In the past, the way was opened for far right domestic policies by starting with the intellectual arguments for them. Now, Israel supporters are concerned about the collapsing support for Israel and for Zionism itself. That collapse is taking place not just on the far left but also among mainstream liberals and “progressives”. So Israel supporters have launched appeals aimed at that (former) base. they now claim that opposition to Zionism runs counter to everything that “progressives” stand for. Two articles recently appeared making that claim.

The arguments of the two authors below will form part of the intellectual arsenal of the defenders of Israel. If allowed to stand unchallenged, this line of argument will have an effect, yet I fear that using its current approach the left will be unable to do so. This article is written in the interests of helping develop an answer to the “progressive” defenders of Israel.

Let’s start with the two articles themselves:

The first article is written by Kile B. Jones. It first appeared on his substack and was then reprinted in the Times of Israel. It is entitled  Sorry Mr. Chomsky, I no longer agree: my journey out of anti-Zionism. The opening sentences continue in that vein: “I was once an anti-Zionist. My political views were shaped by leftist academics during my time doing graduate work at Boston University. I had immersed myself in Marxist theory, sure I was on the righteous path of my political forebears. I was studying the work of Noam Chomsky at the time, enamored by his anarcho-syndicalism, ideas on propaganda, and takes on the Middle East.”

Jones continues: “What my old self and the Left fail to see is how often these categories implode when applied to Jews and Israel. Not only can they transmit, and often create, antisemitism, but they usually render Jewish peoplehood and self-determination illegitimate. When you apply terms like ‘colonizer,’ ‘oppressor,”’and ‘Imperialist’ to a persecuted diaspora of indigenous tribes and cultures, you end up misreading history.”

For Jones, being a Jew is the same as being a Zionist. He quotes Elie Wiesel: “A Jew may be Jewish far from Jerusalem; but not without Jerusalem.”

Jones then gets to the meat of his argument: “Zionism was a necessary and reasonable project for the protection and flourishing of persecuted and stateless Jews spread throughout the world, now living among nation-states, in a land where their ancestors were colonized by successive conquests more than other place on earth, surrounded by countries that expelled Jews, who had origins no more valid than Israel’s.” Jewish people “know that while Israel and Jews may not be identical, they’re inseparable.”

Zionism is simply the right of an oppressed nation to self determination. The left supports that right, so opposition to Zionism can only be explained by anti-Semitism. That is the crux of Jones’ argument.

Second Article
A similar article appeared in The Atlantic. It is entitled The Left-Wing Case Against Anti-Zionism. Its author is anthropology student Adam Louis Klein, who also starts by asserting his “left” credentials:

“Anti-Zionism has hijacked the left, and it did so through exploiting the left’s tendency toward internationalism and its skepticism of nation-states,” Klein writes. He continues, “It transformed Jewish peoplehood into a crime and charged that Jewish difference amounted to a claim of supremacy, even as it demanded that a persecuted minority submit to the dominance of the majority. Yet the public reckoning with anti-Zionism still awaits its moment.

“I am a Jew who supports women’s rights, gay rights, and trans rights, and who believes that climate change will pose a major challenge to human society. Opposing anti-Zionism is, similarly, a natural extension of my concern for truth and equality. If the Democratic Party wants to maintain an authentic commitment to human rights, it must oppose the movement that seeks the elimination of Israel and the purging from civil society of those marked as Zionists.”

Klein concludes: “The progressive case against anti-Zionism recognizes the freedom of Israelis to choose the nature of the society they want to live under. It recognizes that Israel may be becoming more like other Middle Eastern countries—that its increased religiosity in recent years is partially driven by the Mizrahi segment of its population, those who were expelled from other countries in the region. And it seeks to extend to Israel the same allowance that progressives extend to other nations in the region, an acknowledgment that societies can differ from secular Western ideals.”

Legitimate Criticism of anti-Zionist Left: Oct. 7 & Hamas
Among other things, Jones and Klein attack the anti-Zionist left at its weak points. One weak point is the fact that some on the left have actually given implicit support for Oct. 7 as simply a matter of self defense. This coincides with the tendency to “critically” defend

Hamas. What they stand for has nothing in common with socialism.

