The American Jewish activist, Katie, spoke out against Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, accusing it of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
In a viral video, Katie, who was raised by a Zionist family, called Israel a “vicious, violent and evil” state, adding that her in-depth study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led her to be “pro-Palestine” and reject Zionist propaganda.
Israeli Genocide
The American Jewish activist accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. “I’m not just guessing that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestine. I have studied and researched this. I have bona fides and I will share them,” she said.
“First of all, I am a Jewish woman. I was raised by a Zionist family. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. My family talks about our spirit of resistance and resilience constantly. Desiring goodness from the nation of Israel runs in my blood and still, I can see that the Zionist state is vicious, violent and evil,” Katie added.
“If someone who was raised by a Zionist family, by people who believe that Israel has the right to exist and that is our salvation, if I can overcome my pro-Israel bias and learn about this conflict, so can you. And frankly, I should not be calling it a conflict. It is a genocide,” she noted.
Studying the Conflict
Katie said that Jews who go on birthright trips, free trips offered to people of Jewish descent to visit Israel, are often brainwashed, that is why she decided to study the origins of the conflict before visiting Israel.
“So, when I was in college in 2012-2013, a punch of my friends and loved ones started going on birthright trips and I knew enough then to ask the question when they got back from the birthright trips: what about Palestine? And when these people I love from my heart and respect started talking about Palestinians and using language like terrorists, I knew I had to learn more. I also knew that I want to go on birthright and I was nervous about being brainwashed by the trip, and I should have been nervous,” she said.
Rejecting Zionist Propaganda
“So, before I went on birthright, I decided at my small liberal art school in Massachusetts, to get a well-rounded perspective and educational perspective on Israeli-Palestinian politics. I took four courses: suffering and evil in the Jewish tradition, the Jewish experience, Middle East policies, and Arab-Israeli conflict. I also took international comparative politics courses that often brought up Israel and Palestine in comparisons to, for example, the apartheid South Africa,” she noted.
“And by the time I finished my ample course on the subject before I went on the birthright, I was already pro-Palestine. Because once you are in the literature, once you are in the research, not the media stories about that, not the pro-Zionist rigmarole on CNN and MSNBC, once you are in the literature and the data, this is not a debate, this is no question. People talk about Israel-Palestine like it is incredibly complicated, and I reject this premise. It is not,” Katie said.
