Reflections on the World Zionist Congress

Reflections on the World Zionist Congress This article was contributed by Rachel Sandalow-Ash. Rachel is a co-founder of and national organizer for Open Hillel, a grassroots movement of Jewish students and young alumni working for pluralism and open discourse on Israel- Palestine in Jewish spaces on college campuses and beyond. She was a delegate to the 37th World Zionist Congress as part of the World Union of Meretz faction, having run on the Hatikvah Slate. A 2015 Harvard College graduate, Rachel grew up in Brookline, MA and now lives in Philadelphia. The views presented here are Rachel’s own and do not represent the views of Open Hillel, Partners for Progressive Israel, or the World Union of Meretz. October 22, 3:00PM, West Jerusalem. The large auditorium at the International Convention Center is in chaos. “We’ve run out of time,” says the chair of the meeting. “All further resolutions will go to the Zionist General Council.” Delegates left, right, and center are rushing the stage. But the chair won’t budge on the schedule. Lacking other options, we vote to conclude the 37th World Zionist Congress. Maybe 70% of our votes are processed by the electronic voting machine; the chair deems the vote good enough. Delegates, alternates, and party staff stream into out of the room, hugging each other goodbye and making plans for shabbat. A few miles to the North, East, and South, East Jerusalem Palestinians wait behind blockades and checkpoints to reach their homes and neighborhoods; the “united city” is more divided than ever. Several people have already died when these checkpoints prevented them from getting to the hospital. —– When Hatikvah, the US progressive Zionist slate first asked me to join their list for the World Zionist Congress, I was deeply confused (wait, wasn’t that Herzl’s thing from 1897? That’s still around?) and deeply conflicted. As a candidate, I would have to sign the Jerusalem Program, a Zionist loyalty oath of sorts, when I had spent the past two years leading a campaign against Jewish communal loyalty oaths. I would be required to donate to the Jewish National Fund, which maintains discriminatory land use policies in Israel and is instrumental in building settlements beyond the Green Line. And perhaps worst of all, I knew that the World Zionist Congress makes decisions involving Israeli government money (a large portion of the World Zionist Organization’s multi-million dollar budget comes directly from the government) and impacting Israeli society; yet non-Jewish citizens of Israel are not allowed to vote or participate in the WZC. And yet, in the end, political pragmatism won me over. The World Zionist Organization controlled over $50 million on its own; along with the Jewish Agency, it oversaw an additional $470 million or so. That was real, tangible money that could be spent on building settlements and maintaining the Occupation — or, alternatively, on fighting poverty and promoting racial and economic justice. Not that many people voted for the World Zionist Congress. If I ran and got my friends to vote, we could make a real difference. At least so I hoped. —– After around four months of open polls and campaigning, 56,737 American Jews voted in the World Zionist Congress elections, a tiny fraction of the estimated 5.3 million Jewish adults in the United States. Some were turned away by the election fee (or ‘poll tax,’ as my friends and I referred to it) and some by the loyalty oath; far more simply didn’t know about the elections or didn’t care enough to vote. Hatikvah won eight votes out of 145, but given the liberal leanings of American Jews overall, I felt like we were representing a silent majority of sorts who didn’t know of our existence. In the middle of the summer, Hatikvah asked me if I wished to join the World Labor Zionist Movement or the World Union of Meretz. Impressed by Meretz as a genuinely progressive party in Israel, I chose the latter. —– Early October — A few weeks before the World Zionist Congress, the World Union of Meretz emails out its final list of resolutions. One resolution in particular catches my eye: it calls for the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemet Leyisrael, which controls 13% of the land in Israel, to abide by Israeli nondiscrimination law and to only operate within the “sovereign state of Israel” (i.e. not in the West Bank settlements). Currently, the JNF-KKL only rents and sells land to Jews; it is also major player in settlement construction. From what I understand, The WZO has some oversight over the JNF-KKL; I have high hopes that this bill could actually change facts on the ground, and I am excited about the opportunity to promote this and other progressive resolutions. And yet, a few days later, when I receive the full list of resolutions that will be debated at the World Zionist Congress, I notice that the JNF-KKL resolution has disappeared. I email the World Union of Meretz to ask about what happened, and the office in Israel responds that the resolutions committee had rejected the proposal on a technicality. Four days later, they let me know that the technicality has been resolved; the new version does not require changes in the JNF-KKL, but rather seeks to promote them. There goes any possibility of actual impact, I sigh. —– Mid-October — As I prepare to leave for Jerusalem, my family and friends, scared by the ongoing stabbings, keep warning me to stay safe: “Don’t go to the Old City!” “Don’t use public transportation!” “Don’t go to protests!” When I arrive, I find that West Jerusalem is slightly on edge. Soldiers are stationed at every light rail stop. Gap year kids are not allowed to go out at night. But on the whole, people go about their business. They talk about the recent violence with a certain non-comprehension about where it’s coming from or why it’s flaring up now. They speak of incitement, of barbarism, of evil without a cause that threatens their lives and disturbs their sense of normal. They want everything to return to normal; they seek the calm that they enjoyed just a few weeks earlier. I don’t know if most people here realize that many more Palestinians than Israelis have died in the recent round of violence. I don’t know if they realize that for Palestinians — in the West Bank, and now in East Jerusalem — collective punishment and Occupation are what’s “normal.” The night before the World Union of Meretz convention, I participate in an inspiring rally against violence, racism, collective punishment, and occupation. Meretz and Hadash Knesset members, parents and teachers from the bilingual Hand in Hand schools, and local activists of all stripes energize a crowd of people who have come out of the woodwork in support of a vision or a more just future. Towards the end, a group of right-wingers show up to counter-protest; later, I find out when the crowd dispersed, they beat up a Jewish Israeli teenager wearing a Meretz shirt. Rally participants are not surprised; especially since the most recent Gaza war, violence against leftists has also become normal. —– The two-day long World Union of Meretz convention is a blur: I meet delegates from around the world and try to speak in English, Hebrew, and Spanish all at once. I ask the World Union of Meretz leadership about when we might get to see the infamous World Zionist Organization budget; they clarify that only the finance committee and the executive committee look at the budget. In fact, it would turn out that all budgetary decisions would need to be approved by these smaller bodies, as well as the Zionist General Council/Vaad Hapoel; the resolutions that we would pass could only be symbolic in nature. What am I doing here, then? I wonder. We’re not representing anyone. There’s a small group of people making decisions, and this Congress is just for show. —– “What are you doing to end the Occupation?” On the first morning of the conference, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, a group of Israeli and diaspora anti-occupation activists, enters the lobby of International Convention Center to ask this crucial question of the assembled delegates. They pass out flyers and sing Hine Matov U’Manaim; many delegates respond to their presence angrily, even violently, and the activists are eventually thrown out by security. I don’t see the exchange, though I did hear about it over whatsapp and facebook; I’m caught in line with the Meretz, Labor, and Reform delegates, wading through security to see Netanyahu speak. The CJNV activists are my friends and colleagues; I’d talked with them in the weeks leading up to the Congress about inside-outside activism, about ways in which I could use my position as a WZC delegate to support their work. As I meet and mingle with other progressive delegates, and as we strategize about how to get our resolutions passed, I tell them about the solidarity actions that CJNV is planning for the upcoming week. The WZC leadership calls for order; the time has come for “elections” for WZO posts, all of which are uncontested. Any and all disagreements about who should fill these have been worked out between party leaders before the Congress – away from the scrutiny of the delegates, and far away from the scrutiny of the press and the public. Once the ceremonial elections conclude, Netanyahu takes the stage.

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