New Film Examines American Jews’ Growing Rejection of Israel’s Occupation

this is democracy Now democraticnow.org Warren's peace report I'm Amy Goodman six students have sued Harvard University, accusing it of becoming a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment and of tolerating increasing harassment of Jewish students since the October 7 This comes as reports Levels of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have soared across the country, but there has been a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on university campuses and conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel's

occupation

and demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Former Harvard president Claudin Gay was forced to resign earlier this month, just weeks after University of Pennsylvania President Liz McGill resigned following a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism, in which they were questioned by lawmakers, including far-right New York congresswoman Elise Stefanic, the lawsuit against Harvard. was filed by two law firms, including New York-based Kasowitz Benson Tores, which filed similar lawsuits against New York University and the University of Pennsylvania.

The firm also has ties to the Trump administration. The lawsuit concerns student-led marches on Harvard's campus in support. of Palestinian rights as crowds of prama students and professors and highlights a screening at Harvard Divinity School in September of the new documentary Israelism that

examines

the relationship between Jews in the United States and the state of Israel and the dissolution as that begin to question the sovereignty of Israel.

occupation

of Palestine in a minute we will talk to one of the directors of the

film

and one of the main themes this is the trailer of the

film

some American Jews who come here say that we came to Israel and left Palestine the non-Jewish community does not understand our obsession with Israel.

I went to a Jewish school summer camp. Organized trips to Israel. You also want to go to Israel. Yes, we want to go. We want to go. Israeli soldiers. They are hot. They are incredible. They're strong. Actually. Some of our alumni have joined the IDF. These are children. They are between 18 and 19 years old. Incredible. I told my parents. I don't even need to apply to college. I'll just join the Israeli army. 10% of my graduation. class joined the Israeli army, we were deployed to the West Bank. I don't think I realize the extent to which what I would see on the ground would really shock and horrify me when people look at the West Bank today and say this.

It is an apartheid system, it is not just saying a word, Palestinians live day after day without experiencing a day of freedom. Do you see what non-democracy looks like? What we have been told is that the only way Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe the more I learned about that, the more I came to see that as a lie within the Jewish community, oh there has been a change Surprisingly, they are really angry about the way they were justifiably indoctrinated, so when we talk about how we are Losing the children, we don't, we lost them.

I think they are a little super naive. Every time you cut Against the Current, you're going to hell. You're a self-hating Jew. Go kill yourself, an anti-Semitic Jew that way. We talk about anti-Semitism, it's not about protecting the Jews, it's about protecting Israel. How dangerous it is that they do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel. The great irony is that there is actually resurgent anti-Semitism. Jews will not replace American history. let's judge ourselves kindly that's the trailer for the documentary

israel

ismo for more joining us in Toronto Aaron Axelman co-director of

israel

ismo the film is now on a screening tour of 40 cities in Canada and the United States here in New York we are together with Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of the American Jewish activist, if not now one of the main protagonists of Israelism, we welcome them both to democracy.

Now Erin, let's start with you, why did you make this movie? Yes, this movie is really based on my story, it's based on a story of young American Jews who learn an idealized, sanitized version of the history of Israel and really fall in love with that history, but they come, but upon coming into contact with the Palestinians and the Palestinian narratives that have quite a lot of roots. Waking up from learning about the horrible oppression of the Palestinian people, so when I was young I learned about Noba and the occupation, I wanted to do everything I could, in any way, big or small, to help change my own Jewish community, as well as to put an end to the horrible oppression of the Palestinian people, and I began trying to come into contact with more people who had had similar experiences and began to realize that my own story was part of a much larger generational shift as hundreds of thousands of young American Jews are beginning to realize that to live our Jewish values ​​as best we can we must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians and at the same time fight against anti-Semitism.

Talk about the organizations that you narrate, that in a way represent in this film, those that are challenging the State of Israel and those that support it, that the other groups are definitely taking on, we really, Simone is the main character and protagonist of the movie and we really tried to tell a generational story and I'm telling my own story through Simone in many ways. Really chronicle a variety of progressive Jewish groups, including, if not now, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and many others, and then also in the right document, many pro-Israel groups we have Abe Foxman as one of the main characters of the film.

