We are historical ‘Zionists.’ How should we identify now?

Why antizionism is spreading – and why it endangers Jews everywhere

This is an excellent commentary. The conflation of so many thousands of years of Jewish History in the region which is now modern Israel – to include specific European pogroms with dates starting in the 12th and 13th centuries moving into Soviet Russia and the Nazi Holocaust to massacres of Jews in ‘Palestine’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in what has become modern Israel – by the modern leftist notion of Jews as ‘white colonialists’ and ‘oppressors’ is not only dearly offensive but also deeply ahistorical.

In fact, I’d argue that we Jews and our return to Israel, literally, makes us the original anti-colonialists.

But I also question the continued use of ‘Zionism’ as a way to describe modern Israel and current Israeli geopolitics. The general definition of Zionism, coined by Nathan Birnbaum (1890/1891) then formalized by Theodor Herzl around 1897 was ‘a nationalist movement for the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland, to establish a sovereign, self-determined Jewish state, primarily as a response to rising antisemitism and the need for a safe haven.’

Since the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Zionism has come to include the development and strengthening of Eretz Yisrael and the protection of our Jewish nation by support for a strong military, the modern IDF. Jewish Virtual Library

With this, I don’t agree with the author’s premise that ‘it’s time for an organized anti-antizionism movement.’

I’m not even altogether clear what this specifically means. But it seems to compound rather than clarify the confusion. Instead, I would argue that it is time for a new reference point and model.

I mean – we did it. We have returned to our ‘ancestral homeland and have established a sovereign, self-determined Jewish state and safe haven. We have a strong military in the IDF though it is currently being placed at risk by Haredi factions and the Israeli Right which continues to pander to these factions. But have reached the goals identified by Birnbaum and Herzl and remain locked in a particularly counterproductive circle in the continued self-identification as ‘Zionists.’

Israel’s greatest risks increasingly include those from within. It is my perspective that we are now being led by a false flag of Zionism which has been misused and misrepresented by the Jewish Supremacist Right to justify excesses in Gaza and, maybe more so, the extreme violence and assaults on West Bank Palestinian farming communities by illegal settlers acting with almost total impunity. This is the misuse of ‘Zionism’ to justify brutality which and does not align with Jewish History or belief.

‘Zionism’ has become kind of an equivalent to the misuse of constitutional ‘Originalism’ in the US by, not without coincidence, America’s own extremist and mostly Christian Supremacist Right. Constitutional ‘Originalism’ is only in place when it suits the American fundamentalist Right’s political and religious agenda and is not part of honest, thoughtful jurisprudence. Originalism is also wrong as it violates the intent of the Authors of America’s Constitution who saw the Constitution as a dynamic and responsive document.

American ‘Originalism’ might now be compared to ‘Religious Zionism’ which identifies ‘settlement of the biblical Land of Israel as the beginning of Redemption.’ Not unlike Originalism, Religious Zionism seems more a deliberate misapplication and misrepresentation of the original secular/nationalist Zionism of Birnbaum and Herzl.

The false flag of Zionism is being used to justify attacks on Palestinian communities and the illegal theft of land. It’s being used to justify extreme violence in Gaza and the political control demanded by Israel’s religious parties and ultra-orthodox sects. I believe it is time to reconceptualize modern Israel and that Zionism should be considered as historically arcane as is ‘Originalism’ and the Electoral College in the United States.

We come from that original historical Zionist intent and model but are no longer Zionists in the way articulated by Birnbaum and Herzl in that – we’re back. We have established the sovereign Jewish State with the strong military they conceptualized in the late 19th century. Now, a new and formalized Israeli Constitution is required to reflect our modern state.

So where do we go from here?

We are Israelis and/or members of the Jewish Diaspora who strongly support and recognize the value of that original Zionist mission. Zionism was a success but we may now risk our future if we continue to so identify with the past rather than move onto the future.

We are not ‘white’ but semitic, despite elaborate conspiracy theories, and the direct opposite of ‘colonialists.’ The Left’s push to perceive Jews as ‘white oppressors’ and Israel a colonialist enterprise is wholly ahistorical and, perhaps, the most uniquely dangerous form of antisemitism in the attempt to deny, revise and otherwise suppress our authentic History.

Rather than ‘anti-antizionism,’ we should be for a modern, democratic independent Jewish nation which knows itself and respects those others with whom we have long, deep and close historical connections as Semitic peoples while protecting ourselves and our nation from those who would want to take our sovereignty. Everybody – every Palestinian – isn’t an enemy. Jewish Supremacism and its alignment with Religious Zionism, supported by American Christian Zionism, will not lead to the promised land but, instead, continue to weaken and divide us.

Just as American ‘Originalism’ is a false, misdirected premise used to pursue a deeply distorted and biased agenda, it is time to move on from historical Zionism and its connection to the distortion of Religious Zionism which, I would argue, neither Birnbaum nor Herzl would likely support