Still Liberal. Still Jewish. Still Believe Israel Should Exist.

Somewhere along the way, parts of the internet decided that being a liberal and supporting Israel’s right to exist are mutually exclusive positions. As if the moment a Jewish person believes in universal healthcare, labor rights, LGBTQ equality, reproductive freedom, or climate action, they are also supposed to immediately renounce the idea that the world’s only Jewish state should continue existing.

That is not only historically ignorant. It is intellectually lazy.

A lot of progressive spaces today treat “Zionist” like it is automatically synonymous with “far-right nationalist.” That framing completely erases the actual history of Zionism, which, ironically, included a huge number of socialists, labor activists, secular progressives, and left-wing Jews. Early Israeli politics were heavily shaped by labor movements, kibbutzim, trade unions, and democratic socialist ideals. You do not have to romanticize every part of Israeli history to acknowledge that reality.

More importantly, supporting Israel’s existence is not the same thing as supporting every policy of the Israeli government. That should not be a difficult distinction for adults to make, yet somehow it constantly becomes one online.

Most Americans understand this concept instinctively when it comes to literally every other country on earth. Supporting the existence of the United States does not mean endorsing every war, every president, or every Supreme Court decision. Supporting Canada does not mean agreeing with every policy out of Ottawa. Yet when it comes to Israel, many people suddenly lose the ability to separate a nation’s existence from the actions of its current leadership.

For liberal Jews, the issue is often deeply personal, historical, and emotional in ways that outsiders sometimes fail to grasp. Jews are not imagining antisemitism. They are not overreacting to history. The collective memory of expulsions, pogroms, discrimination, and the Holocaust did not disappear because people added land acknowledgments and diversity statements to corporate websites.

The existence of Israel represents safety, continuity, and self-determination for many Jews, including liberal Jews who may strongly oppose Prime Minister policies, settlement expansion, or military actions that harm civilians. Those positions can coexist. In fact, they often do.

The internet, unfortunately, struggles with nuance. Social media rewards absolutism. You are expected to pick a team and recite the approved script from that side. If you believe Palestinians deserve dignity, freedom, and human rights, some people assume you must oppose Israel’s existence entirely. If you believe Israel has a right to defend itself and continue existing, others assume you support every bombing campaign or government decision without question.

Real life is more complicated than that.

Many Jewish Democrats support a two-state solution precisely because they believe both Israelis and Palestinians deserve self-determination, security, and the ability to live without fear. That is not hypocrisy. It is actually a fairly consistent application of liberal values.

There is also something unsettling about the way some progressive movements treat Jewish identity compared to other minority identities. Progressives usually understand that marginalized groups should have the right to define their own experiences and concerns. Except, oddly enough, when Jews talk about antisemitism or explain why Israel matters to them. Then suddenly everyone becomes an expert eager to explain to Jews why their fears are illegitimate or why Jewish self-determination is uniquely unacceptable.

That double standard is part of why many liberal Jews feel politically homeless right now.

None of this means criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Democracies should be criticized. Governments should be challenged. Protest is healthy. But there is a difference between criticizing policies and arguing that the world’s only Jewish-majority country should not exist at all. Most people would recognize how extreme that sounds if applied to nearly any other nation.

You can absolutely be a liberal Democrat, support Palestinian rights, oppose extremism, criticize Israeli leadership, and still believe Israel has a right to exist.

That is not contradictory.

It is called having the ability to think beyond hashtags.