“Find your belonging.” This is the motto touted by Taglit Birthright, an organization that offers free trips to Israel for young Jews from all over the globe.
Like most Zionist propaganda, Taglit Birthright works hard to instill into Jews from all over the world that Israel is our homeland. It is in fact, the only place we can truly belong and feel at home. This is the narrative that anti-Zionist and anti-occupation Jews have been challenging since the very conception of political Zionism. Yet, last week, it is Israel itself that is shattering this public image of a land where all Jews are safe and welcome.
On October 29, a group of Jewish International and Israeli volunteers with the group Rabbis for Human Rights and Achvat Amin went for the day to the Palestinian village of Burin in the Nablus region, to assist with the economically vital olive harvest in the village. Upon arriving in Burin, the activists were detained by the army and subsequently arrested by the police. While this is an everyday occurrence in the West Bank for Palestinians, Israelis, Jewish/non-Jewish internationals, and even rabbis, the charges laid against the international Jewish activists, and their consequences are unprecedented.
For the first time in history, two Jewish women volunteering with Jewish organizations in the West Bank and the 1948 boundaries of the State of Israel are being deported.
“The participation of Jews and internationals in the olive harvest has always been an act of solidarity and peace,” said representatives of Achvat Amim and Rabbis for Human Rights in a joint statement. “The decision to deport these volunteers reflects an alarming trend of silencing nonviolent human rights work and Jewish voices for justice in Israel-Palestine.”
Jewish international activists have been deported before, most often when going as journalists, with non-Jewish solidarity groups, and on flotillas. Yet this is the first time that Jewish activists working with Israeli anti-occupation groups are being deported.
These two activists also have immense ties with Israel beyond their olive picking in Burin. According to Elly Oltersdorf, Director of Outreach and Communications with Achvat Amin (the group the two women were volunteering with): “Both participants come from deeply engaged Jewish backgrounds and have long personal connections to Israel. One recently graduated high school who previously lived in Jerusalem with her family during high school and studied in the local education system, while the other, a doctor in her late 50’s, has immediate family residing in Jerusalem and has spent time studying and volunteering in the country since early adulthood.”
Not just connected to Israel by relatives or education, these activists were volunteering with Achvat Amin and completing a placement with another Israeli organization, Rabbis for Human Rights. Rabbis for Human Rights even offers programming within the Israeli school system and is run mostly by rabbis and faith leaders in Israel.
Achvat Amin describes itself as “an immersive educational and movement-building program in Jerusalem engaging Jewish adults in the struggle for justice and equality in Israel-Palestine with a core belief of self-determination for all who call this land home”.
Rabbis for Human Rights states their mission is: “Bringing together rabbis and Jewish community leaders from across the denominational spectrum to uphold the Jewish tradition of human dignity, defend Palestinian farmers’ rights, and promote equality and justice in Israel and the occupied territories”.
“The two participants who were detained were volunteering with Rabbis for Human Rights’ long-standing olive harvest initiative—an act of nonviolent solidarity that supports Palestinian farmers facing settler/military violence and access restrictions to their own lands. They joined the harvest as part of their regular volunteer placements through Achvat,” says Oltersdorf.
The charges? “Violating IDF Orders,” according to the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority.
The principles and actions of these Israeli groups might seem soft compared to the ardent anti-Zionist Jewish groups popping up around the world. They were not arrested engaging in insurgent direct action, did not call for an end to Israel, they simply went to go pick olives.
Yet the targeting of these interfaith groups calling for co-existence in Israel/Palestine shows a troubling trend for International solidarity activists seeking to engage in front line activities in Palestine. While groups like International Solidarity Movement, who bring people of all faiths and backgrounds to Palestine have been consistently targeted by Israel for arrest and deportation, the same has rarely applied to Jewish, faith-based groups. The Jewish supremacy that once protected International Jews with Israeli organizations is slowly fading.
Avi Dabush, CEO of Rabbis for Human Rights says: “We are disappointed and outraged by the expulsion of Jewish women from Israel and the delay of volunteers. This is selective enforcement of the most blatant and dangerous kind. We are only two weeks into the harvest season and we have already been given 9 orders declaring the harvest areas a closed military area prohibiting us from entering, but on the other hand, the violent settlers have not been detained or arrested so far in all the attacks that have been recorded. We operate without violence and according to the law, and it is a shame that the police and the army wasted an entire day turning away people who came to stand by people under attack.”
But with this rise in retaliation from Israel against insurgent Jews within their borders, the narrative that Zionism and Israel has been pushing also begins to crack. When Jews become unsafe and unwelcome in Israel because of the Israeli government itself, the hypocrisy of Israel as a means for Jewish safety becomes further exposed. As Israel seeks to determine what Jews are politically aligned enough to engage in apartheid and Jewish supremacy, the world must take note that Jewish safety is not helped by Israel. Indeed at the two activists can attest, Israel makes the world more dangerous for Jews.
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