Sawa Newsletter - May 2025 (email version)
May Updates from Sawa: Newton-Area Alliance for Peace and Justice
What’s wrong with “Zionism”?
By Noam Shoresh
What is Zionism, what do different people mean when they use the term, and what are the implications for us?
Since its early days, the dominant voices in the Zionist movement wanted to establish a Jewish-majority state by displacing the non-Jewish Palestinian inhabitants of Palestine. The incarnation of Zionism, the state of Israel, has always treated Palestinians as second-class human beings. People in the Palestinian-solidarity camp are aware of these facts, which leads many of them to see Zionism as inseparable from notions of Jewish supremacy. For them, “anti-Zionism” means opposing an oppressive ideology and regime.
And yet, throughout its history, the Zionist movement also consisted of individuals and groups that argued that Jews should not come to Palestine as occupiers, and advocated for peaceful integration with the local population and respectful coexistence rather than displacement. A fascinating figure among them is Rabbi Binyamin, an enthusiastic Zionist and an orthodox Jew who came to Palestine from Eastern Europe, and was a fierce critic of the aggressive adversarial attitude of the Yishuv (= the community of Jews who settled in Israel) to the Palestinian natives of the land. Here is part of a poem he wrote in 1907:
”Hatred will arouse strife, but love will allay wrath
It will bring brothers together, and make peace with the distant
You shall love the inhabitant of the land, for he is your brother, your self, your flesh
Do not avert your eye from him.
Do not hide yourself from your own flesh.”
And in the aftermath of the massacres of Jews in several cities in 1929, he wrote:
“There were times that they [the Arabs] reached out for peace and their hand was waving in the air. . . . Weizmann . . . who does not find his hands and legs regarding the Arab question . . . says that he won't negotiate with the Arabs unless they recognize our rights and stop the violence. . . . This is the situation, actually, when they are calm . . . we ignore them, look upon them, and swell as turkeys, and when they are awakened by natural, elementary feelings, we do the same thing again. This is not the way.”
And while Rabbi Binyamin and other such individuals and groups had very little effect on the Zionist movement as a whole, they were nevertheless a part of it. Not only did they consider themselves to be Zionists, they were also recognized as such by the rest of the movement, despite deep and bitter disagreements.
Differences in meaning…
This suggests complexities in the meanings of “Zionism” that are not always recognized. The ideology of the Zionist movement was not strictly one that inevitably required the oppression of non-Jewish Palestinians, but something broader: a political response to centuries of Jewish persecution, particularly in Europe. At its essence, Zionism held that Jewish survival required political organization, global coordination, and bringing many Jews to a single territory - believing in “safety in numbers.”
This, in fact, is how Zionism is explained in schools to Jewish Israelis, and to most American Jews. While many Jews acknowledge some of the injustices done to Palestinians, a great many of them think about “Zionism” as being unrelated to that; they think about “Zionism” as a vague and benign term.
Israeli Jews love Israel in the same way that most people on earth love the place/society they grow up in. For most of them, “Zionism” simply means “I have a right to live here”. Not in a philosophical, political sense that claims “I have a right to be here more than the Palestinians do”, but in the instinctive way that one believes they have a basic right to continue living in their homes. (Indeed the same right of which so many Palestinians were denied in the Nakba.)
For many American Jews (as described in the eloquent op-ed in the Boston Globe by Mark Golden) “Zionism” means “loving and supporting Israel”. Again, this is not a specific, thought-out political stance, but an instinctive connection. Most of them do not mean “I support everything the government of Israel does, no matter what”. They do mean “I support Israel’s right to exist”, but like most Israeli Jews, they do not, in their own minds, continue this sentence with “even if it comes at the expense of Palestinian basic human rights”. In fact, a study that was reported in October, 2022, confirms this. When Jewish Americans were asked if they identified as Zionist, 58% said “yes” (10% anti-Zionist, 12% non-Zionist, 7% “unsure”, and 12% “it’s complicated”). But when asked “If Zionism means the belief in privileging Jewish rights over non-Jewish rights in Israel, are you a Zionist?”, only 10% of respondents said they were “definitely” (3%) or “probably” (7%) Zionist. A full 69% said they were “probably not” or “definitely not” a Zionist according to this definition.
For most American Jews, “loving Israel” expresses a sense of affinity to a state created by Jews and which celebrates Jewish culture and traditions without fear of persecution. They perceive Israel to be a part of their Jewish identity, and to them “Zionism” is the almost self-evident idea that “Jews should be able to live safely in Israel.”
So what is “anti-Zionism”?
This is the reason that so many Jews cringe at the term “anti-Zionism”, perceiving it as an attack on their identity, and consider it to be a call for displacing Jews from Israel, or worse. Many of them never truly confront the realities of Israel, the brutal oppression of the Palestinian people, and the implications of insisting on a Jewish-majority state. And to the degree that some do see the plight of the Palestinians - they think it is the fault of the political right in Israel, or “the settlers”, and not a consequence of Zionism itself.
Not all Jews agree on what Zionism is. Yes, some openly embrace Zionism as a Jewish-supremacy ideology that asserts that Jews are the rightful masters of the biblical land of Israel. But many, perhaps most people who conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism adopt the definition of the term “Zionism” that I alluded to above: the simple belief that Jews deserve to live safely in Israel. The problem is that they insist on this definition without recognizing (or, in some cases, deliberately choose not to acknowledge) that others use the term differently. This is not only misguided, it is dangerous - it is used to demonize and silence Palestinian voices.
But we who support justice for Palestinians should realize that our own camp often makes a similar mistake. When people in our camp (Jewish or not) identify as “anti-Zionists”, boycott an event because it has Zionist participants, or use “Zionist” as an obvious pejorative, they are also considering Zionism to have a singular meaning., Often, they are unaware of the way many Jews understand and use the term. Nor do they seem to care about it much, which I think is unwise. By insisting on using “Zionism” and “anti-Zionism” while adhering to their own singular interpretation of these terms, they are missing many potential allies, people who could be true partners in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Over the past year I have been part of a vigil group that has been meeting every Sunday since October 20th, 2023, in front of the Massachusetts state house, calling for a stop to the horrors in Gaza. Among us are anti-Zionists, non-Zionists, questioning Zionists, and self-identified Zionists. If someone truly believes in universal human rights, condemns the occupation, and recognizes the Palestinians’ fundamental right to their ancestral homeland, does it matter what label they use to describe themselves?
We need people to listen…
The way many in our camp use the terms “Zionism” and “anti-Zionism” can make it hard for many American and Israeli Jews to even begin listening to what we have to say. The solution is simple: we can stop using these terms. I would be quite comfortable identifying as a Zionist. I would be equally comfortable identifying as an anti-Zionist. I choose to do neither. I do not want to alienate pro-Palestinians, with whom I stand firm, nor do I want to alienate potential Jewish allies before we start a conversation. Instead of using “Zionism” as a convenient shorthand, we can be precise and speak directly about Jewish supremacy, occupation, and oppression; and instead of “anti-Zionism”, talk about equality and dignity for all.
This is not a moral argument but a strategic one. American Jewry plays an important role in U.S. politics and cares deeply about what happens in Israel-Palestine. Many American Jews already support Palestinian liberation, and many more could. If by avoiding a term prone to misinterpretation we can make it easier for them to stand with us, why wouldn’t we?
Editor’s Note: This version has been edited to correct Mark Golden’s name in the citation of his article.
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