I have a problem with the Palestinian flag. For me, it represents a history of exclusionary Pan-Arabism and organized violence against innocent people. BUT. I am painfully aware that many people could say much the same thing about the Israeli flag.From Two Sides to a Flag

Zionist

For me Zionism is a natural expression of the historic prayer to return home and build a country where we can be free to live as God intended. I’m a Zionist in the 58th century, and I don’t think two states is the right solution to the problems we face.

Pro-Palestinian

The first Palestinian I really met, when I was a teenager, shattered every myth I held about who Palestinians are, what they believe, and what they want. It has stayed with me ever since.

It is natural to see one’s own side of things, at first. But it is crucial that we learn to see other sides, and to catch glimpses of ourselves through others’ eyes. Especially through the eyes of the vulnerable and the violated, in a society where we wield real power over the lives of others. I want one state where all of us are equal, with equal citizenship for everyone.

Libertarian Socialist

You can not own land. Land is an area of jurisdiction, a collective resource for the community associated with it, a foundational part of a living system, and a sacred home in which all are welcome so long as we live moral lives. Capitalism is a good system for exchanging objects. On land it is inadequate to reality.

Bolshevism was a disaster, and central planning has often produced systemic injustice. Thankfully there is more than one flavor of socialism. I’m a socialist and a libertarian: most things are best governed at the local level, especially now that technology can support a strong civil society.

Intergalactic

From Sinai to the stars. Intergalactic Zionism is Zionism understood as a civilizational project of ever-expanding horizons, not an ideology of statism or ethno-supremacy. It matters to all of humanity, not just a small slice of it, and to every sentient being: building a civilization here, and one day meeting other civilizations, other species, and other worlds.

The covenant started on a mountain in the desert and I don’t see where it’s supposed to stop. My art series Zion 6000 imagines Jerusalem in the Hebrew year 6000, and the New Deal below ends with a learning commonwealth: expand human capacity, reject eugenics, and keep control contestable.

Why a New Deal

I wrote it out of frustration. So many Israelis feel hopeless about what can be done and where this country is going, and our politicians treat the public with contempt: no dream and no vision for the future, just scare stories and manipulation for the present.

It is written for everyone on this land, and first for Israelis. It speaks to the Zionist aspiration inside the Israeli public, and it includes Palestinians, for whom the Zionist project has had real consequences and may still have a future. I stand behind every plank. Some, like equal citizenship for Palestinians, are hard for many Israelis to hear. That one is at the core.

Two objections

To Jews who call it naive: if you mean that sharing a civil society with Palestinians is naive, that is racist nonsense. There is no reason two ordinary human beings anywhere on this planet can’t share a civil society.

To Palestinians who say it’s still Zionism: yes, it is. But it is plainly not the Zionism of occupation, control, and expulsion. Zionism is a big conversation, and there should be room in it for pro-social, pro-human Zionisms alongside the fundamentalist, ethno-supremacist, and statist ones.