Why Post- Zionism?

It's time for Israel to normalize

I wrote these in preparation for our two online discussions of post-Zionism, which are on Wed. July 29 (tomorrow as I post this) at 8PM EDT, and on Sunday, August 2, at 4PM EDT. If you want to join either or both, message me through substack and I’ll send you a link. I hope these reflections are interesting in themselves in trying to understand how Zionism went wrong, as I think it clearly did, though I’m certainly willing to discuss it.

1. Zionism was (or is) the idea that the Jewish people should have a national home, preferably in the Land of Israel (by the late 19^th century generally called Palestine). In 1948, Israel declared its statehood, fought a bloody war (Nakba/War of Independence) and was admitted to the UN the following year. Thus, Zionism’s chief task was accomplished; Zionism as an ideology should have been declared fulfilled and finished.

2. Notably, the 150,000 Palestinians remaining in Israel (approximately 700,000 had fled or been expelled) were declared citizens and thus entitled to vote, though most were under martial law till 1965. Palestinians have remained about 20% of the Israeli citizenry.

3. Zionism was repurposed with the goal of building up the new state and bringing new immigrants, chiefly Holocaust survivors and Jews from Muslim countries, and integrating them socially and economically. This was largely completed by the mid-1960s. By then the Zionist bureaucracy had grown and had become integral to the state’s administration.

4. With Israel’s victory in the Six-Day (June) War of 1967, there was a general belief that the conflict would soon be over, and Israel was allowed by the UN to retain control of all territory captured in the war. Crucially, it has still never officially decided what it would do with the West Bank and Gaza, while Sinai was returned to Egypt in exchange for peace. Incorporation of the land and citizenship for the populace were never seriously considered out of fears for the state’s Jewish, i.e. Zionist character. Instead Israel has ruled over them ever since, seriously compromising its democratic character. It planted the first settlements in the summer of 1967.

5. The ideological basis for the large-scale settlement of the West Bank and Gaza was provided by the ideology championed by Gush Emunim and based on the political theology of Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook, which has transformed religious Zionism into a messianic, supremacist creed, culminating in Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, with important contributions by Rabbi Meir Kahane. They are the leading ideologues of today’s Zionism.

6. While perhaps only 10% of Israeli Jews would vote for a party of this sort, that is how Zionism now appears to the world. It is time for Jews around the world to recognize that the leading edge of Zionism has been transformed into a violent supremacist cult, whose adherents are killing Palestinians in the West Bank and seizing their land.

7. Zionism today is both unneeded bureaucratically and unsalvageable ideologically. As American Jews who care about Israel, we must do all we can to provide the conditions so that Israel can become a “normal” country, that provides equal right and opportunities for all its citizens, and that allows the West Bank and Gaza to become the state of Palestine, which is the unfinished business left over from the wars of 1948 and 1967.

8. Post-Zionism is not anti-Zionism, nor is it non-Zionism. We support Israel as a normal state governed by all of its citizens; one with which we, as Jews, have a special connect ion.

9. For years I have supported the “A Land for All” movement, which advocates an E.U.— type confederation between a state of Palestine and the state of Israel. While that isn’t integral to post-Zionism, it makes the most sense, given that perhaps 800,000 Israeli Jews are living beyond Israel’s pre-1967 border.

10. Post-Zionism is now relevant because most American Jews have given up on the “Israelism” that infatuated many of us from 1967 until recent years. Very few of us contemplate making aliyah and moving to Israel. While we take extreme exception to the current president of the United States and his corrupt administration, our home is here, despite our theological and personal ties to Israel.

11. With the overwhelming majority of the Arab and Muslim world willing – indeed eager - to recognize and live in peace with Israel once it has separated from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel no longer needs American aid. Instead, the US should join the rest of the world in actively encouraging Israel to permit a Palestinian state to take form.

12. We are under no illusions that this will be a quick or simple process. Thus, part of our task is to discuss what we, as self-declared post-Zionists, can do to help this process, that is not being done by existing Jewish peace organizations, one of which I have the honor to preside over. I am not particularly drawn to the idea of a new organization, but am willing to listen.