A Powerful Pro-Israel Response to UJPO’s Anti-Israel Event
A powerful pro-Israel response to the UJPO’s anti-Israel and anti-Zionist event, “Jews and Israel – Which Way Forward?”, must directly address the core themes voiced at the panel: Jewish identity, accusations against Zionism, the diversity of the Jewish community, the character of Israel, and the challenge of honest dialogue surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The discussion at this event attempted to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and criminalize Zionism, all while minimizing the trauma and collective aspirations of the Jewish people. What follows is a robust, unapologetic defense grounded in facts, Jewish history, and the moral imperative of Jewish self-determination.
The Enduring Necessity of Zionism
It is impossible to discuss Jewish identity and the future of Jewish communities worldwide without acknowledging that the dream of Zionism arose as a response to centuries of statelessness, persecution, and genocidal violence against Jews.
Zionism is not a “narrow nationalist European ideology,” as described by some panelists, but the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, a people indigenous to the Land of Israel. The drive for Jewish self-determination is enshrined in international law, including the 1922 League of Nations Mandate and the 1947 UN Partition Plan, both of which recognized the Jewish people as a nation entitled to national restoration in their ancestral homeland.
Those who call Zionism “colonialist” or compare Israel to pariah states ignore the fact that Israel is the only country where the Jewish people are a majority and can guarantee their own protection, after millennia in which such protection was denied, from expulsions in Spain and Eastern Europe to the ultimate horror of the Holocaust. To deny Jews this right is to hold them to a double standard not applied to any other indigenous or marginalized people.
Shattering the Lie of “Jewish Supremacy” and Genocide
Speakers at the event referenced the “crime of genocide” and “apartheid,” echoing accusations that have been repeatedly disproven and weaponized as part of global efforts to demonize Israel. Such claims stand in stark contrast to Israel’s record as the most multicultural, democratic society in the Middle East, a society in which over two million Arab citizens exercise full voting rights, hold seats in the Knesset, and serve as doctors, judges, and ministers.
Israeli society encompasses Jews of every background —Mizrahi, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Ethiopian, and Russian —and has welcomed Jewish refugees from every continent.
Israel’s founding was a direct response to the world’s failure to prevent genocide against the Jewish people. The accusation that the Jewish state, born from the ashes of the Holocaust, is itself genocidal is not only historically illiterate, but it is a modern blood libel. Contrary to the inflammatory rhetoric at the event, the Israel Defense Forces routinely issue warnings to civilians in conflict zones and take extraordinary precautions to avoid civilian casualties, measures unmatched in the region’s history of warfare.
The Moral Clarity and Complexity of Defending Israel
The panelists’ repeated calls to “amplify Palestinian voices” and their focus on mourning Palestinian losses, while refusing even a basic acknowledgment of Israeli suffering, especially after the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas, illustrate a moral selectivity that masquerades as humanism.
The murder of over 1,200 Israelis, the abduction of women and children, and the trauma inflicted on Israeli and Jewish communities everywhere are not abstract phenomena; they are lived realities. Israeli and Jewish suffering is not “triumphalism,” as one participant characterized it, but part of the tragic human landscape of conflict.
To assert that “Zionism is a burden” or an “anchor chain” betrays the lived experience of Jews for whom Israel is not a political chess piece but the one place on earth where Jewish autonomy and safety are guaranteed. That right must never be made conditional on the approval of anti-Zionist ideologues.
What the Jewish Community Really Is
Speakers highlighted the diversity and complexity of the Jewish community in Winnipeg and beyond, arguing that this diversity and complexity call into question the notion of a unified community. That diversity is indeed a strength, not a weakness. But true pluralism does not require silence or the surrender of Jewish nationhood. It requires honest engagement with the reality that anti-Zionism today is the principal vehicle for antisemitism, something acknowledged by every reputable Jewish communal and civil rights organization worldwide.
Jewish safety cannot depend on the goodwill of others, nor on utopian theories that equate Jewish self-defense with oppression. A Jewish community that abandons Israel abandons its own future.
The Courage to Demand Peace and Security for All
Organizations like Women Wage Peace remind the world that genuine peace is possible, but only if rooted in honest recognition of the Jewish right to nationhood alongside Palestinian national aspirations. Peace means coexistence, not erasure; dialogue, not demonization.
Conclusion
The path forward for Jews in Winnipeg, in Canada, and worldwide must be one of unwavering commitment to the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and to Israel as the engine of that survival.
Pro-Israel activism is not merely a defense against slander; it is an affirmation of the dignity, legitimacy, and creative spirit of the Jewish people. Zionism is not exclusion; it is survival, justice, and hope in an uncertain world.
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