On May 3, Nimala Sivakumar’s article “Student Addresses Obies for Israel Letter” was published in the Review as a response to my letter, “Zionism is De-Colonialism: Liberal Origins of Modern Israel” (April 26, 2024). She opens her letter by writing about the death toll of the current Israel–Hamas war and objects to “calling the deaths of 32,000 people in Gaza ‘ground campaigns.’” I am not disputing the death toll, but people who object to the death of Gazan civilians as an unfortunate consequence of war should be equally opposed to dehumanization of Jews and Israelis. “Zionism is De-Colonialism” was not written about the current war; it voices the feelings of Zionist Jews at Oberlin and defends Zionist ideology and the existence of Israel. This response (which also is not a personal attack) will address some of the points made in her letter. I join Sivakumar in lamenting the deaths of Gazan children as a result of the war, which she expresses in her response to my previous letter. I also agree with Sivakumar that children should never be implicated in war, but Hamas thinks otherwise.
They run military training summer camps for children and teenagers: photos and video obtained at their 2023 camp show participants from elementary to highschool ages learning how to use assault rifles and rocket launchers and engaging in combat drills with said weapons. Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades have reportedly organized these camps since 2012 to “instill the spirit of Jihad and of fighting” among Gaza’s youth. Since 2013, Gazan schools have used Hamas-written textbooks to teach tens of thousands of students that the Torah and Talmud are “fabricated” and to advance “ambivalent — sometimes hostile” attitudes towards Jews. Textbooks often promote violence instead of peacemaking, with a textbook educating 9th-graders about jihad and “the wisdom behind fighting the infidels.”
Sivakumar also blames Israel for “deaths from malnutrition” in Gaza which she writes “can be directly attributed to the fact that Israel has made it near impossible for aid trucks to enter Gaza.” Critically, the IDF has to inspect inbound traffic to ensure that only foodstuffs and medicine go in, so the entry of aid into Gaza is bound to take time, but Israel just opened a new border crossing and is working to construct a “temporary maritime pier” to let aid into Gaza in greater quantities. Gazan civilians’ lack of access to aid cannot only be blamed on logistical obstacles on Israel’s end and on efforts by a minority of settlers to block aid going into Gaza. Hamas has an extensive history of appropriating humanitarian aid meant for civilians. Just days ago, according to U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, an aid convoy transferred to a humanitarian group and meant for Gazan civilians was “intercepted and diverted” by Hamas. In November 2023, a resident of Gaza sent footage to the Israeli news network Kan 11 showing people trying to get food from an aid truck being attacked by Hamas soldiers guarding the truck. Additionally, it was Hamas who attacked the IDF soldiers who were running the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and allowing aid trucks into Gaza, killing three of them and resulting in the temporary closure of the checkpoint. According to Sivakumar, Israel is not only starving Gazans by thoroughly inspecting aid traffic into Gaza but also “harming the same hostages that Israel claims to want to save.” Why is Israel, in its efforts to inspect aid going into Gaza, being blamed for harming the hostages it wants to rescue? It is Hamas who has not allowed the Red Cross to visit hostages in direct violation of international humanitarian law.
Sivakumar brings up the incident in which IDF soldiers “shot three hostages waving a white flag.” This was a horrible mistake and this instance was completely the fault of these individual IDF soldiers. That said, Hamas terrorists dress up as civilians in order to be indistinguishable from actual civilians when they die to maximize “civilian casualties.” They hide beneath hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes for the same reason. For this reason, it can be difficult for IDF soldiers to distinguish between actual civilians and militants in disguise. The true civilian toll of the war is also made more difficult to discern by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry not distinguishing between civilians and combatants, so the 32,000 people mentioned by Sivakumar aren’t just civilians. These are indeed “tired” points, but only because people refuse to acknowledge their importance and truth.
