Israel Advocacy Network Blog - State Zionist Council of Victoria

World Labor Zionist Movement - Conference pre-Congress:

My initial idea, to report for the State Zionist Council from the Congress, has turned out to be a difficult one in terms of objectivity. I am, after all, one of two delegates from Ameinu (formerly the Australian Labour Zionist Movement), and it is going to be very hard to separate my role as a delegate from my role in Advocacy at the SZC. But as members of the World Jewry, I think it is important that you are all informed as to what goes on at the Congress, and so I hope you will bear with me as I report directly from here. Perhaps after the Congress the other participants from the other slates in Australia will write their own thoughts and allow me to post here, and in this way you will get an even clearer picture of the way things work.

I arrived in Jerusalem at noon last Friday, greeted by signs saying, ‘Jerusalem Welcomes the Participants of the 35th World Zionist Congress’. As this is my first time at the Congress, this sign really excited me; it made me feel a part of something very special and important. I think it all comes back to my earlier post about my wide-eyed naivete towards the entire process. And why not be optimistic from the outset? Why not come with an excited attitude and an open mind? Why not be enthusiastic and energetic about a goal that I put much time into achieving. The answers to these questions have unfortunately come to me over the past three days – and the Congress has not even officially started yet!

Prior to the Congress, each World Body has been conducting their own meetings. The World Labor Zionist Movement has been conducting meetings over this past weekend in Jerusalem. It is now Monday morning. I have been meeting with my Labour counterparts from Israel, the United States, England, Holland, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, Russia, Germany, Austria and even Uzbekistahn for the past three days. In that time, a few things have become blatantly clear to me, and I reveal them in no particular order.

The first is that despite the idea not just of these WLZM meetings but the entire Congress is that Jews meet from all over the world to discuss important Zionist issues, I have noticed that many (and I will try not to generalise) of the Israeli participants seem to not really care much about the Diaspora; they appear to not find us or our presence relevant. In the opening meetings I heard various comments which made me suspicious that this was the case, and it was confirmed to me on Saturday when I was part of a Committee to discuss ‘Israel and Diaspora Relations’.

For starters, the Israelis at the session did not want to conduct any of it in English. The fact that AT LEAST 50% of the participants in this particular session where from the Diaspora seemed to mean nothing. One person even blatantly said, we are in Israel, we must speak Hebrew. Which is all fine and nice, but for those who do not understand Hebrew, it poses a very difficult problem and makes it impossible to give insight on their Diaspora Community, which was the reason why we were there. As the meeting wore on, I wondered why people bothered attending this meeting if they were not really interested to hear straight from the horse’s mouth about the current state of Zionism in the outside world.

The second thing that has become clear to me is that internal party politics can really bog a movement down! On the final day of the meetings, we were to conduct WZLM elections for position of the Head of the JNF, the Treasurer and an Executive Member Without Portfolio. We would also vote on the Secretary-General of the WZLM, the Chairman and a Youth Representative – this final one only being voted on by the youth.

As soon as the opening session began, people were already campaigning and stating their intentions. In a time where people were invited to give a comment or suggestion, candidates for the election were up on the podium promoting themselves. Even in our Committee Meeting people were prefacing whatever they were going to say with shameless self-promotion. For the first two days I found myself constantly being approached by someone, and I would think they were simply interested in meeting me. How nice, that people were taking the time to get to know each other, I thought. We would have a short conversation where I would tell them my name, my country and a few other details, and then all of a sudden I would be bombarded with election propaganda. And the end of the discussion was always the same – ‘so I have your vote?’

I understand that this is politics, but there was something absolutely crazy about this unrelenting process. The way in which people tried to make themselves look better at the expense of their opponents bothered me too.

This all came to a peak yesterday morning, when the elections were going to take place and the ‘real’ campaigning began. T-shirts, slogans, gimmicks, the works. Hundreds of people had flocked to support the candidate they were backing. I had walked out of the hotel for a few minutes, and when I came back I had to literally run through a gauntlet of campaigners throwing flyers (and flowers – to sweeten the deal I guess) in my face!

The balagun of voting began and the polls closed at 8:00pm last night. The initial thought was that the result would be in by 9:00pm, followed by a closing session of the conference to stitch up any outstanding matters. By 2:30am when I went up to my room, the results were still not entirely clear. Apparently certain results will be contested legally but who knows. To be honest, the waiting game was very exciting for those of us from the Diaspora, but the disputes and the games made me worry that all that was said at the opening of the conference about Labor being united and strong, and moving on past these elections was not really genuine.

It might sound like I am trying to make light of these elections, and in doing so I am sure I have played down the importance of them. For example, in the Labor Party we have the big responsibility of selecting the right person for the job of the leader of the JNF. We also, for the first time ever, had someone from the Diaspora, Ken Bob from Ameinu America, running for the position of Executive Without a Portfolio. His election would make a very important statement that the World Labor Zionist Movement is exactly that – a world body. As it stands now, I believe he actually tied with a Chilean born Israeli candidate and they will alternate the position over the next four years. Ken’s election shows one of the positive elements of the future of the Labor Movement. It says to me at least, that even after my various disappointing moments, the Diaspora will continue to be a relevant aspect and an important one to the movement as a whole.

On the first day of these meetings I was introduced to someone from Ameinu America. He knew that this was my first Congress and he laughed at my optimism and excitement towards the entire process. He said, ‘wait 48 hours and tell me if you still feel the same way.’ It saddens me to say, that even after the First Plenum, I already understood why my optimism had been almost mocked by people who had been here before.

But please, do not take this post to mean that I am disappointed with the entire process or that I have not seen any positives in being here. I am just learning lessons, and it is these lessons that I want to convey rather than to write a meaningless flowery report. I am still entering the Congress today with an extremely open mind. But I guess I carry with me a little more understanding of the processes and a little bit more caution. This also isn't intended as a post to dump on the World Labor Zionist Movement.

On the contrary - I have met wonderful people from all of the world, and I hope that the connection continues beyond the Congress in order to better understand what it means to be a social democratic Zionist in everyday life in their repsective countries.

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One highlight was Saturday night where we had a ‘Night of Tributes’. This was attended by Defence Minister and Leader of the Labor Party, Amir Peretz. He spoke for the first ten minutes or so about Defence and then moved on to the social issues that he has put at the forefront of his agenda. I will write more about him later after I have collected by thoughts a little bit more. For now, here is proof that I met him!

And so – today we move forward to the Congress and I will continue to keep you posted.