David Langsam is an anti-racist Jewish Australian writer, broadcaster, human rights activist and peace activist.
David Langsam is an journalist) “I am now again the Zionist I once was (But the Zionist caravan has moved on)”: “I guess what I have always tried to do as a journalist is to disprove common currency lies. In 1989 the Israeli lie was that Palestinians children were only shot by the IDF when their parents pushed them forward … In Australia in the 1980s, I guessed that I was part of a 5-10% minority of Jews prepared to be publicly critical of Israel. (Today, that percentage may have crept up to 10-15%, but I believe there are far more that have become disengaged, partly because Israel does bad things and partly because of the bully-boy tactics of its Australian support groups, AIJAC, the State Zionist Council and the Anti-Defamation Commission.) In London in the late 1980s, I surveyed the British Board of Deputies for The Observer newspaper and found one third of respondents opposed Rabin’s 1987 policy of “Break their bones”. In Israel, I am not at all radical – I am mainstream Old Labor, maybe Meretz. I have not changed, Zionism has.” [1, 2].
[1]. David Langsam, “Once you see you cannot unsee” in “Beyond Tribal Loyalties. Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists”, edited by Avigail Abarbanel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) (pp 43 & 45).
[2]. David Langsam quoted in Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Beyond Tribal Loyalties”. Stories of anti-racist Jews”, MWC News, 18 January 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/24184-gideonpolya-beyond-tribal-loyalties.html .