Why Activists Often Perpetuate the Systems They Want to Fix, and How to Change It

The Paradox of Winning but Losing

Those of us in the social transformation field must ask ourselves one question at the end of the day: Are the world’s problems getting worse…or better?

Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked as an activist for social change. As our country and world have become more polarized, I’ve noticed a pattern that may explain why activism isn’t working, no matter the political affiliation.

Both sides of the American political spectrum have secured what each considers major wins, including overturning Roe v. Wade and passing the Affordable Care Act, but something still doesn’t feel right.

Despite these outcomes, there’s a sense that things aren’t truly getting better. What’s puzzling is that this feeling exists across the divide. How can people with opposing views all feel like something is missing?

Both liberal and conservative activists believe passionately that they’re right and the other is wrong — and usually justify it by claiming to know God’s mind and that God is on their side. Consider, for example, the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Fundamentalists among both Israeli and Palestinian leadership are certain that God is on ‘their’ side and opposed to the so-called ‘other’ side.

But for those of us who believe in universal shared humanity and the spiritual notion that all humans were created in God’s image, this divisive use of God doesn’t seem particularly…well, godly.

So, I was relieved in recent conversations with Ilana Sumka, Founding Director of Shleimut (Hebrew for “wholeness”), when I began to see something I hadn’t seen before. Ilana helped me piece together why activists are often deepening the toxic systems they are trying to change – and how to reverse this pattern. The problem is not that we care too much. It’s that the way we practice activism — rooted in moral certainty and division — often reproduces the very systems we oppose.

The Divisive Activism Template

Ilana grew up in the US in a “progressive-except-Palestine household.” This term describes a phenomenon in some Jewish households that support human rights, gender equality, and challenging oppression, but also hold that Israel is a unique political issue where traditional progressive frameworks don’t fit, sometimes conflating criticism of Israel’s government with antisemitism. In Ilana’s childhood home, other liberation movements were celebrated, but the Palestinian liberation movement was seen as a threat to Israel and to Jews. She was taught that the Israeli government was a peace-seeking source for good in the world and that Arabs were antisemitic terrorists.

As a young adult, she avoided the thorny issue of Israel/Palestine and instead worked for traditional progressive organizations, such as labor unions and community groups. In 2004, she wanted to deepen her Jewish roots and moved to Jerusalem. There, she studied Judaism and immersed herself in life in Israel, setting aside her political commitments. But in 2006, she took a trip to the West Bank and witnessed the situation in Palestine with her own eyes, forcing her to question what she was raised to believe.

Now, for every Jew that grew up like Ilana, there is probably a person who grew up with an equal but opposing values system: Palestinians and their supporters who believe in the goodness of humanity, except when it comes to Israelis. In this view, Palestine is a unique political situation and traditional nonviolence frameworks don’t fit, particularly where human rights are continually violated.

We can see the clear setup for conflict, whether in the U.S. or Israel/Palestine: liberals and conservative activists have a template – but it’s the same template. The template goes like this:

I asked Ilana in the case of Israel/Palestine about this template and the most common ways that it backfires.

“Violence is the most extreme way people try to create change and it backfires. Israel uses a violent military occupation. First of all, it’s immoral and illegal under international law. Second, it doesn’t work to suppress and control another people. People want to be free. On the Palestinian side, according to international law, some armed resistance is valid when confronting an illegal occupation but some – like the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 — is flat-out immoral violence. Each side sees their violence as defensive and the other side’s as offensive.”

With this vicious circular cycle, and two stories deepening in opposition, how will the conflict ever end?

The Human Cost of Scapegoating

There is something very human in wanting to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Our films and cultural stories reinforce this black and white thinking. It’s the air we’ve always breathed. Scapegoating (in which blame for harm is cast solely on one entity) is an ancient communal practice to expunge wrongdoing from a community. As long as the community rooted out the bad entity (usually by killing the entity off, which was a literal sacrificial goat in ancient times), the rest of society could be assured that everything would be ok.

But the truth is, all the “good guys” have some bad in them. And all the “bad guys” have some good in them.

Ilana told me after October 7, 2023, there were a lot of articles in the media dehumanizing Palestinians, using the word “animals.” It was her work to expose the hypocrisy, with one simple sentence. When she encountered folks saying, “They are animals,” she responded, “Which ones? The ones killing each other? Or the other ones killing each other?”