Sivakumar claims that “Oberlin does not silence Zionist perspectives.” Her evidence is that when Obies for Israel held a seder display which featured multiple Israeli flags, “no physical or verbal violence befell the group.” I was at the seder where the “hypothetical” played out. Contrary to Sivakumar, whom we did not see at the seder, we did experience verbal and online harassment, though we are grateful that it didn’t turn to violence like it has on so many other campuses.Sivakumar also attempts to distance Students for a Free Palestine from “fliers posted anonymously on campus” and claims that associating them with SFP slogans “is an unfair conflation of the two.” It does not matter who put up the fliers I mentioned in my first article; the fliers are attacking Zionists and Jews regardless. Attempting to distance SFP from fliers claiming that the Oct. 7 massacre was a hoax does not change the fact that the fliers have been associated with the entire anti-Zionist movement at Oberlin. Such slogans as “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” and “we don’t want a two state, we want 1948” — both of which were chanted at SFP rallies — are open calls for war. The word “intifada” which has been used as a call to action here at Oberlin and on other campuses brings up memories for Jews and Israelis of the Second Intifada from 2000 until the end of 2005, during which 138 suicide bombings, such as the Passover massacre and Dolphinarium massacre, as well as shootings and stabbings by terrorists resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis, 68 percent of whom were civilians. “We don’t want a two-state, we want 1948” expresses refusal to have a Jewish state coexisting with a Palestinian state and encourages a do-over of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in which armies from five Arab countries attacked Israel in what became a total war.
Sivakumar writes that “early Zionists knew that the establishment of a Jewish state would not be possible without the help of Western powers … first with Britain, second with the United States.” Zionists’ and Israelis’ relationship with Britain and other Western powers is not as rosy and transactional as Sivakumar paints it to be. On the contrary, Israelis ended up being very anti-British and ultimately fought for independence from the British, having felt betrayed by them in the aftermath of the White Paper of 1939, which limited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine during the Holocaust. Arab states were also vying for Britain’s help as one of the strongest powers in the world, and the British tried to play both sides of the fence. The Balfour Declaration, announcing Britain’s support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, was contradicted by the Hussein–McMahon correspondence which expressed British support for an Arab caliphate in the Middle East and by the aforementioned White Paper. The Peel Commission of 1936 proposed a two-state solution, which was embraced by Zionists and rejected by Arabs.
Furthermore, she characterizes Zionists as “quick to reject the claim that the movement is or was in any way colonial” as “the Western world started to recognize the horrors of colonialism.” In this same vein, she writes that she wishes “anti-Zionist perspectives were respected in places of authority.” Why do the opponents of Zionism, especially non-Jews, think that they get to define Zionism? What makes them think they are allowed to slander it as a colonial project? Instead of fighting a straw man, Sivakumar should ask Zionists for a definition of Zionism in addition to reading the points below:
- Zionism is not colonial and Israel is not a colony because Jews were displaced and only recently came back, except for a small continuous population.
- The initial population was composed of refugees from over 60 countries.
- No host country supported Israel.
- The country is not an economic endeavor; rather, it is an endeavor of Jewish self-sovereignty.
- The government is run from the place that it governs and is answerable to the inhabitants of the place.
Additionally, we need to understand that words change. Talking about colonization 100 years ago didn’t mean the same thing as talking about colonization today, as Sivakumar admitted by writing that only “over time” did the West “start to recognize the horrors of colonialism.”
Sivakumar calls Israel a “racist state” on the grounds that Ethiopian Jews are subjected to “systemic racism, birth control without consent, and police brutality.” If Ethiopian Jews are subjected to systemic racism, why do they have free education, free healthcare, and a social safety net provided by the Israeli government? The idea that birth control was provided without consent is a bold claim that contradicts the fact that Depo-Provera has been used in other refugee camps, in most of which birth control is a necessity. Israeli doctors were instructed not to renew prescriptions if the recipient of Depo-Provera didn’t understand the effects of the injection. Ethiopian Jews are subjected to police brutality but that doesn’t justify anti-Zionist rhetoric calling for Israel’s destruction. Black and brown people throughout the West are subject to police brutality but we never call for the annihilation of America, Britain, or France, so why should Israel’s existence be decried?Overwhelmingly, Jews as a whole are Zionists and support a two-state solution. I am glad that anti-Zionist points are not respected in academia and in the government because as I wrote two weeks ago, “Zionism is the Jewish people’s movement for self determination and establishing a Jewish homeland,” intertwining Zionism and Judaism such that an attack on Zionism is fundamentally an attack on Jews.
