This piece is part of a series of brief essays by Northern California high school and college students who describe themselves as pro-Israel. As Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel’s independence day) approaches, J. asked them to write about their experiences since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel that started the ongoing war.
I follow the only path forward that guarantees a future for the Jewish people — being pro-Israel. In doing so, I am part of a community that must represent itself in increasingly hostile spaces, in spaces where we sentence ourselves to strange looks at best and physical assault at worst. We face this demonization because we believe our people are entitled to the same right of self-determination in our ancestral homeland as everyone else.
To be pro-Israel inherently means to be Zionist, but it is not Zionism in and of itself. It is the support for a Jewish state and also a thriving society in that state, beyond the fundamental philosophy that enables its existence.
When you add the “pro” prefix to Israel, it makes it seem like there is another option, as if support for Israel is binary and there are two sides. While there certainly is valid criticism of Zionist philosophies and pro-Israel groups and people, there is no contrapositive, no other “side” that has proven itself to be anything short of antisemitic.
Like many who call themselves pro-Israel, I simultaneously identify as pro-Palestinian. I see peace as the broader path forward, the only option for the thriving Israel that takes my beliefs beyond Zionism and into the pro-Israel realm.
Even so, I have still been targeted repeatedly for my pro-Israel identity. I have lost many friends and, to a certain extent, my pre-Oct. 7 feeling of safety in numerous community spaces.
I may not have the solutions for how to best end a war or how to get a people who overwhelmingly do not want coexistence to accept it, but I know that my pro-Israel identity demands that I at least hold hope for a peaceful future, a democratic Israel and a vibrant Israeli society.