Hamas. Most of those on the left who don’t take such positions have failed to openly reject them. We should be clear: Terrorist attacks on civilian populations can never lead to liberation from oppression. They only strengthen the oppressor while serving as a cover for a refusal to take an actual revolutionary approach. Oaklandsocialist has thoroughly documented this in our article “Why Marxism opposes individual terrorism”. As for Hamas, whether that party has majority support among Palestinians is irrelevant. Germany was an oppressed nation following WW I and Hitler rode to power in part based on that fact. That doesn’t mean the slightest support for the Nazis is legitimate. While Hamas may not be outright fascist, they are a conservative and repressive party which actually has time and again sought to actually compromise with Israel. They hide that compromisist approach with seemingly radical terrorist violence. For those who have any doubt that this description is accurate, see “What is Hamas? How did it Originate? Should socialists give it any support?”

“Israel has no right to exist”
Another point of attack is the left’s use of the slogan “Israel has no right to exist”. What does that mean? One possibility is that it is simply a very militant-sounding but hollow phrase mongering. What nation has a “right” to exist? They all have the power to exist, and that’s all that matters in history. But there is another and more insidious possible meaning. Oct. 7 represented a general hatred of all Israelis. The fact that that hatred springs from the repression of Israel is irrelevant. When taken together with the implicit defense of Oct. 7, that phrase about a “right to exist” can legitimately be taken to imply support for mass murder of Israelis. Rather than trying to sound more militantly “anti-Zionist” than anybody else, socialists need to think through what they are actually saying.

The real problem
The tendency on the left to at the very least accept implicit support for Oct. 7 and for Hamas exemplifies a deeper problem. That problem is that the left, socialists included, have tended to use the same method of thinking as is used by Jones and Klein. That is the method of replacing a serious review of actual history with abstract moralizations and generalizations. In other words, a failure to use the method of historical materialism.

The entire argument of Klein and Jones rests on the view that the European Jews are an oppressed national minority whose oppression naturally and organically led to the drive for their own nation, which was to be built in their historic homeland – Jerusalem and the surrounding region. That is false from start to finish. For one thing, their argument cignores the situation of the Jews in South West Asia North Africa (SWANA) up until the 1940s, as did Zionism itself. We will get to the significance of that later.

The Jewish people were never a true nation, not even just European Jews. Jews in eastern Europe tended to speak Yiddish (which the Zionists rejected) whereas the Jews in France spoke French. They had different lifestyles. The only thing they had in common was their religion. Nor were they concentratd in one general geographic region. Saying they were one nation who needed their own homeland is similar to the claim that Muslims in Malaysia, Bosnia and Saudi Arabia are all one nation that need their own homeland.

The actual history, which Klein and Jones ignore, proves that. Up until the rise of the Nazis and the takeover of the socialist movement by Stalin, the great majority of Jews in Europe did not support Zionism. They supported the Bund.

The most severe anti-Semitic attacks were carried out in Eastern Europe. Many Jews sought to escape these condtions by moving not to Palestine but to Western Europe and the United States. They voted “with their feet” against Zionism.

Nor did the original founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl support the idea of an independent Jewish state. That was not his view. His entire conception was that since anti-Semitism is inherent among Gentiles, that Jews must separate from them. He even considered the idea that Jews should move to some place in South America. He could not consider the idea of an independent state because under his leadership Zionism was really just a figment of British imperialism. The British were the ones who encouraged European Jews (not SWANA Jews, just European ones) to move to Palestine. They did so in order to develop a base for support for their imperialist rule in Palestine. That was why the first British mayor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storrs, referred to the European Jews in that city as “our loyal little Jewish Ulster in a sea of Arabism.” (Ulster is the mainly Protestant part of Northern Ireland which supports British rule.)

As for the Jews of SWANA, the Zionists had not the slightest interest in them, nor were they interested in Zionism. In fact, the Jewish communities of Palestine were largely hostile to Zionism. In general, they lived peacefully with their Muslim neighbors. Klein and Jones make much of the attacks on Jews in SWANA in the mid and late 1940s and ‘50s. That was after Zionism had completely disrupted relations and played a major role in driving Palestinians off of their land and out of work places in Palestine and then in Israel. It was Zionism along with British imperialism that created that situation.

