Diaspora Jews have a rare opportunity to directly impact the State of Israel’s future. The World Zionist Congress (WZC), which convenes every five years, is the only democratically elected body serving world Jewry and directing some of Israel’s major institutions.

But some might understandably question why a “World Zionist Congress” still exists 53 years after the Jewish people’s return to Zion. Didn’t Zionism fulfill its task of bringing the Children of Israel back to independence in our land?

If Zionism was a movement aimed at merely solving a “Jewish problem” through establishing a state, then today we should probably acknowledge ourselves to be post-Zionists.

But if the ingathering of our exiles, cultivation of our soil, revival of our language and attainment of independence merely represent important stages in a much larger revolution, we should demand that the official Zionist institutions commit their resources to identifying and implementing what comes next.

The VISION movement is the only slate working to ensure that the World Zionist Organization’s multi-billion dollar annual budget be directed towards actually identifying and achieving the next goals of Jewish liberation. Our educational programs for Diaspora students are phenomenally successful and boast a 65-80% aliya rate (just imagine how impactful our educational methods could be if paired with the budgets and relevant departments of the WZO).

VISION is also the only slate empowering Jewish community leaders and university students to become active participants in Israel’s story, envisioning a state that’s both deeply Jewish and fully democratic in the entire Land of Israel. We represent a new centrist position on the Jewish political map that takes the positive rather than negative features of the Israeli right and left.

At the 2015 World Zionist Congress, VISION representatives led a successful campaign to pass a resolution declaring the Jewish people indigenous to Eretz Yisrael. The bill passed by only 51%, with 47% of congress delegates objecting and 2% abstaining. Those fighting against us were proponents of the failed “two-state solution” and were likely concerned that due to the current guidelines of the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, a representative body of the Jewish people declaring us indigenous to the Land of Israel could complicate efforts to remove Jews from the West Bank.

Another VISION accomplishment at the 2015 congress was pushing Naḥi Eyal onto the board of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), where he was able to strengthen Israel’s resistance to the partition of our country by redirecting Zionist funds towards purchasing lands in Judea and Samaria. But when two-staters discovered what Eyal was doing, they pressured the JNF to stop the purchases. Coming into the next congress strong will allow VISION to more effectively use the resources of the Zionist institutions to prevent the division of Eretz Yisrael.

Even more meaningful efforts to resist the “two-state solution” are the grassroots dialogue sessions VISION organizers facilitate for West Bank Jews and Palestinians to engage each other’s identities and narratives without fear. These sessions, where we unpack the very real grievances on both sides, seek to construct a larger narrative inclusive enough to encompass both ostensibly rival narratives and to create the space for us to no longer be antagonists in each other’s stories but rather co-protagonists together in the same story moving forward.

Our peace work, which we approach as an objective of Jewish liberation no different from reviving the Hebrew language or fighting to free our land from British rule, is aimed at attaining a just solution in the entire land that both sides can simultaneously experience as the realization of our aspirations and as victory in our respective narratives.

We hope to direct funds from the Zionist institutions towards strengthening this work.

VISION has already had to fight for inclusion in the national institutions. In what may or may not be an effort to exclude young voices, the World Zionist Congress is scheduled for October 2020, a time when most university students would have a hard time attending. In addition to that, the Canadian Zionist Federation (CZF) has so far managed to block our movement from participating in the Canadian elections to the congress. Our organizers there are still fighting to ensure that younger voices be heard.

In a political arena dominated by a generation unwilling to move on from the failed “two-state solution” or challenge an untenable status quo, VISION activists in the United States already had to fight against attempts to eliminate the discount fee for young voters. When the Area Election Committee (AEC) of the American Zionist Movement (AZM) raised the voting cost for young voters from $5 to $7.50, VISION went to war until successfully restoring the $5 discounted fee for voters 18-25 years of age.

That battle was our first step in empowering young voices in the Zionist institutions and redirecting national funds towards identifying and achieving the next goals of Jewish history.

BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!! (actually though)