Of all the people who should be sensitive to the plight of the oppressed and toward people who have been persecuted because of their racial identities, it should be the Jews. No other (surviving) group of people has been subject to a similar regimen of genocide, racism and victimization as the Jews.
And the Zionist vision of an ancestral homeland in the Middle East should be respected and honored, a refuge from the anti-Semitism and persecution the Jews have suffered throughout their history.
That said, stepping into the fray (whether that’s with words or feet) between the Israelis and the Palestinians is like walking into a minefield. As Peter Vidani notes for his blog “This is not Jewish,” the conflict between the two is “a clash between oppressed people of color and an ethnoreligious group that is dominant in Israel but marginalized and brutalized elsewhere …”
