Rose Asaf
Occupied Palestine ’48
Zochrot
A theme that has animated my experiences and work this summer is the organizational distinction between a 1967-based analysis and a Nakba-based analysis, along with the compromises and negotiations organizations have to make in this regard to be effective. Unsurprisingly, I have found that Israeli-led advocacy organization–other than Zochrot–focus mostly on the occupation as the problem of all problems, while Palestinian-led organizations root all analysis, discourse, and activities in the ongoing Nakba.
In my work as an activist, I believe that solidarity comes before all else, meaning that the struggle must be led by Palestinians, and that non-Palestinians must follow their lead. While Israelis have a stake in a just resolution, the power dynamics of justice must prioritize Palestinians, who exist beneath the boot of Israel. In an international context, breaching solidarity often looks like withholding support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. In Israel, it seems to me that Jewish and Israeli activists breach solidarity by excluding the Nakba from their discourse, which often comes with not heeding the Palestinian call for the right of return.
The compromise that is becoming increasingly apparent to me, both from my work with Zochrot and my general work in the Palestine solidarity movement, is between efficacy and solidarity. To resonate with a large audience and be palatable in the mainstream, organizations and activists need to cater to the center-left of their target audience to have a mass impact; however, on the other hand, without organizations such as Zochrot, that push the limits of the mainstream and offer visions of radical justice, the mainstream will teeter in the center and not move toward decolonization.
An organization that acts as a foil to Zochrot in the larger Israeli left is Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who “break the silence” about their activities in Palestinian territories and speak out against the injustices they were forced to commit. While Breaking the Silence has a massive Israeli and international audience, their work is fundamentally problematic: it centers people who have admitted to brutalizing Palestinians. Palestinians have been saying for seventy years that Israeli soldiers have been brutalizing them, but people seem to listen only when Israelis admit it to it.
This brings us to the compromise between efficacy and solidarity. While I believe that centering Palestinian voices is paramount to responsible work, what happens when society is more receptive to Israeli and Jewish voices? I will continue to grapple with and address this question in my work.