Page 22 - Issue 14

they inevitably learn about the occupation and
oppose what Israel does on a daily basis to
Palestinians they cannot combine these realities
with a sophisticated love for Israel?

At Habonim Dror, choosing to be ‘builders’ of
Israel means facing up to these realities, but also
understanding the project of Israel: it is not a
project bounded by electoral terms or Bibi’s
political lifetime, but a project of millennia, the
eternal project of the Jewish people. Surely we as
a community are capable of providing Israel
education that acknowledges and tackles the
occupation, but also recognises that Israel is and
should be so much more than that. Just as Israel
education cannot ignore the occupation, so too it
cannot be dominated by it, losing the essence of
ownership and responsibility over Israel. Zionism
and Israel predated the occupation, and I hope
will outlast it, and we cannot lose sight of this.

Personally, it was on shnat that my own
connection to Israel became most crystallised. I
am not a Zionist despite being anti-occupation,
and I am not anti-occupation despite being a
Zionist. I am anti-occupation because I am a
Zionist, because I believe in the potential of a
Jewish national home to be a light unto the nations
and a beacon for peace and democracy. I will
never stop striving towards that vision.