Dear anti-Zionist…

Dear anti-Zionist,

Yes you, living peacefully and freely here in Australia on stolen land.

You seem to really enjoy the freedoms afforded to you in this colonial country, while Indigenous people experience lower rates of health and education, and higher rates of incarceration and untimely death.

Dear anti-Zionist, your hypocrisy is palpable.

Your infographics and comment sections tell us to “Go back to Europe”. Does that mean you’ll be buying a one-way ticket to your ancestral homeland or is your white guilt adequately offset with an acknowledgement of country in your email signature?

Dear anti-Zionist, you say violence is “resistance”. After the genocide and displacement of European Jews in WWII, should my surviving grandparents have embarked on a barbaric uprising in the name of “freedom fighting”?

Dear anti-Zionist, you talk about the “right to return”. On my next trip back to Poland, should I be asking for the keys to my grandfather’s childhood home in Radom?

Against all odds, after their family trees were cut down by chainsaws of hate, after they’d been displaced and everything had been stripped from them, my grandparents came here as refugees. They sought peace. They rose above their devastation and loss. They rebuilt their communities and families.

Dear anti-Zionist, you take such an interest in Middle Eastern politics to the point that it’s become your entire online personality, yet you’ve never stepped foot in the region. A year ago, you likely couldn’t point to Rafah on a map.

Dear anti-Zionist, if you have such an issue with the current government in Israel, how come you said nothing to support the Israelis who had been protesting against Netanyahu for the months and years before October 7 even happened?

Dear anti-Zionist, if you care about humanity, why were you silent on October 7 when my auntie, uncle and cousins sat terrified in their shelters, as their friends on neighbouring kibbutzim and moshavim were butchered, tortured, raped and taken hostage.

Dear anti-Zionist, if you care about children dying, why have you shown no empathy as grief ripped through their beautiful community in the South of Israel. Everyone, including my 5-year-old twin cousins lost people they knew and loved. Their kindergarten on Kibbutz Nir Oz was destroyed, many of their classmates and teachers killed. Their best friends, another set of 5-year-old twins, huddled together with their brother and parents as they were murdered in their own shelter – the Siman Tov family.

Dear anti-Zionist, if you feel the need to voice your devastation on social media, how come you’ve said nothing at all about the Israeli civilian victims of this war?

Initially it was your silence that hurt.

But the silence soon turned to noise.

Noise from you, who have posted maps showing a non-existent Israel, while accusing Israelis of “ethnic cleansing”.

You, with the audacity to tell me that a sign with the text “Death Star” above a Magen David isn’t antisemitic.

You, who uses the word “trauma” to describe your upper-middle-class childhood, but disregards my actual lived experience of intergenerational trauma.

You, anti-Zionist who I once called my friend. Who had the privilege of sitting at my dinner table, eating food prepared by my Holocaust-surviving grandparents.

You, anti-Zionist who I once lovingly introduced to my Israeli family and friends. People whose lives are now on the line, who are fighting this war. You, who fire insults at their army from your iPhone, as they have shots and rockets fired at them on the ground.

You, who march for a “ceasefire”, but show no concern for my family who continue to live a broken life in this ongoing war.

You, who muted me, unfollowed me, grew tired of my posts about rising antisemitism.

Who stopped inviting me to events and celebrations. Who has tried to one-up me at every stage of my grief, with your “what-about-ism”, throwing casualty numbers in a competition of pain.

You, who said “at least they have a school to go to” when I expressed concern over the “Jew Die” graffiti on a Jewish school. You who told me I was being dramatic when lists of Jews were circulated and shared, when my friends’ businesses were vandalised and boycotted, when they chanted “*** the Jews”.

Dear anti-Zionist, I have a question for you.

Is this really about Israel?

Are you anti-Zionist?

Or just anti-Jew?

Because from where I stand, I see no difference.