The End of Zionism?
This is written after 675 days or 22 months post October 7. Hopefully, sooner rather than later the war in Gaza will end, the hostages, living and deceased, will come home, Hamas will presumably no longer rule over Gaza, but Israel will still have the same unresolved problem of the lack of a political settlement to end the hundred-year war with the Palestinians.
AUSTRIA – JANUARY 01: Theodor Herzl giving an inaugural address for the sixth congress of the zionists in basel. Photography. 1903. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images) [Theodor Herzl bei seiner Eroeffnungsrede zum Sechsten Zionistenkongress in Basel. Photographie. 1903]
History
Zionism, the political movement to create a homeland for Jews, was established in 1897 by Theodore Herzl in Vienna. Zionism came about to solve the “Jewish problem” as perceived by European Jews in the 19th century, when Jews had historically been persecuted for centuries.
Herzl and the Zionist leaders were predominantly secular, products of the haskalah or Jewish enlightenment of the 19th century. The maskilim (promoters and supporters of enlightenment) sought to transform Jewish society from an insular, inward-looking religious orientation to an outward liberal part of general society. The Haskalah led to the development of a secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and identity, rather than on religion
At the end of the 19th century, colonialism was in full force with the European colonial powers competing for influence and possession of territories in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world. By the early 20th century, nearly 40% of the world’s land area was under colonial rule, primarily controlled by European powers like Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. Colonial powers often justified their actions by claiming a responsibility to “civilize” and “modernize” non-European societies. Far from trying to integrate itself into the Arab world, the Jewish state, according to Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote in his book the Jewish State “We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”.
The early Zionists talked of colonizing Palestine in the nineteenth-century colonial manner. The Zionist movement recognized, from the beginning, that there was a local Arab population who were likely to resist the takeover of their land by Jews, who at the end of the nineteenth century constituted a small minority in the land of Israel with small communities in two cities – Jerusalem and Tzfat.
Zionist leadership recognized the challenge that creating a Jewish state would necessitate the creation of a Jewish majority, by mass immigration of Jews, transfer out of non Jews, or a combination of the two. Ben Gurion stated in an address to the Histadrut Central Committee in 1947 that “There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish, majority of only 60%”.
The early Zionist leadership envisaged a liberal secular democracy with a Jewish character. A place of guaranteed safe refuge for Jews undergoing persecution. The labor Zionists envisaged a country where Jews would fulfill all the labor needs, including all manual labor, which Jewish elites in the diaspora had avoided. The vision was one of creating a new Jew in his homeland. Israels Declaration of Independence reflected these values by specifically stating “it [Israel] will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The first thirty years of the Jewish state, up until the elections of 1977, were indeed dominated by Israel’s left-wing parties. It was in many ways a socialist welfare state embodying liberal democratic ideals. It was a country that many secular Jews, including myself, were ready to defend, fight for, and if necessary, die for, as did many of my South African youth movement contemporaries in Israel’s many wars, campaigns, and skirmishes.
With the 1977 elections, Israel started its rightward swing. The transfer of power to the Likud, headed by Menachem Begin, in 1977 resulted in a move away from the liberal socialist Zionism that founded the state of Israel. This rightward swing, fueled by successive attacks from Gaza by Hamas, constant threats from Iran, and internal violent resistance by Palestinians to Israeli rule, has resulted in the current far-right-wing government headed by Netanyahu.
I don’t think that most, if not all of the Members of Knesset from today’s ruling coalition would sign the founding document of Israel because it calls for peace and the promise that the state of Israel guarantees full equality for all Israelis, including the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Some Members of Knesset from the right-wing parties might even label the Declaration of Independence as an antisemitic, or anti-Zionist document if presented with some paragraphs without the context of the full document.
Zionism was the dream of Jewish self-determination as the solution to centuries of European antisemitic murder and oppression rather than staying in Europe and fighting to change the society. I remember the dilemmas of South Africans who were opposed to Apartheid who struggled with the question of staying to fight for justice and equality or determining that they could no longer live in a society which was so unjust and ugly. For those of us who were Zionists and committed to Israel, the answer was clear: our struggle lay in helping build and defend the state of Israel rather than staying and being a part of the anti apartheid struggle in South Africa. For many liberal Israelis, now, at this time, they are experiencing the same struggle as to whether to stay in Israel and fight for the state they believe in, or depart for other shores.
Present
Israel is becoming increasingly messianic and fundamentalistic thereby becoming the most hated country in the world. Israelis will continue to feel less welcome wherever they travel. The news reports increasingly mention incidents where Israelis are made to feel unwelcome. From eviction from restaurants to protests at cruise ship docking to widespread anti-Israel graffiti, Israelis are increasingly singled out as unwelcome visitors. That is Israel 2025.