Um, Director Merus and former head of the Anti-Defamation League we talked about at length about Birthright in APAC and other groups that have tried to keep the status quo of unconditional support for Israel alive and healthy, so let's bring Simone Zimmerman into this conversation. Don't tell us about your upbringing, Simone, uh, talk about your loyalty to the state of Israel, how it was instilled in you and then talk about your absolute transformation? I grew up in a Jewish community where you know that the Holocaust was a formative part of During my education and I saw the defense of the State of Israel as a central part of what it meant to keep the Jewish people safe, it was a fundamental Jewish commitment for me, to such an extent. point that when I met anti-Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Israelis, huh. people who were fighting against occupation and apartheid when I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley.

I couldn't even believe those people existed, they were an anomaly to me, and the more I got to know those students, and more importantly the more I got to know the Palestinian students, I learned about their lives. Do you know what it means, from the moment you are born, to live under a system that deems you less worthy, that you have to live under occupation, oppression and dispossession just because of who you are and where you were born? I quickly ran out of answers that seemed moral and logical to answer the difficult questions I was hearing from these students about how I could justify the oppression I experienced under Simone.

I wanted to go to that moment at UC Berkeley. a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, an Israelism clip showing him in 2010, when the Student Senate failed to override the veto of a bill calling on campus officials to divest from companies that supply weapons that Israel uses it in the Palestinian occupation. territories I just knew it was a bad thing I had to fight, it's anti-Semitism, you're trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus and I remember we all did well, you shouldn't boycott Israel because, it's applying a diabolical standard and not They should boycott Israel because it is unfair to single out Israel, please, I beg of you, I beg of you, have compassion and remember that we are alienating students and I am devastated by the spell.

I am a Human Being I still remember you have these Palestinian students who stand up and say: you know, Jewish students, you are crying because you feel silenced and marginalized, you know, my aunts and cousins ​​didn't sleep for weeks while bombs were falling on Gaza, what do you have? ? To say that, if divestment is hostile, then where do we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation? Simone Zimmerman, if you can talk about that moment at UC Berkeley, what exactly was going on, and how you decided to further explore the kind of questioning that actually came out of your Jewish upbringing as well.

Absolutely well, first I want to say it's amazing to have this conversation. right now as you know the Israeli army has destroyed all the universities in GA Gaza right now and for me I remember when I was. In that debate on campus, the way that this narrative about Jewish students not being safe on campus is actually I think there's a deep conflation between being unsafe and being uncomfortable. I felt deeply uncomfortable. He didn't know about the realities under which Palestinians lived. They systematically denied me. in education about that reality and to this day we see pro-Israel organizations working to do everything possible to change the topic from Palestinian suffering to Jewish unrest, you know what occupation and aside they are deeply uncomfortable, we should all be uncomfortable and outraged . because of what is happening in Gaza now and again, as I said.

The more I listened to Palestinian students testify about their realities, the more undeniable it became to me that I was missing a huge part of history and had to go find out more. Axelman wanted you to introduce us to Ethan, an American who first decides not to go to college but to serve in the IDF. We are about to play a clip of him from our hands and throw him to the ground while he is still blindfolded. With his hands tied behind his back and they started kicking him for a good few minutes. I was responsible for this man's well-being.

I was responsible for taking him from the checkpoint to the Detention Center, that was my job and right outside the Detention Center fence. They grabbed him from me and started beating him. I felt responsible, but my commander wasn't saying anything, so how could he say anything? The entire time this was happening, a military police officer was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cigarette. As soon as these guys finished kicking this Palestinian man, the military police officer threw down his cigarette, came and brought him inside the detention center and I didn't even talk, I didn't talk and that's just one of many stories that I have from My time in the West Bank, so it was Eton.

Reminds me of our previous guest, uh maab abua, who described being beaten by the IDF. Well, Aon came to serve in Israel in the IDF. Tell us more about him and his transformation. Yes, many Americans. Jews are told that to defend the Jewish people and be a good Jewish person, one of the best things they can do is join the Israeli army or support the Israeli army. In the film we interview at length a mountaineer educator and an Israeli scholar at the U of Connecticut and they openly boast about how many children have served in the Israeli army, um, and that's deeply tragic, and I've had friends, American Jewish friends who also have served and join 18 year olds.

