Israel: Stop Stealing My Identity

I am Jewish, not Israeli. I was raised as an American Jew and identify as such. The leaders of Israel, U.S., special interest groups, AIPAC for instance, and others often conflate being Israeli with being Jewish. This confuses national identity with religious or ethnic identity. They are not the same.    

Israel is a country located in the Middle East. It was established by UN mandate in 1948. It claimed to be a homeland for Jews. Citizens of Israel are referred to as Israelis. They have a sense of self that identifies with the state of Israel—a national identity. They have a flag, and specific form of government. They vote for their representatives, and form coalitions in a parliamentary government.  Israelis are not Americans. Israelis are not necessarily Jewish.

The Jewish population in Israel is roughly 7 million; approximately 21 percent of Israeli citizens, 1 in 5, are classified as Arabs who live in Israel, and 83% of those persons are Muslim. They are not Jewish, but they are Israelis nonetheless. Israel claims, on the one hand, to be a ‘modern state’ and on the other hand to be a Jewish state.

Israel passed a law declaring that Israel is the ‘nation-state of the Jewish people,’ in 2018.  Arab citizens are not equal. It downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with only ‘special status.’ Individual civil, property, and legislative rights, including court decisions, overwhelmingly favor Israeli Jews; and denigrate Arab Israelis. 

Based on data—income disparities, lack of opportunities, rates of arrest and imprisonment, land theft, asymmetrical loss of court cases, status as second-class citizens, eyed by many in power with mistrust— some would say that Israel is a highly racist country, intrinsically racist against Arabs many of whom are Muslims. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments, after the October 7^th terrorist strike by Hamas against primarily Israelis (some persons were tourists) is a case in point. According to Netanyahu, not since the Holocaust have ‘we’—meaning Jews in general, not Israelis— faced this kind of terrorism. ‘We’—Jews—are victims of Hamas and antisemitism. ‘We’ Jews have a righteous obligation to kill Hamas and others who threaten ‘us’. For purposes of accuracy, however, let it be stated clearly: it is Israel that has killed well over 60,000 innocent people, and 18,000 children, not ‘we’ Jews. 

Equating the death of 6 million Jews, with October 7^th is specious hyperbole at best and horribly inexact at the least. The Israeli government, furthermore, uses ‘never again’, which refers to the Holocaust, to kill innocent Palestinians. This is a low point in morality, and confusion of Israeli and Jewish identities. 

The confusion of national identity with religious or ethnic affiliation also spills over to the faulty assumption that if one is pro-Palestinian that one is antisemitic. One may be anti-Israel without being anti-Jewish. This confusion in logic has more to do with ideology than reality. It’s used to block rational discourse, or expose causes of oppression and racism.  

I condemn the state of Israel—Mr. Netanyahu and his government–  for their violation of human rights against Arabs and genocide against Palestinians because I believe that Israel, as a state, has obligations to treat their citizens and others with standards of care spelled out clearly in the UN Charter, and Genocide Convention which Israel signed in order to represent itself as a country that adheres to the rule of law in international affairs. Its evasion of its contractual obligations  may be convenient, but it’s illegal nonetheless. 

I don’t need the Prime Minister of Israel, who has a warrant issued for his arrest by the International Criminal Court, speaking for me as a Jewish person. This is a travesty. Mr. Netanyahu should be arrested and tried along with others charged with war crimes in his government or the IDF. 

Jews have a much longer history than Israel, and will, most likely, be around for centuries to come. Israel is one society and one state at one moment of time; among five civilizations that have come and gone in the immediate region over the last 100 centuries. 

My identity is Jewish, not Israeli. Israel should stop expropriating my identity as a Jewish person, and exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to gain support for its state terrorism and atrocities. Israel took the wrong lessons of intolerance from the Third Reich. 

Count me in as a Jewish person, count me out as an Israeli.