A Jumble of Cynical Zionist Thoughts

The strongest arguments for Israel’s existence:

If Israel ceases to exist, millions of Jews, Arab, and Druze citizens will become refugees.

Jews outside of Israel will find themselves vulnerable to progrom, inquisition, crusade, and Holocaust.

Are Jews indigenous? Was Israel born in Nakba sin? Is the Occupation immoral? Is Israel apartheid?

Different answers to these questions don’t change the 2 facts listed above.

On October 7th, I felt that Israel had failed its most basic mission as a Jewish state, to protect Jews from genocide, and its most basic function as a state, to provide basic safety for its citizens, in exchange for which they give it a monopoly on violence.

But I decided to give my country time to make things right. I had serious misgivings about the Gaza war, but I stayed silent, because I felt now was the time to support my country even with my misgivings, and to extend the benefit of the doubt to my own people.

However, 10 months in, we are fighting an endless war with no strategy, defined victory goals, or long-term plan. I feel that this is disrespectful both to the lives of Palestinian civilians who are killed or displaced, and to the lives of the Israeli soldiers. These soldiers are risking their lives to make Israel existentially safer. The government owes it to them to develop a plan to ensure that this war actually accomplishes that. We also know that our Prime Minister has repeatedly torpedoed hostage exchange/cease-fire talks.

In the meantime, Israel has continued to alienate key allies, like the US, whose arms are crucial to our self-defense. We know that when it killed Zahedi in April, Israel a) underestimated Iran’s response and b) did not inform America beforehand. America, which did foresee Iran’s response, was angry, because it knew that it would now be required to deploy its own military resources to defend Israel. We know that a similar dynamic played itself out now, with America angry that it was informed only after the fact.

Did Israel underestimate Iran’s response to Haniyeh’s death (as it did re the Zahedi’s assasination in April) or did it decide that Haniyeh’s death was worth the risk?

If it decided Haniyeh’s death was worth it -what were those calculations?

Did Israel underestimate the negative impact that Haniyeh’s death would have on hostage negotiations, or did it decide that Haniyeh’s death was worth the risk?

If it decided Haniyeh’s death was worth it -what were those calculations?

As Israelis prepare to spend weeks in our bomb shelters, we must not forget to ask our leaders tough questions about what led us to this point.

It feels like the government is playing games with our lives and once more failing in its most basic task, as a Jewish country, to protect Jews from genocidal enemies, and as any state, to provide basic safety.

In addition, the Haniyeh assassination did not help Israel: Hamas just named Sinwar as its leader now that Haniyeh is gone.

Sinwar opposes a ceasefire deal and believes in eternal war with Israel, even if it means fighting down to the last Palestinian dead (and of course, the last Israeli.)

We have just further empowered the mastermind of October 7th.

And the act we took that put Sinwar in power also endangers the lives of our own soldiers and civilians and has a negative impact on the economy and society, as we all await the Iranian response to Haniyeh’s assassination.

Ironically, Bibi benefits immensely politically from this turn of events.

A Hamas that is unwilling to negotiate/doesn’t want a deal relieves Bibi of domestic and international pressure to engage in a hostage deal that might end the war.

Polls show most Israelis want elections (that Bibi is likely to lose) after the war, but only after the war. So continuing the war is critical to Bibi’s political survival. That means it’s to his political benefit to have a Hamas that is not interested in a cease-fire.

Unfortunately, even though Sinwar mastermined October 7th and opposes a ceasefire, we are likely to see international pressure and protest movements that continue to advocate for a cease-fire while putting all the pressure on Israel, ignoring the role Hamas plays in the conflict. (After all, as those that carried out the October 7th attack, they essentially started this war, and murdered, raped, and kidnapped a whole bunch of Israeli civilians in the process.) These protest movements will not recalibrate their moral calculus, that solely blames Israel, to accommodate the fact that now both Hamas’s political and military wings are led by a leader who wants to actively perpetuate the war.

I am not sure where that leaves me, other than re-stocking the shelter room in my apartment.

A question that has been going back and forth in my head a lot these days is: Are you still a Zionist?

I believe that the answer is yes, not just because I live in Israel (hard to be more Zionist than that) but also because I love this country and want it to be good here -politically, economically, socially, and morally. I love my life here and am grateful to live in my community. I love the socialized healthcare system and the conversations with strangers on a bus.

But as an Israeli by choice (and I recognize how much privilege there is in that statement. Most Israelis don’t have another language or citizenship. If Israel collapses, they have nowhere to go) I feel anger at a government that makes a mockery of my choices and my commitment to the Zionist project.