There has been so much tragedy this week - the deaths of 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the occupied Golan Heights, the disturbing protests, likened to Israel's January 6, at the Sde Teiman military base by right-wing extremists who were protesting Israeli authorities detaining and questioning IDF soldiers suspected of sexual assault of Palestinian detainees. And of course, yesterday marked 300 days since the horrific October 7 attacks by Hamas, 300 days of Hamas still holding 115 hostages, 300 days of Israelis from the north and south being displaced, with no promises of restored security and no estimated timeframe for when it will be safe enough to return home.
The strategic assassinations of Hezbollah's top commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyah (the latter of which Israel has not admitted responsibility) are tactical victories that are only worth as much as the strategy that follows the tactic - and there isn't much of one right now.
It feels so crushing right now - the State of Israel in complete disarray, not to mention the immense damage and loss of life in Gaza, and the increased violence in the occupied West Bank.
As with all critical moments, a reckoning begins, and many tie these events to Zionism. They claim that this is the essence of Zionism, and now it’s being laid bare for the world to see. Reckon with your Zionist ideology, they are all too eager to proclaim.
But what is happening in Israel, encouraged and instigated by its current leadership, is the antithesis of Zionism.
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel proclaims “[the State of Israel] will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.” It goes on to say “The state of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th of November, 1947…”
The resolution mentioned is of course UN resolution 181, otherwise known as the partition plan allowing for an independent Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one, indicating within these founding documents of the state that Israel sees itself as deserving not only of sovereignty in its own state, but its own state accepted within the family of nations, by upholding international law.
The multi-front war being fought right now includes a war between Israel - the independent Jewish state with clear borders between it and a Palestinian state, and Judea - the messianic vision of a Greater Israel that absorbs all the land between the Jordan River and the Meditteranean Sea. Between a democratic, liberal Israel and a messianic theocracy. Between a Jewish state with equal rights for all its citizens, and a state of Jewish supremacy.
Israel is the Zionist dream. It is the place that upholds the declaration of Israel’s independence, cooperates with international governing bodies and international law, it is the place that, when allegations of misconduct at military facilities are reported, investigates and prosecutes perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law, and deals with the systemic shortfallings that allowed for such misconduct to occur in the first place. This is what Israel tried to do in its detainment of nine reservists at the Sde Teiman military base.
Coming up strongly against it is Judea, the Anti-Zionist vision. Judea believes that “Am Levaded Yishkon” - A singular nation dwells alone. A singular nation dwelling alone does not uphold any of the promises in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. It tosses away the rights of minorities and cooperation with international governing bodies and international laws. It in fact not only tosses them away, but it laughs in their faces.
At the first Zionist Congress, the Basel program was adopted, with the stated goal: “Zionism seeks to establish a home in Palestine for the Jewish people, secured under public law.”
Zionism, therefore, rejects the idea of a singular nation that dwells alone. Zionism’s first goal, its north star was establishing a home for the Jewish people secured under public law.
It has always been the aspiration of Zionists for the Jewish homeland to take its rightful place among the family of nations through, among other actions, upholding international law.
The Zionist dream is not merely to return to our ancestral homeland to be just like all other nations. The Zionist dream is to return to our homeland and be a model for all other nations. To build a nationalism that other nations can emulate.
Since seizing and occupying the West Bank in June 1967, successive Israeli leaders sought to entrench this occupation, culminating in the most brazen and bold attempts under this current Netanyahu government. These efforts are in direct opposition to the Zionist values espoused in the foundation of the State of Israel. These ploys have built up Judea at the expense of Israel. They have moved Israel from aspirations of seeking justice for the “other” to seeking humiliation, abuse, and expulsion of the “other.” They have forced Israel ever further into being a singular nation that dwells alone. They have dismissed international law and proclaimed legitimate legal consequences Antisemitic.
Shortly before his assassination, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l wrote to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in October of 1995 “we did not pray for nearly two millennia for the return to Zion only to find ourselves ruling over two million Palestinians or creating a bi-national State.”
Current Israeli leaders seek to do both. In this, they are going against the leaders of Zionist thought, and the Zionism on which the State of Israel was built. They are sacrificing Zionism for Messianism and Kahanism.
Any Jewish Zionist organization or individual, in Israel or in the Diaspora needs to recognize this treacherous front of the current war, and align with Israel over Judea. We need to fight for it as if Israel’s soul depends on it, because it does.