Over two weeks ago now, Yachad was rejected by the Zionist Federation to become an affiliate organisation. However, the backlash created by Yachad has only just started. In addition to the majority of Yachad’s twitter feeds endorsing ZF criticism, they have decided to prolong this tedious pettiness by sporting further articles and advertisements in the JC and Jewish News this week.
One retweet of Yachad’s this week was as follows:
“Stop telling me decision to ban @YachadUK is ok and can’t be criticised because it’s democracy. Something can be democratic and still wrong.”
Yes, it is true that democracy does not necessarily go the way one desires; however the underlying point is that the vote was a democratic process, a vote of the peoples. Everyone promotes democracy until democracy bites back. This is especially true of our Western counterparts; democracy is encouraged in authoritarian states until a problem occurs with a candidate or party.
Yachad means togetherness. The way they are behaving confirms that the ZF made the right decision. By entering into a spat, Yachad are not together for Israel as their attentions are diverted, and certainly not for peace. If they cannot create peace between another organisation in the same country they are based, how can they promote and create peace in Israel?
After Yachad were rejected they initiated a campaign #whatswrongwithmyzionism? The answer is nothing. No organisation, whether Zionist or not should dictate anyone’s ideology. This twitter campaign would have been more affective if it was not running alongside criticising the Zionist Federation. With this endless criticism, there is clearly wrong with Yachad’s Zionism for their own point of view. The problem is that it is not the ZF’s Zionism.
By creating this backlash, it appears that the ZF were not the only ones who scored an own goal in the words of JC columnist, David Aaronovitch. Yachad scored an own goal by legitimising the ZF’s claim to be an umbrella organisation for all Zionists. If Yachad does not believe this to be true, maybe they should concentrate on their own campaigns rather than linking all their activities to the Zionist Federation.
