How I Escaped Zionist Brainwashing

A Jewish American reconciles his first experience with Israeli torture tactics as part of an antizionist awakening and a commitment to lifelong service of Palestine liberation.

By Michael Schirtzer

Credit: AdobeStock

In college I joined a fraternity called AEPi. It’s a Jewish fraternity. What I didn’t know is that it’s also one of the largest zionist organizations in the U.S. and effectively acts as a lobby, nationwide recruitment hub, and fundraising apparatus for the zionist entity. 

My fraternity initiation included hazing — a process whereby the older brothers in the fraternity initiate the newer members through a mix of bootcamp tactics, physical labor, and emotional and physical abuse. In this instance, we had our hands tied behind our backs, we were blindfolded, and we were taken to a dark room where loud music was playing. The pledge class that I was a part of consisted of roughly eight guys from the U.S. and two who grew up in occupied Palestine and had served in the occupation army. 

The American students were uncomfortable because we’d never been tortured before. When you are tied up and blindfolded, your other senses like smell and hearing really take over. I distinctly recall the former IOF guys laughing and joking around, like hyenas. It was unsettling. I remember asking them what they were laughing about because they were giving off psychotic energy. 

They immediately dished that they were recalling how they “used to do this to Palestinians all the time.” It was in that moment that things clicked for me, and I realized I’d been lied to about everything. Before then I’d never heard a negative thing about what I used to call Israel and what I now call the occupation of Palestine.

In hearing this described so directly and so casually, I was immediately confronted with a reality that differed from my own understanding. I was rudely awoken to the fact that my life had been a carefully crafted lie since the moment I was born to feed me into a brainwashing machine that justifies genocide. As images and testimony from concentration camps inside occupied Palestine surface, we see that the IOF does this and much worse to Palestinians all the time. And they have for over seventy-five years. 

A few days after this incident, I was walking the quad in UC Santa Barbara. It just so happened to be “Israeli” Apartheid week on campus. Which meant that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was holding a demonstration in the middle of campus. They had set up tables and visual aids, and they were passing out information about the Nakba, the apartheid conditions, and the lives of Palestinian people. 

Now if not for that initial incident where I was tortured and awoken by the confessions of two war criminals, I don’t know that I would have been as receptive to the information at that demonstration. But as fate would have it, it was the same week and I was eager to hear information I had never heard before. 

I approached the table and spoke to some of the activists. I had never heard of the Nakba and the only thing I knew about Palestinians at that moment was they were supposedly meant to be my enemy. I remember hearing their stories, and then later reading up on it myself. When I learned about the scope and the gravity of the Nakba, I was completely floored. How could I have gone my whole life and never heard about this? How could I have tacitly supported the other side without knowing what that made me? I began to reckon with my status as a white settler on native land in Turtle Island. 

I was already someone who disliked U.S. imperialism. I remember before Snowden I was telling my friends that the NSA was listening and cataloguing everything we do. At the time expressing this information made me a pariah. I was quickly labeled crazy and a conspiracy theorist. So it wasn’t a stretch for me to educate myself and see the occupation of Palestine for what it truly is: a satellite military base for U.S. imperialism. One that weaponizes the pain and trauma of Jewish history as a bludgeon against any criticism under the banner of Zionism. The IOF does this in order to carry out a holocaust against Palestinians and steal more Palestinian land. 

From the cradle to the grave, zionism has its grip on all Jewish institutions, social circles, and economic collectives. I remember when my grandmother died, they threw soil from occupied Jerusalem on her casket, and all I could do was watch on zoom as I thought, She would hate that. She and I had spoken just before she died. I asked her about Palestine. She said she visited in the 90’s and at the time she thought it was possible to coexist, but our conversation happened in 2020 and she (like myself) had since realized the settler colonial project is not viable. She said, “It’s terrible what they’re doing to the Palestinians.” 

I felt so strongly about the lack of coverage around Palestine that in 2020 I started making videos myself advocating for the end of the occupation, lifting the siege on Gaza, the right of return for Palestinians, the right of Palestinians to engage in armed struggle, and generally dissecting and dismantling zionist propaganda. After awhile Palestinians found me and all had the same question, “Who the fuck is this Jew?” 

I linked up with Lara (@gazangirl) on Instagram, she reached out to me and suggested that we should do a podcast. We started The Palestine Pod three years ago, in March 2021. A podcast where a Palestinian-American Lawyer & Jewish-American comedian break down the latest Palestine-related news with commentary and interviews (mostly) every week. We’ve spoken to many Palestinians on the ground, including Adnan Barq, Yara Eid, and Tamer Nafar, as well as other esteemed guests like Nkosi Mandela (the grandson of the Honorable Nelson Mandela), Abby Martin, and Dr. Steve Salaita. 

We provide a counterbalance to the overwhelmingly dominant zionist narrative that most Americans today encounter in the media. For the last three years we’ve helped chip away at the house of cards we’re now watching crumble right in front of our eyes. 

I did ayahuasca recently in search of guidance for this tough time we are all experiencing. During this experience, I realized Palestine never needed me. I needed it. Palestine set me free long before I ever started to work for its freedom. Palestinians taught me discipline, they taught me honor.

Through my work to liberate Palestine I’ve become the type of person I’ve always wanted to be. I’m more in tune with nature and with the interconnectedness of all struggles, whether it’s Congo, Sudan, Haiti, or any place that seeks freedom from oppression often linked to or supported by zionist influence. 

The bravery of the Palestinian resistance, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran have exposed the artificial superiority of the zionist entity. I truly believe we will witness the end of the occupation of Palestine, and the end of the U.S. empire, well within my lifetime. I am going to work every day for the rest of my life to make sure of it. 

Michael Schirtzer (aka Mikey Intifada) is a Jewish anti-zionist standup comedian and cohost of The Palestine Pod.