An independent Jewish nation
If the drive for nationhood sprang organically from the material conditions of the European Jews (and only those Jews), then why didn’t Herzl and the major wing of Zionism call for an independent nation? That call originated by the Zionist revisionists, which was a trend created by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who is revered in Israel today. Jabotinsky was a fascist! In other words, the real origins of the idea of an independent Jewish state stem from fascism. How do Klein and Jones explain that? The descendants of Jabotinsky were the terrotist Stern Gang. They offered to join WW II on the side of the Nazis.

The worst oppression of European Jews occurred in Eastern Europe. This was where the pogroms of late 19^th and early 20^th centuries were carried out. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of Eastern European Jews fled Eastern Europe. But if a desire to return to the “homeland” – Jerusalem or Palestine – was a historic lure rooted deep in Jewish “culture”, then why did the overwhelming majority of Eastern European Jews move to Western Europe or America, not Palestine? Why was it that they only fled to Palestine when faced with the catastrophe of Nazism while Britain and the US closed their doors to Jewish refugees? Why only then?

Zionism was originally for European Jews only. That was because Britain wanted that loyal Jewish base “in a sea of Arabism”. But if return to the motherland was rooted deep in Jewish culture, then one would think that the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Iran and all the surrounding countries would have been the first to take up the call. After all, they lived thousands of miles closer and Palestine wasn’t so very foreign to their conditions where they lived. The reason they didn’t was that prior to the rise of Zionism – which occurred with the support of British colonialism – relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities were in general peaceful. The Jews had no reason to move.

Jones claims that “early Jewish immigrants during the Aliyahs had no empire backing them… no colonial army.” In fact, it was exactly the opposite:– the “early Jewish immigrants” did have a colonial army and an empire backing them up – the British empire and army!

This is the actual history of Zionism – from a figment of British colonialism (Herzl) to fascism (Jabotinsky). This is not just abstract name calling; it’s the actual history.

“The right of nations to self-determination”
The “left” defense of Zionism rests on “the right of nations to self determination”. This is a slogan which socialists also tend to uncritically accept. In the first place, “self determination” for one group often includes repression, even ethnic cleansing, of another. The whole issue is further complicated by the adoption of that slogan by Russian fascistc such as Alexander Ionov, founder of the Anto Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) as well as Russian fascist ideologue Alexander Dugin. What they are really talking about is ethno-nationalism and the concept of each nation state being nothing more than a particular ethnic group and everybody else can get out. It is the basis for Christian nationalism in the United States, for example. And in fact, that’s what Zionism is – Jewish ethno-nationalism. Klein makes it clear. He writes: “The progressive case against anti-Zionism recognizes the freedom of Israelis to choose the nature of the society they want to live under. It recognizes that Israel may be becoming more like other Middle Eastern countries—that its increased religiosity in recent years is partially driven by the Mizrahi segment of its population, those who were expelled from other countries in the region. And it seeks to extend to Israel the same allowance that progressives extend to other nations in the region, an acknowledgment that societies can differ from secular Western ideals.”

In other words, just as it is legitimate for Iran or Saudi Arabia to impose harsh religious-based repression, that same legitimacy applies to similar steps within Israel. This is exactly where ethno-nationalism leads anywhere, India (Hindutva), Muslims (Iran or Saudi Arabia, for example), the United States (Christian nationalism), Russia (Putin’s Greater Russia) or Israel (Zionism). So while Klein poses as a “left”, he actually defends harsh repression.

Israel’s violent fascist settlers. This is what Klein and Jones really defend.

One cannot find in the writings of Jones and Klein even a hint to criticism of Israel’s policies of genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank or Israeli expansionism in the Greater Israel project. In other words, their “left” defense of Zionism is really just the thin edge of the wedge in defending Israeli apartheid and expansionism.

Socialists and left wing supporters of Palestinian rights cannot advance by abstract generalizations, sloganeering and unprincipled defense of the indefensible. They must take some time to study the actual history and answer on that basis.