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“Since publishing my letter, many have asked me how I was able to unlearn the Zionist propaganda. While I have always thought of myself as left-leaning, I was ignorant of much. My reeducation began after the New York Police Department’s Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner, and I started attending Black Lives Matter protests. (1/3)
The Black friends I was in community with—and to whom I could never truly repay for their time and effort to educate me—taught me the foundational history of policing and racism in the U.S.
…
An especially eye-opening moment was when I read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s book “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” and saw the same myths I was taught in Israel reflected in the settler-colonialist ideology of the U.S.”
– Nadav Gazit
https://prismreports.org/2023/11/30/why-i-am-renouncing-my-israeli-citizenship/ (2/3)
@aral Thanks for this. I'm in a similar position as the author and it was good to read.
Voicing such opinions in Israel subjected me to violence, denial of work and social ostracism.
It's a hard place to grow up in and I'm glad to have had the privilege to emigrate.
The saddest thing for me is hearing the same lines of proapaganda I was raised on parroted by Europeans in my adopting country. I do my best to set the record straight when I can. At least here I don't get beaten up for it.
@imsnif I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Aram. And thank you for fighting the good fight. Sending you lots of love and solidarity from the Emerald Isle 
@aral I will add that the perspective of most people living in Israel is that all the world is against them and that any voice of dissent is antisemitic.
There is no changing this opinion, and pushing back against it mostly serves to amplify it.
I try to have empathy instead (eg. with old friends still living there) - just like you would with people who joined a cult. Listen, be there for them when they come out, allow them to use you as a ladder out of the darkness they're unknowingly in.