Both sides of the conflict are running the risk of making the very conflict they’d like to alleviate worse when using these secular activist methods – which are often adopted and practiced by religious advocates too. Secular activism adopts this “draw the line,” scapegoat-style methodology. They label the good guys and bad guys with no nuance. This is divisive activism, which is any kind of activism that divides humanity instead of unites it.

The most powerful sentence Ilana said in our early morning talks was, “To deny Jewish ability to be oppressors denies our full humanity and freewill.” And likewise, to deny Jewish ability to be liberators denies their full humanity. She truly believes this about all people – but has done the work to believe this about herself as well. As she said, “In confronting the best and worst of Palestinians and Israelis, not only did I discover the humanity of the other, but my own full humanity.”

The same goes for all of us. But stop and think about that for a minute. For any liberal or conservative, this recognition (that we are each fully human, capable of both goodness and harm) is essential to move from divisive activism to unitive activism.

You may be thinking: we have to draw the line on human rights!

Yes, you are right.

…and we also have to stop dividing humanity.

A Spiritual Alternative: Both/And Activism

This conundrum invites us all to enter into a spiritual paradox that Ilana explained through Jewish Kabalistic tradition, in which there are pairs of Divine emanations that are in productive tension with each other. For example, Gevurah and Hesed.

Gevurah means strength or judgement. It refers to the need to draw a line.

Hesed is the counterpart, referring to loving kindness and the radical acceptance of every human exactly as they are.

Kabalists understood them as inextricable companions, like lightness and darkness. One without the other leads to problematic imbalances. Jewish tradition teaches that rather than being in opposition, Gevurah and Hesed complement each other. In activism, we see more Gevurah, drawing the lines. We see less radical acceptance. In spiritual communities, we might see more Hesed, the practice of loving kindness.

The challenge of our times is to frame our positions in ways that advocate fiercely while protecting the humanity of those who disagree. Otherwise, we’re just swinging a pendulum.

What might this advocacy framework look like in something hotly contested in the U.S.? For example, the abortion debate.

It looks like a pro-choice advocate saying, “I believe abortion access is essential healthcare. I will fight for it. I also know that many people who oppose abortion are motivated by sincere moral convictions about protecting life. I disagree deeply — but I don’t question their desire to do good.” And a pro-life advocate saying, “I believe abortion ends a human life and I will work to reduce it. But I will not call women murderers. Most are facing complex, painful decisions.”

In both cases, the position is not diluted. The moral line is not blurred. But the opponent is not demonized. This type of framing removes the adrenaline of contempt, and in turn lowers threat levels — which paradoxically makes persuasion more possible.

That is Gevurah plus Hesed.

It does not soften the critique. It changes the spirit of it.

The concept of Shleimut (Hebrew for “wholeness” and the name of Ilana’s organization) invites us to live into this embodied wisdom, through the spiritual practice of both/and – which is one of the hardest to grapple with, master, and practice and embody.

But we must try because a lot is on the line. Divisive activism rooted in moral certainty and scapegoating deepens the systems it seeks to dismantle. Spirit-rooted activism grounded in paradox (Gevurah and Hesed) offers another way.

As St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) said: “Can true humility and compassion exist in our words and eyes unless we too know we are capable of any act?”

The question is no longer whether we can win.

The question is whether we can transform — without becoming what we oppose.

About Ilana Sumka & Shleimut

As the founding director of Shleimut, Rabbi Ilana Sumka has more than two decades of expertise as a nonprofit leader, experiential educator and community organizer.

Ilana served as the Jerusalem Director of Encounter from 2006 to 2011; founded the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, which she led until 2018; was one of the initial organizers with New York’s progressive Working Families Party; . has worked in international human rights with American Jewish World Service; served as an election monitor in Bosnia and Albania with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

A recipient of the postgraduate Dorot Fellowship in Israel (2004-5) and Pardes Fellowship (2005-6), Ilana is known for her commitment to Jewish community alongside her Palestinian solidarity work. In 2011, she was recognized for her dedication to ending the Israeli occupation and became the first Jewish person to receive an honorary Bethlehem “passport” as part of the international Open Bethlehem campaign.

She is currently finishing a memoir about the seven years she lived in Jerusalem.

To learn more about Ilana’s work, visit https://www.shleimut.org. And keep an eye out for Ilana’s new memoir, forthcoming with Ayin Press.

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