Cath Palasz, a former “Palestine solidarity” activist and supporter of the boycott-Israel campaign, has written about how an encounter on the Engage website last year convinced her to change her mind.
…I happened upon “Engage” and an article around anti-Semitism . To be honest I barely read it but launched into a tirade on the wrongs of Israel and Zionism… What came back at me was an argument that was somewhat unexpected and disarming, because it did not excuse the injustices to the Palestinians, it acknowledged them but questioned the method to address the problems and the rejectionist nature – a politics of despair not hope. It was a serious accusation to a Christian and one that challenged me fundamentally because if it wasn’t working towards hope and peace then it wasn’t in my view the path to tread.
Palasz has not become a fervent Zionist or stopped caring about injustice to the Palestinians. But she has quit the anti-Israel Palestine Solidarity Committee and dropped her support of a boycott.
But according to one of our regular commenters, writing at another forum, her change of heart is “Wierdly [sic] implausible.” The commenter wonders how anyone could fall for “the strange mixture of dishonesty and cliche” which he thinks convinced her.
Has your thinking on Israel-Palestine changed (either way) recently? Perhaps you could help our commenter understand how it’s possible to think for oneself and to honestly and sincerely change one’s mind.
