Ex-Israeli soldier ‘estranged’ after decrying Zionism
All former Israeli soldier Nachshon Amir knew was defending the nation in which he grew up.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I was completely brainwashed by Zionism,” he said.
Mr. Amir spent several years beyond his mandatory term of service in the Israel Defense Forces in the 1980s and 1990s.
But in 2019, after living on and off in Australia for more than a decade, he came to believe that Zionism was inherently a “racist ideology”.
“The only application of this will be violence and death,” he said.
“At the core of this is the erasure of Palestinians.”
Mr Amir, who has a daughter who works to support Palestinians in the West Bank, is now estranged from his family, most of his friends in Israel and the wider Australian Jewish community because of his views.
He told AAP he did not think Australian Jews with anti-Zionist beliefs had been given a fair hearing in the inquiry.
His experiences got to the heart of tensions around a royal commission into anti-Semitism and hate speech, where both Zionist and pro-Palestinian Jews say they are being targeted.
Jewish Liberal politician Julian Leeser called on Friday for university courses teaching about Israel and Palestine to be audited for quality so that students can make their own decisions about the conflict.
The conservative Australian Jewish Association, which says it has thousands of members, is expected to chair the commission next week.
He will tell the authorities about the torrent of online abuse, including a reference to the organizers asking them to “dissolve in an acid bath”.
Death threats left in mailboxes ending with the phrase “kill and disinfect all Jews” will also be shown to the commission.
In the statement made by the association, it was stated that most of the abuses were due to the group’s adherence to the Zionist ideology, which it defines as the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.
The commission will focus on security on Monday before a four-day block on training and guidance frameworks to combat anti-Semitism.
