We need to talk about Jewish australians joining the israeli army to fight in Gaza

Earlier this week many of us saw the short video of a soldier from australia fighting in the israeli army in Gaza. It was horrifying, if unsurprising, to find out later the same day some more about his biography, including that he had attended Mt Scopus Memorial College for his schooling.

Some of us attended Jewish day schools, and we can speak to the ways that these are zionist spaces, encouraging students not to critically reflect, and not to speak of Palestine and Palestinians. When we were taught about the Holocaust and genocide, we were taught in ways which encouraged us to think almost singularly about Jews. We know of other students who attended our schools who later also joined the israeli army.

Why, as a community, do we not do more to question the ethics and ideologies of this practice?

Our anti-zionism now, our ability to identify genocide whenever it occurs and know that it is always wrong, and our commitment to solidarity with Palestine, comes, sadly, in spite of the education we were provided - even if we use the building blocks we gained there, we are using them in ways which our schools never authorised and indeed tried to work against.

This is all unacceptable. We must account for the role that Jewish schools play in inculcating zionism in the community. We must undo the violence and white supremacy which they encourage through this - this is incumbent upon all of us in the community.

We must ensure that the normalisation of the practice of members of our community joining the israeli army, and participating in war crimes, is undone. There needs to be serious consequences for those who are there now, and preventative measures must be put in place to discourage this in the future.

As a first step, please sign the petition to call on the government to investigate Australian citizens who have participated in the IOF for possible participation in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. 

Many Jewish educational institutions are not helping to educate against genocide. Instead, they are working to enable support for it. We need to have serious discussions in the community about why joining the israeli army is seen as acceptable, and we need to challenge this practice. We need to expose what Jewish schools are doing and we need to undo what they are teaching.

21 January 2024