One-year-old children think they are doing a great thing by defending the Jewish people and then many of them are sent to the occupied West Bank and quickly realize that they are actually a cog in an apartheid system. A system that puts you in a different legal system based on the race you were born into and so many American Jews and some Israelis too when they really realize that this is what they are doing, they are not defending the Jewish people, they are actually defending an expansionist settlement. program in the West Bank that is literally a system of apthe uh it is devastating and it is heartbreaking obviously they are not the biggest victims the biggest victims of course are the pale Ians who have to face that apartheid um but it is inspiring to see The members of U uh, to break the silence, both Israelis and Americans speak up and say that we thought we were going to come together to do something and we found out that in reality we were part of this apartheid system again and that they are going to do everything they can to end it. the occupation and apartheid system, so we really wanted to include someone like him because it is a common story and it is also the story of many of my friends who served in the Israeli army realized that they were part of an apartheid system.

Now they are doing everything they can to end that system and Simone Zimmerman, um, you didn't serve in the IDF but you went to Israel in the occupied territories. Also for a moment, which was for two days, you became Bernie's outreach coordinator. The Sanders campaign before there was a campaign against him talks about the trajectory of him going to the occupied territories returning founding if not now um yeah, I went, you know, I had grown up spending time in Israel. I felt deeply connected to the place I thought Iknew. I thought I knew Israel, huh, but the way the apartheid system is built is such that Israeli Jews don't have to see the reality that Palestinians live in, they can drive on roads, you know, they can drive on the side of the wall where they do not have to see what is on the other side of the horrors, the brutality and the profound denial of dignity and freedom that Palestinians experience and once I saw those realities with my own eyes, once I met people who had been evicted from their homes who were denied basic freedom of movement, people like me who want to live in freedom and security, whose lives have been destroyed and restricted by a system of Jewish supremacy.

I couldn't stop seeing those things and Again, as Aaron has already talked about this, it is a story that thousands of Jews around the world have encountered and we know that it is deeply contrary to our values ​​as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial. of the freedom of another people and I have been part of this generation that includes you know if not now and the Jewish voice for peace and many other groups that are taking on an obsolete establishment that wants to enforce a pro-Israel orthodoxy and they will everything possible to attack, marginalize and silence anyone who descends from that point of view that you mentioned at the beginning of this segment, the lawsuit taking place at Harvard University.

I can't help but mention it right now. the attacks that we have seen over the weekend against Derek Penslar, director of a center for Jewish studies at Harvard University, a world-renowned scholar of Jewish studies, and who has been attacked for being named a member of a group of I work on anti-Semitism at Harvard just because it criticizes the Israeli government, so we're seeing how far this establishment is willing to go to attack and marginalize anyone who doesn't follow that strict, narrow orthodoxy and, increasingly, anyone who doesn't defend This government's genocidal attack on the Gaza Strip is absurd but also deeply dangerous and offensive to those of us who act from a deep place of intellectual integrity of Jewish values ​​and a commitment to justice who want to build a world of security. , genuine freedom and dignity for the Jewish people and for the Palestinians and that Old Guard is increasingly desperate to keep any of us out of public and political life and certainly not to be legitimized as a legitimate Jewish voice, finally Ain axelman, you're in Canada, um Simone is. here in New York they're starting another tour of the film um as Simone mentioned um Israelism is mentioned in the Harvard lawsuit equating anti-Semitism with um anti-Zionism or criticism of the Israeli state your final thoughts as you two We traveled to both countries totally, you know, it's ironic, you know, there were four attempted cancellations of screenings we had in the fall and in all of those screenings, it was actually Jewish groups, Jewish student groups or Jewish professors who brought us to the venue. or university, so it is very ironic that, under the guise of protecting Jewish students or fighting anti-Semitism, administrators or venues are trying to cancel a film brought by Jews made by Jews about the Jewish people and that just shows how confusing this moment is and how any criticism of Israel, even if it is made by Jews, is often considered anti-Semitic, which is totally absurd and really makes it much more difficult to fight against real anti-Semitism and, while we are about to realize this screening, this screening tour, We are sure that there will be quite a few attempts at cancellation.

We just discovered that the president of Barnard is trying to unilaterally cancel a screening on Israelism. In February we will be working with the factual faculty and we will make the projection. This will happen and we will fight against all attempts to cancel our screenings and we will also be part of the movement to fight against attempts to censor any pro-Palestinian or progressive Jewish voice. Erin Axelman, co-director of Israelism and Simone Zimmerman, American Jewish activist. founder of if not now