The issue at hand is the alleged “indoctrination” of young Jewish Americans into Zionist beliefs, particularly in the United States.
“As American Jews, we are taught from a very young age to take pride in Israel—that is the message conveyed by every institution we attend,” stated the directors of the film, Erin Axelman and Sam Eilersten, to journalist Sebastián Silva.
Through the life of Simone Zimmerman, a Jewish American activist opposed to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the documentary unveils a lesser-discussed facet of Zionist ideology: the preparation of youth for military service in the state or as active agents of its propaganda efforts.
“It’s a story that is presented as inspiring, almost like a light at the end of the tunnel after centuries of persecution in Europe, to be defended at any cost. But it all falls apart once you learn the history of the Palestinians and see the ‘apartheid’ system they are subjected to. That’s when the lies and omissions in the education of American Jews become apparent,” highlighted Eilersten.
“It’s impossible to look at the Gaza Strip and not think about our own history, being Jews who were massacred in pogroms and during the Holocaust,” the filmmaker continued, referring to the more than 50,000 civilians, mainly women and children, killed by Israeli military forces in Gaza, according to United Nations data.
What “Israelism” does is trace the “ideological genesis” of these actions, describing Zionism as a vision that “annuls Palestinians as human beings, denying their history and existence, only permitting their recognition under the concept of ‘terrorism,'” detailed Axelman.
“The way Israel treats Palestinians is part of a colonial tradition that we’ve seen in the U.S. and Latin America, with the brutal colonization by Europeans. We must be brutally honest about the fact that Zionists are first and foremost settlers, advancing their activities under the banner of a colonial project,” he emphasized.
For Axelman and Eilersten, Donald Trump’s election in 2016 served as a “catalyst” for segments of the Jewish community in the U.S. to begin questioning Israel because of “openly antisemitic, racist, and fascist” policies.
As Axelman pointed out: “If we continue to ally ourselves with neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and fascists, it will not end well for Jews nor create a safe haven for our community.”
The documentary directors note that in the U.S., as well as in Latin America and Europe, there are politicians and intellectuals who claim to identify as both progressive and Zionist, which they consider an “inherent and irreconcilable contradiction.”
To justify this, they argue: “Given the history of our people’s oppression, many Zionists seek to define their ideology as one of justice for the oppressed, leading us back to the origins of Zionism as a response to European nationalism and antisemitism.”
In this context, Eliersten stated that “supporting an ethno-nationalism that privileges a select group is not a leftist idea. Yet, once again, Zionists will claim it as a progressive ideology, ignoring that it fundamentally involves ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
He reinforced that “all 19th-century Zionist leaders spoke of creating a Jewish state, which implied cleansing the area of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lived there. This was openly stated when colonialism was viewed favorably.”
“Israelism,” they noted, has faced numerous censorship attempts but has managed to reach an increasingly larger audience, being available for free on YouTube.
