Hating Israel is the thing to do today on university campuses. It makes you seem “progressive.” It means you’re “woke” and socially aware. It means you’re fighting against a tyrannical regime. It is supporting the struggle of an oppressed people at the hands of white colonialist supremacy. Zionism is racism. Israel is evil, end of story
Except that’s complete nonsense.
Zionism is the support for and affirmation of the Jews’ right to self-determination in their indigenous homeland of Israel. It’s the Jewish civil rights movement. It is the struggle of a native people who have been oppressed for thousands of years, expelled from their land, killed and persecuted wherever they went in the world. It is the celebration of victory, of the return home after millennia of Diaspora, of surviving and flourishing against all odds.
Read the full column on timesofisrael.com.
NADIYA AL-NOOR is a young Muslim interfaith activist with a focus on Jewish and Muslim communities. She is a graduate student at Binghamton University, studying public administration and student affairs administration.
