I just got home from the International Jewish Solidarity Network (IJSN) study group I'm participating in. I'm doing a lot of processing about Israel/Palestine in many different arenas, and I notice myself adapting my approach for each space. I'm really excited about this study group because I think it's opening the discussion in a place where I'm at in my own thoughts and questions. As one group member put it, it's a "complicated space to be coherently pissed off", and as another said (quoted from Kirkegaard) to "have the courage to think a thought whole".

One theme we discussed was Jewish victimization (see last post if you're wondering what I mean that it's "a place where I'm at in my own thoughts and questions"). We started from the idea that somehow Jews have experienced much abuse over the course of history and have taken on the self-definition of victim. We Jews are the "eternal victims" trying to gain some semblance of power in our world.

Some group members spoke about how survivors of abuse are encouraged to use "survivor language" rather than "victim language". Using the language of victimhood only lets the "victim" to gain as much power as the powerful will allow. Using the language of survival is empowering and gives survivors more control over their situation.

After the Holocaust, one reason for the creation of Israel was to help Jews be survivors through self-determination. Our group discussed how Jews, and now Israel, are still powerless in many ways.

Israel needs American support and could not survive without US aid (10 million per day) and American Jewish resources. Dependence on US money is not the basis of power we want.

Some group members spoke more about the US-Israel relationship. Someone brought up the idea that Israel seems to have become a springboard for Western interests in the East, economically, politically, and militarily. For example, Israel is the fifth largest arms dealer in the world and channels US ammunitions to countries around the world where the US could not do so openly itself. Israel is often painted as a beacon of democracy in a dark Middle East. This seems to be a larger version of the way Jews have been the administrators and middle-men all throughout history. Being the middle-men is not the type of power we want.

Israelis live in fear of terrorist attacks and hostile neighbors. Anti-Israel feeling in the world is growing, I think, and with it grows anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist feeling, since those terms are not so often separated. We don't want power that's so intertwined with fear.

The Israeli government is not championing Jewish values, such as human rights, education, and peace. We don't want power where the actions and the ethics don't match.

With the complex relationship of diaspora Jews and Israel, Jews around the world are not able to feel at home. As a group member put it "it's like we're all Israelis waiting to happen". We don't want power that takes away our ability to create home.

So these are ways in which Jews don't have power in the world. Our group asked ourselves "What would (positive) power be for Jews?" Here's what we came up with:

-- feeling safe and comfortable in our world.

-- cultural self-determination (in making choices and having security in cultural practices.)

-- access to resources.

-- support from other people/groups in the world (in a mutual, healthy way).

-- generosity (because everywhere else in Judaism- like at our potluck- we Jews are able to make abundance from so little. Yet in Israel, the government claims that there is not enough land, not enough water, we can't share. There should be generosity in power, and power in generosity)

-- trust.

-- integrity (having our actions match our beliefs).

-- not being afraid of difference.

-- vulnerability (is a source of power).

-- having the ability to dream.

-- allowing for broad, multiple identifications.

-- power not over people, or within a system, but power WITH others, the world, etc.

So these are great (dare I say powerful?) goals. I think they're goals to help other groups involved in this conflict with Israel strive for too. I think they're goals that are not all happening with the status quo. Sooo... how do we get there?

The answer is yet to come, but the question rings of power.