The rule of law has essentially broken down in Israel. From a prime minister who insists on staying in power while his corruption case winds through the courts, to the West Bank where the IDF turns a blind eye to the violent rampages and murders committed by settler youth. What kind of a future is there in a country where the rule of law has broken down? Where attempts are made to impeach and expel Arab members of parliament for expressing innocuous beliefs? Where Jewish hilltop thugs can attack, beat up, and shoot Palestinians while the IDF and the police stand by and do not interfere? Where the military and the police increasingly becoming the arm of the messianic religious settlers?
Additionally, Israel is torn apart from within by four separate tribes each at odds with the others with competing agendas, priorities and visions. The secular Israelis, the Israeli Palestinians, the ultra-orthodox Haredim, and the national religious. These four camps have tensions and incompatibilities that are submerged during times of external threats, were suppressed after October 7, but are re-emerging to continue tearing the country apart. The national religious messianic vision is incompatible with the secular liberal democratic vision which is incompatible with the Haredi ultra-orthodox vision, none of which suits the character and culture of the Israeli Palestinians. This is the current state of what Zionism has produced with its emphasis on Jewish ethnicity at the expense of all others in the Jewish state.
If the Haredi lifestyle continues, with its doubling of its population every twenty years, Israel will be dominated by ultra orthodox jews resulting in the flight of elites not wanting to live in what is in essence becoming a theocracy. A Haredi lifestyle can be created and nurtured in a liberal democracy. A liberal democratic lifestyle cannot be lived in an ultra-orthodox-dominated country.
What is Israel offering the Palestinians other than suffering, poverty, death, and armed militias? What is it offering an entire people here other than the loss of their humanity? A country where Arabs are tolerated only as second-class citizens without the same rights of expression as Jews. A country where Arabs are considered an existential threat simply because they are not Jewish and have too many children. Arabs are not wanted in the state of Israel, if they will be tolerated at all, it will be under a different set of rules without full equality as evidenced in multiple laws and regulations, most prominently in the Nation State Law of 2018.
Obscene anti-Israel graffiti on 18th May 2023 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Israel’s current reality is grim. Anyone aged 65 or younger, born after 1960, only knows the reality of Israel as an occupying power constantly at war with the Palestinians. Added to that is the proliferation of the internet with unlimited access to worldwide media and the inability of Israel to control the story and its image as seen in the world. English-speaking Jews can read the Jerusalem Post and Al Jazeera, The Forward and The Guardian, watch CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and read Haaretz with Israel Hayom. Non-English speakers have easy access to online translation engines that can translate both Hebrew and English media into the language of their choice. Israel’s hasbarah or propaganda industry has no shortage of clever talented people doing their best to paint a sympathetic picture of Israel for the world. But they simply don’t stand a chance against the present diverse formal and informal media ecosystem – or against the reality that is Israel/Palestine, now being reported on by diverse voices constantly publishing stories, images, videos, and messages that Israel cannot control and almost without exception paint Israel in a negative light.
The 58 years of occupation, post the 1967 Six-Day War, has become a de facto annexation with more than 740,000 Jewish Israelis living over what was the Green Line. Prospects for a two-state solution (TSS) are virtually non-existent and increasingly out of reach with the growing expansion of settlements and the hijacking of the state by religious messianic Jews. An increasing number of diaspora Jews, especially the younger generation, find that a reflexive, presumption of support for Israel, as an occupying power insults their conscience, their intelligence, and their trend towards progressive politics. Attempting to encourage people to reflexively support an illiberal messianic state just because it happens to have a Jewish majority will not bear much fruit among the up-and-coming younger Jewish generations in the Diaspora.
This is the current reality of the state forged from the original Zionist dreams. Israel has become a Jewish supremacist society, an ethnostate where non Jews have second-class citizenship or no citizenship. The Zionist ideology that so many of us subscribed to is producing outcomes that I abhor, and that feels so destructive for the cause of creating a safe homeland for Jews or the cause of protecting Jews globally. Israel has become the most dangerous place in the world for Jews, committing war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel’s media is complacent and complicit in these war crimes. The Israeli public is complacent, willfully ignorant, and responsible. We cannot escape our shared responsibility for these acts. It is not just the army, the police, and the government. These war crimes are being done in my name, in our name, in the name of the people of Israel, in the name of Jews worldwide. We cannot be silent. Calling it out for what it is makes me, in the eyes of probably a majority of Israelis and Jews a traitor. And yet criticism of Israeli state policy—even when focused on human rights abuses, land theft, or war crimes, is increasingly labeled as antisemitic in evermore desperate attempts to shield state and vigilante violence.
