoctrination.

Zimmerman notes that “So many of the self-appointed leaders of our community have been trying to equate the idea of supporting Palestinian rights itself with anti-Semitism."

This segment ends with Trump getting a rousing standing ovation at the 2016 AIPAC convention. This was well before he won the 2016 election. Biden and Hillary Clinton also spoke at the convention. There is another interview clip of Foxman explaining that Donald Trump is not a racist or an anti-Semite, more irony given his propensity and the ADL’s to label countless progressives and leftists as anti-Semitic, including the ADL’s equating of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. The organization has long been mostly reactionary and leaned strongly conservative, from their propaganda against Nelson Mandela in the 1970s to refusing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide until 2007.

Joe Biden spoke at the 2020 AIPAC convention

From the Recent “Drop the ADL” campaign:

Even though the ADL is integrated into community work on a range of issues, it has a history and ongoing pattern of attacking social justice movements led by communities of color, queer people, immigrants, Muslims, Arabs, and other marginalized groups, while aligning itself with police, right-wing leaders, and perpetrators of state violence. More disturbing, it has often conducted those attacks under the banner of “civil rights.”

“Open letter to progressives: The ADL is not an ally.”

Alarmingly, the ADL’s new president, Jonathan Greenblatt appears to be focussing much more on attacking the left than even Abe Foxman did, while also ignoring the rise of the alt-Right, Great Replacement theory, and the general anti-Semitism of MAGA type actors.

The American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) is also heavily right wing: “It’s no secret that as Israel has become a conservative cause in recent years, groups like AIPAC have allied themselves with the right. AIPAC endorsed more than 100 House members who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election.”

Hope for the Future in the Palestinians' darkest hour

Israelism points toward a future in which Israel may lose the necessary support to continue it’s existence as an Apartheid state.

Many have pointed out the irony of mainstream, conservative and Zionist Jewish groups embracing the far Right, the very source of most anti-Semitism in the US. And yet, given that Israel is a settler state established in large part through ethnic cleansing, the affinity between authoritarian leaders makes perfect sense. The Democratic Party in the US has also long supported Israel right or wrong.

The reason the two capitalist parties support Israel is that it serves US foreign policy interests. It’s an outpost for Western nations offering access to trade, resources, and the projection of power in the Middle East. Since the 1967 war in which Israel defeated Arab states without much help from the US, Israel's importance has been acknowledged by the West.

Israel is more dependent on its Western allies than they are on it. However, it’s also true that Israel has its own fully developed industry, mainly high technology and industrial manufacturing including weapons production and arms exports. Nicole Narea noted in her recent Vox article on the US/Israel relationship that “[c]urrently, Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the US annually under a memorandum signed in 2019. That accounted for about 16 percent of Israel’s total military budget in 2022 — a significant fraction, but not so large that Israel still depends on US aid in the way it once did.”

I don’t know how much of an impact the changing perceptions of Jewish youth in the US toward the Israeli occupation could have on the structure of Israel’s internal governance or its nineteenth century nationalist ideology.

As the people in Gaza face the possibility of a final ethnic cleansing dying under Israeli state bombs, the awakening of Jewish youth, and the general US population can only be a factor for hope where there currently is none. I hope that the activism of Israeli and US Jewish youth against the occupation will keep growing. The combination of the horrors of occupation, and the violence it creates in response, combined with pressure from within Israeli and diaspora Jewish communities as well as the broader global community could bring an end to the Apartheid regime and the birth of a shared secular state, and maybe someday no states at all. Despite the seeming impossibility of an end to the slaughter in the current situation, these are dreams that we can’t let die.

While only one part of the political puzzle, education is important. A film like Israelism does matter, and I think the attempts by conservatives to stop it being shared are a good indication of that.

Comrade Motopu
January 2nd, 2024