About Us
Who We Are
We are a group of anti-Zionist Israelis living abroad who work towards freedom, democracy and justice for all who live between the river and the sea. In addition to striving for justice, we are motivated by our love for our families, our communities and histories and our own material stakes in a free and just future in Palestine/Israel.
Our vision challenges the regime of violent subjugation of Palestinians, apartheid and Jewish supremacy, and offers instead a vision of Jewish and Palestinian safety and liberation from Zionism, militarism and constant war.
OUR PRINCIPLES
Shoresh means root in Hebrew, and is often used in biblical, Zionist myths of claims to the land.
Our movement subverts this meaning, rejecting a settler-colonial ideology that legitimizes Palestinian uprooting, destruction and erasure.
We offer an alternative way to recognize our diverse connections to our communities, cultures and languages, all of which emerged from our families' histories of living in Palestine/Israel.
Our name emphasizes the need to address the root cause of violence in Palestine/Israel: Zionism.
Shoresh is an acronym of our core principles: Equality, Healing, and Return.
EQUALITY שוויון
We work for a land in which all people are free and equal. This means we use the privileged status that ethnocracy confers on citizens of Israel and on Jews in particular in order to replace apartheid with democracy, justice and civil as well as political rights for all.
Healing ריפוי
It is almost impossible to imagine how our communities will emerge from and reckon with the horror of this Genocide. To heal, we must not only offer political change but also acknowledge and grieve past and present violence. As anti-Zionist Israelis, we advocate for political transformation within our own society grounded in leftist anti-facist resistance and in models of transformative justice.
Return שיבה
Since 1948, the State of Israel and its military displaced whole Palestinian communities from their homes during the Nakba and settled on their lands, in an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing, dehumanization, and violent dispossession. Palestinian refugees and their families deserve to return to their land. Any struggle for justice and peace in Israel/Palestine must acknowledge this fundamental right and work towards its realization.
Why do you call yourselves Anti-Zionist Israelis?
We call ourselves anti-zionist Israelis because we are a group of activists who were either born into Israeli society, integrated into it through immigration, or were born to parents who are members of that society.
The creation of a segregated Jewish state, through the settling of Palestine and violent dispossession and expulsion of most of its native Palestinian inhabitants, has resulted in a distinct settler-colonial Israeli culture and society. Due to the Zionist project’s deliberate erasure of diasporic Jewish cultures, many members of this society have no ties to the places of their diasporic origins, instead understanding themselves as Israelis. We call the state of Israel by its name, and Israeli society as such, not out of allegiance to the state, but because we recognize the oppressive reality on the ground that the state has created.
As members of Israeli society, our responsibility both to the Palestinian people and to our own families and loved ones is to oppose Zionism and work to dismantle its regime of Jewish supremacy. A core part of our belief is in the capacity of individuals to change. Many of us can attest to this firsthand: after growing up immersed in Zionism, our experiences and learning have allowed us to reject an ideology of colonial Jewish supremacy and to fight against it. We see it as our responsibility to make that change possible for Israelis and others, as part of creating a shared future based on the principles of equality, healing, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
We present ourselves as products of this settler colonial society and culture that we are struggling to deconstruct.
As long as Israel’s occupation and apartheid settler regime exist, so does our privileged position within it. With our privilege and insider’s perspective, Shoresh works to end the genocide, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and apartheid system in Palestine.
What do you mean by “Anti-Zionist”?
Anti-Zionism contends that Israel is an unjust settler colonial Jewish ethno-state which denies Palestinians’ peoplehood and their right to their homeland. We maintain that a state built at the expense of Palestinian freedom and equality will leave no one safe. Anti-Zionists believe the first step towards securing freedom, equality, and safety for both Palestinians and Israelis is to dismantle the Jewish ethnostate.
Anti-Zionism acknowledges the harm towards Palestinians as a basis for transformational justice and repair, including the Nakba and the many forms of ongoing structural violence that Zionism continues to inflict between the river and the sea. We recognize Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Repair and construction of an equitable and just society means the right of return for all displaced Palestinians–from the early twentieth century, through the mass expulsions of 1948, the Nakba, to today–to their homeland, accompanied by concrete reparations. As such, for Shoresh, the term Anti-Zionism implies not only a negation of Zionism but a commitment to the necessity of a joint Palestinian-Jewish future in Palestine.