Quo Vadis Zionism?
And this brings us full circle to what Zionism has become, what Zionism has produced, what it means to be a Zionist, and what it means to support Zionism.
Pride and Shame
On the one hand, I feel a sense of immense pride at what Israel has become over the past 77 years: a modern state with an economy on a par with most Western economies, a state that has produced world-beating medical, military, computing, and agricultural technologies supported by excellent tertiary academic institutions. A state that grew and absorbed Jews to the point where it now contains nearly half of world Jewry. A state with arguably, for its size, the finest air force in the world supporting the strongest military force in the region with nuclear arms. On the other hand, I have a growing sense of shame, threatening to eclipse any pride I feel.
The shame is due to Israel’s dehumanization of the Palestinians, Israeli inability to feel horror at the deaths of children, and the inability to empathize with the suffering of the Palestinians. This is further exacerbated by the thuggish rampages of settlers in the West Bank enabled by an apartheid like system which treats Jewish Israelis differently from the Palestinians living among them.
The shame is further due to Israel’s execution of the war in Gaza and its continuation due to political pressures and not due to any security or defense needs. I’m ashamed that most of Israeli society remains numb, unmoved by the destruction of Gaza and the resulting humanitarian situation. I’m ashamed of a government and a prime minister who are prepared to sacrifice hostages for political expediency and messianic delusions.
I’m ashamed of the Israeli media which, except for Haaretz, only after 21 months of war started partially showing the Israeli public the impact of the war on the Gazans living there. I’m further ashamed that Israeli media, with the exception of Haaretz, continually shields the Israeli public from the reality of the occupation and its impact on the Palestinians of the West Bank.
The Ethnostate
The primary source of ongoing conflict for much of the Middle East has been the failure to address the Palestinian issue and the lack of a credible plan for a Palestinian state. The Israeli policy has been one of delay in an attempt to continually kick the can down the road, strengthening the Jewish presence in the West Bank while eternally hoping that the Palestinians will magically disappear.
Zionism follows the pattern of other ethnostates, while claiming to act out of its needs for defense and security, it can only function through systematic domination and exclusion of the Palestinians. The creation, defense, expansion, and maintenance of a “Jewish state” on land already inhabited by Palestinians has, from the very beginning, required displacement, expulsion, militarization, a strong security service, and systems resembling apartheid. It has led to the creation of a militarized state which glorifies military service and sacrifice embodying them as sacrosanct national values. Near-universal conscription for Jews only has created the current crisis where the ultra orthodox Haredim, up till now exempt from military service, are being pressured to serve to meet Israel’s growing needs for military manpower to ensure continued domination over the Palestinians. The vast majority of Israeli military service is no longer the defense of the country from external threats, but rather the policing of the interior of the country from the internal threats posed by Palestinians unwilling to accept Israeli rule.
The Zionism created to solve the Jewish problem of antisemitism in Eastern Europe has run its course. It has morphed into the current ethnostate, which contains the seeds of its destruction.
The Future: One State
The continuing investment, expansion, and consolidation of Israeli rule as an occupying nation in the West Bank has made the “two-state solution” impossible. A Palestinian state could only be established in small, discontinuous parts of the West Bank. Furthermore Israel is not an honest broker, a Palestinian “state” is never meant to be truly sovereign, since it would have no armed forces of its own, would not control the borders as it would be surrounded by Israel, and would be supervised by Israel. Last but not least any agreement with Israel to establish a Palestinian state would not recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to what is now Israel if they so choose. In short, there is no possibility of a second state which leaves us with only the de facto single state of today.
Israelis tend to dismiss a one-state solution as a non-starter simply because it leads to a binational state with a slight Jewish minority accompanied by the loss of Jewish power. But… what is it that we actually have today, if not a single state with minority Jewish rule through the denial of equal rights to millions of Palestinians? When the Palestinians finally make the demand for formal annexation to reflect the current reality of de facto annexation, instead of independence in a second state, most of the world will support them – and eventually so too will the US. The day will come when today’s campus protestors are running their countries. Future leaders will not support what they now view as genocide, war crimes, and ‘apartheid’. This is especially the case in the United States with its history of slavery and civil rights where support for Israel is dropping daily as the Gaza war grinds on and Israel is constantly losing the media war.
Zionism, as is the case with many other ideologies has produced unforeseen consequences resulting in death and suffering for millions. It has sown the seeds of its destruction and it’s just a matter of time until it too is relegated to the history books. One can only hope that it will have a peaceful demise and the end will not result in a further cataclysm of violence, death, and destruction.
