What Does It Mean to Be a Zionist

What does a state need in order to exist?

1. A population of citizens to govern
2. A clearly defined territory to govern
3. An ability to offer citizens a basic sense of security as per the Hobbesian social contract, whereby the government’s right to power over its citizens derives from its ability to protect them*
4. To provide its citizens with a “good human life”, to borrow a term from Martha Nussbaum. This is a life where one has the ability to express basic human capabilities, like imagination, reason, or play, while also not being too close to the limits human being struggle against, such as starvation and death.**

To my mind, this is precisely what Hamas, Iran, and the other enemies who oppose Israel’s existence wish to take away.

1. They wish to eliminate Israel’s population, by killing people and by making life here unliveable so that ther is mass emigration.
2. They wish to take Israel’s territory.***
3. They want to take away Israel’s ability to offer citizens basic security -October 7th was an example of that.
4. They wish to take away the ability of Israeli citizens to have a “good human life”, by ensuring they are constantly at war/fearing terror attacks, have an economy suffering due to the security situation, etc.****

3 and 4 combine to pressure people to leave, which in turn bolsters 1.

That is why I beleive the strongest way to strengthen Israel’s existence right now is to be here, so it actually has a population, and to try to create a good life here. Having Israelis living in Israel, living good lives, is the opposite of what our enemies want, so giving them the opposite of what they want is the ultimate victory.

A person could decide there are values in their life that are more important than strengthening Israel’s existence: their own economic well-being, taking care of their family, their education, making an impact on their local community, or a person may have moral or religious objections to Israel’s behavior such that they don’t wish to move there.

That is all valid. I am not here to critique it. I am simply here to point out that one thing (strengthening Israel’s existence when it is under existential threat) is not the other (staying in the Diaspora for perfectly valid reasons).

To me, in the era where we have a  State of Israel, supporting and bolstering that state’s existence is what it means to be a Zionist. This is why I think that if living here is the best way to do so in the current moment, it is also the best way to be a Zionist.

As a Zionist, I want Israel to be a place where people live the “good human life”, and I believe an important part of that is living in a moral society. In addition, I see endless war as preventing this from being a place where people can live good lives, due to the continued missile attacks, and due to the economic and social impact of the war. For both of these reasons, my opposing the war in Gaza is part of my pursuit to make life here liveable, and as such, is a true expression of my Zionism.

*Apologies, this is a simplification for the sake of keeping things short

** Ditto.

*** The need for a clearly defined territory is also a need to oppose the Occupation, which prevents Israel from having clearly defined borders.

**** This is a reason why an ongoing war with no strategy to end it is in some sense giving them a victory.