Exposure to seeing what occupation looks like raises new questions.
By James North and Philip Weiss | Mondoweiss | Jul 14, 2019
‘My joy and my light shouldn’t be coming from someone else’s darkness,’
— Liyah Foye, a senior at UNC-Asheville
We are as critical of the New York Times as anyone, but we need to salute the superb report in the newspaper by David Halbfinger on a liberal Zionist trip for American Jews to see the occupation. Titled, “Touring the Israeli Occupation: Young U.S. Jews Get an Unflinching View,” the July 10 article offered horrifying glimpses of Palestinian conditions in Susiya and Hebron that left the young Jews staggered.
The article was about a very lukewarm tour of the occupation indeed, by the Zionist group J Street, which wants the visitors to engage in Israel advocacy back home, and wants to influence the more rightwing Jewish trips to Israel, notably Birthright, to stop off in Palestine.
But the thrust of the article was that one day’s exposure to the desolation of occupation caused two young Jews to question Zionism itself.
As the day grew long, the facial expressions more pained and the questions more anguished, the J Street tour seemed increasingly incompatible with Birthright’s goal of hooking young American Jews on Israel.
By dinnertime, two participants said they were reconsidering their belief in a Jewish state. Jesse Steshenko, 19, of Santa Cruz, Calif., who has a Star of David tattooed on his right wrist, said he was “disgusted” with Israel’s government.
“I came in here a very ardent Zionist,” he said. “You never know when a Holocaust might happen again. Yet, coming here, I’m starting to doubt whether a two-state solution is possible — and whether Zionism is even worth pursuing anymore.”
As for Liyah Foye, 19, a senior at UNC-Asheville: “what she saw on Sunday overwhelmed her: ‘My joy and my light shouldn’t be coming from someone else’s darkness,’ she said.”
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