Why antizionists don’t care about Sudan

The deafening silence on the Left about Sudan is a case study in how antizionism has gutted the Left and corrupted its ideals

I was born and raised in the Socialist-Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Hatzair. My paternal grandparents were leaders who traveled by foot, train, and boat to set up agricultural cooperatives in the British Mandate of Palestine during a wave of immigration (both Jewish and Arab) that more than doubled the population in the borders of the Mandate to nearly two million. In Poland, my maternal great-grandmother hosted socialist gatherings in her basement. Her son, my grandfather, worked to smuggle Jews out ahead of the Nazis, only to be caught, taken to Treblinka, escape, come to Israel, and join an agricultural cooperative. My parents were leaders in the movement, as was I, as were my siblings, as will my children. Which is why I will always consider myself a child of the Left.

The Left, as I learned from leading socialist movements and managing organizations with social purpose, differs from the Right in its belief in collective responsibility and the importance of non-transactional relationships. The Left I was raised in believes people should see the best in each other, support one another, and work together for a better world. Because of this, the Left I believe in does not think any “type” of human being is better or worse than another. We believe humans should be free to choose their comrades, organize into a collective to represent their interests, and fight against exploitation.

The Left I grew up in believed in solidarity across groups: power is built through voluntary association, and it is morally applied through the support of others against exploitation. This is why the Left believes in self-determination for all people: no one has the right to tell another person who to associate with. No one has the right to coerce another to accept an imposed definition of self. Everyone should express their identity without fear of repercussions, so long as doing so does not harm another person.

Which is why the ideas of antizionism and the Left are inherently contradictory. Those of the Left can and should criticize the actions of the State of Israel: the military occupation denying Palestinians their right to self-determination; the selective enforcement of the law in Judea and Samaria; the assault on Israel’s democratic institutions by authoritarian forces. The ruinous and appallingly callous strategy the Israeli military followed in the Gaza War. Were the global Left to join in solidarity with the Israeli Left, perhaps Israel would look differently today. Unfortunately, the global Left has been captured by antizionists.

Antizionists have, by definition, decided to impose their definition of the Jew on Jews who want to self-determine. Antizionists are, by definition, racist when they oppose Jewish immigration into the British Mandate while accepting the over 750,000 Arabs who immigrated into Palestine during that same period as “Palestinians,” arguing they deserve refugee rights, along with their children and children’s children. Antizionists who support violence to establish a non-Jewish Palestine as an ethnostate of the Arabs are explicitly calling for the expulsion of the Jews and an end to Jewish self-determination. Antizionists should be recognized as kindred to the Extreme Right due to their anti-immigration, anti-self-determination, anti-solidarity views when it comes to Jews.

(And there are those who say Jews don’t deserve self-determination because they should be defined as co-religionists and not a nation, which is ridiculous because people have the right to determine their identity. Even those who speak “as a Jew” against Israel’s existence know Jewish identity is defined by something other than religion. They speak as part of a collective, a group with shared identity called a Nation, defined by the Hebrew word ‘Am,’ which means “With.” Jews are Jews because they are with and responsible for other Jews. Jewish identity doesn’t depend on religious beliefs, it depends on being with one’s People.)

Which brings us to Sudan. If you only relied on the New York Times, you might have missed that in the past week Sudan’s Islamist paramilitaries massacred 460 women and children at a maternity hospital. After killing over 2,000 human beings when they captured El-Fasher. Blood running so thick in the streets it can be seen from space. After sparking and maintaining a famine affecting over 20 million. After killing millions, expelling millions, destroying the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions over decades.

The Left I was born into would have cared. The Left I know would have demanded Zohran Mamadi, born in Uganda not far from the border of Sudan, would speak out about the genocide and how oil money fuels it while exacerbating global heating. Would say those Islamists are not acting in his name, and call on other Muslims to join in protest against those who besmirch his faith. The Left I knew wasn’t obsessed with one conflict, could see beyond the headlines and highlight the economic factors driving violence and exploitation. The Left I still believe in recognizes its complicity in living in an industrial society fueled by the source of Sudan’s troubles, oil. It would take to the streets to demand their government stop the killing. Yet while all eyes are on the Islamist ethnostate of Gaza, none shed a tear for the children of Sudan.

Which leads me to conclude that antizionists do not and will not care about Sudan – or any other conflict – because they are fascists, and their movement is not of the Left but a takeover of it. They’ve become as socialist as National Socialists, who cared about collectives only if aligned with their imperialist agenda. And the Jews who support them are heirs to an ignominious history of Jews siding with fascists and totalitarian ideologies to prove their bona fides.

To save the Sudanese from the forces of Islamic Imperialism, we of the Moral Left, motivated by ideals of equality, self-determination, and solidarity, must raise our voices to demand action. Demand resources to end the horrific violence plaguing one of the newest members of the Abraham Accords. Demand international institutions take this conflict as seriously as the Gaza war. Demand the opinion shifters and market-shapers of the marketplace of ideas cover conflicts proportionally so human lives are valued equally. Because the fascists who’ve taken over the Left won’t do it, and too many lives are at stake.