Zionists Exercise Power by Policing the Definition of Zionism

Limiting criticism is part of oppression.

Some readers will remember that in the past I’ve talked about the way in which Christians—even liberal Christians—will demand that people acknowledge that “true” Christianity is good. Liberal Christians dislike Christofascism, and will denounce Christofascists. But when people oppressed by Christofascism say, “Christianity is oppressing me,” liberal Christians will often leap forward to correct, not the oppression, but the nomenclature. As I wrote at Sojourner’s:

I am skeptical when I hear Christians respond to Christian nationalism by distinguishing it from “true,” “Christlike,” “pure,” or “orthodox” Christianity. If Christianity is only true Christianity when it is good or kind, then no “true” Christian ever does anything bad. That makes it easy to dismiss Inquisitors and slaveholders alike in the past, and it makes it easy to dismiss structural power to do harm that you may have as a Christian now as well….

Arguing over which Christianity is “true” might be of theoretical or theological interest to some Christians, but it’s of limited interest to the rest of us, who are more concerned about how, exactly, those squabbling Christians are going to use their power to regulate and police us.

When Christians insist that Christian dominance isn’t real Christianity, they are, ironically and contradictorily, enforcing Christian dominance. Christians have a lot of power, which includes the power to tell people oppressed by Christianity how they are allowed to talk about their oppression, and how they are allowed to talk about Christianity.

Who gets to define Zionism

Unfortunately, a similar dynamic is at play in discussions of Zionism.

Like Christianity, Zionism can mean different things to different people. Ultranationalist Zionists insist (often explicitly) that Zionism is a more or less God-given right to Jewish dominance of Gaza and the West Bank, with Palestinians denied all rights or else erased through some combination of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

In contrast, liberal Zionists often argue that this ultranationalist Zionism is a distortion of the true liberal Zionist vision. That vision is generally reduced to a fairly anodyne formulation; “Zionism is simply the belief that Israel has the right to exist” or “Zionism is simply the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination.”

Liberal Zionists are often horrified by the current policy of the Israeli government, and are quick to agree that Netanyahu is an evil, incompetent, corrupt fool. They are with you if you say, “What Netanyahu is doing is terrible.” But if you say, “What Zionists are doing is terrible,” they will leap to correct you. Yes, Netanyahu says he’s a Zionist, just as MAGA says they’re Christians. But it’s important to distinguish Zionists from Zionists, and Christians from Christians! Or so the argument goes.

The question of course, is, important to whom? The argument about what “Zionist” means, and whether it has to involve genocide: that’s mostly an intra-Zionist discussion, or an intra-Zionist power struggle. For those of us who are not Zionists (and especially for Palestinians), the actual, on the ground oppression Palestinians suffer from self-declared Zionists is much more important than whether liberal Zionists feel maligned.

And make no mistake, liberal Zionists do feel maligned when people criticize Zionism. A lot of Jewish people, in Israel and in the US, and a fair number of non-Jewish people, identify strongly with Zionism. When you say, “Zionism as an ideology is justifying this horrific genocide,” many people who don’t like genocide and who oppose current Israel policy feel personally attacked—just as when you say, “Christians are attacking abortion rights,” a lot of liberal Christians will feel personally attacked. They will say something like, “Not all Christians!” just as Zionists will say, “Not all Zionists!”

I have some sympathy here; no one likes to be told, “Your community, your identity, your personal investments, are causing harm.” It’s unpleasant. It makes you want to clarify; it makes you want to demand recognition that that is not you (“not all white men!”)

Unfortunately, these demands—from liberal Christians and liberal Zionists—can end up reinforcing the oppression and violence that liberal Zionists (and Christians) claim to disavow. This has been particularly, and painfully, visible in current discussions about campus protest in the US. Denouncing Zionism in protests is often seen as an antisemitic attack on all Jews, and as an expression of hate—rather than a way for Palestinians and allies to name the ideology oppressing people in Gaza and the West Bank. The idea that Jewish people are unsafe when Zionism is criticized provides justification for calling in police on peaceful demonstrators.

Many leading Zionist organizations say clearly that they believe they should be the only ones allowed to define Zionism, and that any other definition than theirs is hate speech or a violent attack on Jewish people. The American Jewish Committee, for example, states that “Zionist is an essential part of Jewish identity,” and claims that “Anti-Zionism is opposition to Jews having a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland, and denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.”

Zionism for the AJC is Jewish self-determination, period. Zionism is not the violent genocidal assault on Gaza. Even though, currently, on the ground, the actual self-declared Zionist government is murdering Palestinians at a terrifying rate, the people being murdered, according to the AJC, do not have the right to say, “Zionism is murdering me.” If they do, they are the violent ones, not the people bombing their children.

Nuance is good. But it shouldn’t be a weapon.

Anti-Zionism can sometimes be a cover for antisemitism. Violent actions are not morally right just because those who perpetrate them say they were acting in the name of anti-Zionism. Hamas in its horrific attacks on 10/7 murdered and tortured many Israelis. Pointing out that Zionism is an oppressive ideology does not mean that anything done to oppose Zionism is great or moral; it doesn’t mean that all anti-Zionists are awesome.

I think it’s also important to acknowledge, though, in the name of nuance, that currently, the Zionist ideology that is ascendant in Israel is not liberal Zionist, and that Israel’s policies—for a long time before 10/7—were a lot more violent than is implied in formulations such as “Zionism is just a belief that Israel has a right to exist.”

Zionism, currently, is inseparable from the oppression of the Palestinian people. Could there at some point be a Zionism that is not linked to the violent oppression of Palestinian people? I’m skeptical, just as I’m skeptical that Christianity at this point is separable form Christian supremacy. But if people want to try to make their own communities better, that’s great; I have no objection.

The difficulty comes when “I want this ideology/community to be better” turns into “this ideology/community is better because I want it to be, and all of you being oppressed by this ideology/community better acknowledge that…or else.” Demanding that Palestinians and allies treat Zionism as the idealistic thing Zionists want it to be, rather than as the violent blueprint for dispossession and murder that it actually is on the ground—that’s one form of oppression in itself, especially when it’s backed up with state power.

Zionists who in good faith want Zionism to be better need to focus, first, on seizing Zionism from the Zionists who currently have it and are committing unbelievable atrocities with it. If liberal Zionists are committed, first and foremost, to silencing criticism of Zionism, as Zionism, then they are not in fact opposing ultranationalist Zionists. They are providing cover for them.