A regular route I take on the bus passes an area where recycling bins are most often used for flyposting. The current set of posters are for a conference called, 'What is the future of Zionism?' The main speakers have Muslim names. I have only seen the posters as I whizz past on the bus and don't know what the smaller print says. I assume, given the speakers, it is unsympathetic to Zionism...
It is strange to think this very area was a predominantly Jewish one 50 years ago and posters about Zionism would have had a very different flavour.
It's such a contentious area for me, Zionism. I was brought up a Zionist. I went to Zionist youth movement and, for me, Zionism was just a part of being Jewish. I find it wierd to realise that other people, non-Jewish people, especially Muslim people, would imagine I was brought up to be some kind of fanatic but I wasn't. I was just brought up to have a strong Jewish identity in the hostile environment of Australian dominant culture. Zionism was seen as self-preservation. It's still hard for me to understand it as anything else.
I watched a show about Israeli/Palestinian terrorism. I saw the hatred in the eyes of the Palestinian women for the Israeli soldiers. I know that Israeli policies vis a vis the Palestinians are brutally racist. But from the outside, as a diaspora Jew, I don't know what to believe, or how to feel... except guilt... but that's no good to man nor beast. So what do I do with it? How do I own it when my people are commiting crimes in the name of self-preservation?