Israelism
Documentary film directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen
Featuring Simone Zimmerman and Erin Axelman
Streaming from https://www.israelismfilm.com/

Many in the world were amazed by the youthful Jewish solidarity with the Palestinians that erupted in the United States following the Israeli invasion of Gaza. As reported by Barry Shepherd, a recent poll of 18 to 29 year old Jews found 46 per cent said they sympathise with the Palestinians as opposed to only 27 per cent supporting Israel.

The poll also found a sophisticated depth of analysis among the anti-Zionist respondents. Reports of the US Palestine solidarity movement indicate that the Jewish anti-Zionist movement is burgeoning.

This sentiment in the belly of the beast is critically important because the US Jewry has long been the backbone of support for the Israeli colonial-settler project.

Israelism, seven years in the making, reveals the deep roots of this movement and the turbo-charged pro-Israel propaganda that it is responding to.

The film largely focuses on the experience of two young Americans, Simone Zimmerman and Eithan (no surname is given), who were both raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them propaganda as children and they were regimented into being stalwart soldiers for Zionism.

Zimmerman came from a staunchly Zionist family. At school and summer camp she was methodically indoctrinated with Zionism and came to deeply love Israel. Eithan went so far as to join the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and served in the Occupied West Bank.

Both went on summer trips to Israel that included weapons training and combat simulations, performed in IDF uniforms. After years of this, Eithan enthusiastically went straight from high school to the IDF.

As a student at the University of California, Berkeley Zimmerman took part in student debates, defending Israel. The Zionist Hillel student body on campus groomed the students for this work, schooling them in how to utilise emotional manipulation while hammering out talking points.

Following these exchanges, she asked her mentors for arguments she could use to counter things she had never heard said about Israel before, like “occupation, settlements and ethnic cleansing.”

When they failed to answer her, she began to feel uneasy. A visit to occupied Palestine the following year opened her eyes to the reality of Israel.

Eithan, as a serving soldier witnessed extreme violence against defenceless Palestinians and came to loath what he was doing.

As the camera accompanies Zimmerman around the Occupied zone, we see the daily humiliations and cruelties that Palestinians endure. The Occupation authorities make no effort to hide their hatred.

The Israelism film-makers include lengthy interviews with US pro-Zionists, like former Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman and others. Foxman infamously intervened when Bernie Sanders appointed Zimmerman as his Jewish community organiser for his presidential campaign.

Within two days Sanders folded and sacked Zimmerman.

Israelism does not attempt to describe the history of Israel’s establishment, which would explain a great deal of why it is so violent today. Rather it floats the idea that the trauma of the Holocaust drove Zionists to be exclusionary.

That analysis makes no sense. The young subjects of this film were raised with memories of that trauma present, so how could they come to oppose Zionism?

An Israelism sequel could usefully examine the relationship between imperialism and Zionism and how European Jews came to be used as colonial settlers advancing imperialist interests in the Middle East.

As it is, Israelism contributes to an understanding of contemporary politics at an important juncture, as the Palestine solidarity movement ignites the world.

+++

Israelism Trailer:

Israelism Director on the Controversy, Censorship, and Politics Around the Documentary | Interview:

Israel ‘Worse Than Apartheid’: South African Jewish Former ANC Politician Andrew Feinstein: