I'm an Anti-Zionist and I Feel Fine

The newest fresh hell is the U.S. House of Representatives voting to declare that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and the dubious NY State Rep Elise Stefanik interrogating the presidents of elite Ivy League universities concerning their diligence in sanctioning speech critical of Israel.

Our leading Democratic candidate for governor, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, voted for that dumb resolution, and she also sends me fund-raising emails. Does that mean she will accept donations from antisemites?

I’ve been anti-Zionist, or at least un-Zionist, for at least fifty years. I’ve written about my background pertaining to this which I will not rehash. Instead I have a few lame stories.

In the summer of 1968 after my freshman year in college, my parents were good enough to finance a six week trip for me through Europe. I stayed in youth hostels, the cheapest thing available. One night I slept on the floor of a train station in Rome. All I had with me was a military duffel bag. My mission: get laid! That mission failed, though I had a close call in Rome. I was shy around girls.

I only stayed in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, and London. London was my favorite place. Theater then was very cheap. I remember seeing Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. There was also the food, discovering kebabs, curry, and fish & chips. Best was Speaker’s Corner. Every Sunday you could go to Hyde Park and rotate among an array of self-appointed speakers. The most provocative were supporters of Palestine, typically heckled by mobs of Jewish students, singing and dancing.

In one incident I saw a big fat man with a skullcap chasing a skinny little Arab, who in a high-pitched voice was yelling, “You are not a peaceful people!” That made an impression. Later back at school, I recall another conversation about Israel with a friend who made me realize I was profoundly ignorant of the issue. So I began reading some books. One that I recall was an anthology of essays from Israeli-Jewish leftists. There used to be something called Matzpen. Another leader was Uri Avnery, who lived until 2018 and was very prolific. He had a book way back when called “Israel Without Zionists.” Those voices made criticism of Zionism respectable for me.

I didn’t need much encouragement, given the background I’ve previously described (under the third link above). I had a Palestinian friend in college. There weren’t many around then. He considered Arabs to be Semites.

Now we have the spectacle of legions of Christian antisemites presuming to decide who is and is not a Good Jew. This in itself is antisemitism. When Trump classifies liberal Jews as traitors to both Israel and the U.S., that is antisemitism. A similar gambit, even more perverse, is to declare a certain class of Jews as not authentic Jews.

The basis of their support for Israel is transparent. In their book of fairy tales, Israel is where all the Jews are raptured up to Heaven to be with Jesus: in other words, to cease to be Jews. Closer to reality, the Israeli government does dirty work for the U.S. national security state, facilitating the brutalization of non-white people everywhere, including in the U.S. itself through their training of our police.

Having said all this, if I said why I think Israel is harming its own interests, I could understand the skepticism of any readers. But I would still make the assertion.

Israel and the U.S. have something unfortunate in common: the machinations of a powerful political figure who puts his own interests before those of the nation which he governs or aspires to govern. Those would be Netanyahu and Trump.

In Israel, the cravenness of Bibi is no secret at all. Here the legend of Trump’s disregard for the national interest is similarly common knowledge. Put these two together, in power, and the chances of catastrophe multiply.

Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinians is destroying its international political standing, not to mention its aborted relations with Arab regimes in its own backyard. Is this good for Israel? The budding intra-Democratic split over Israel and Palestine could throw the election to Trump, but as noted above, this facilitates the Trump-Bibi duo indulging their worst instincts.

Even if Bibi is sacked, his replacements have similar incentives to keep doing what they’re doing, and expecting a different result. Many Palestinians are dying, but Hamas fighters not so much. Even if Hamas disappeared tomorrow, there would be a new Hamas next week. Israel has alternatives. It has already exacted more than its pound of flesh. But what else are Palestinians to do?

Class politics in Israel are foreclosed, much like in the U.S. The Israeli working class is disproportionately Mizrahi, which means descended from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. They are the most virulently anti-Arab and pro-Bibi. Of course in the U.S., outside the core metropolitan areas, the less-educated white folks tend to skew Republican. The only feasible politics for Palestinians is ethnic politics, and the harder they get hit by the Israeli Defense Force, the more ethnic they are going to get.

Israel set itself up with 75 years of oppression of Arab Muslims and Christians, and with its support for the growth of Hamas, though that growth was probably inevitable. More to the point, it blocked all other means of accommodation with Palestinians, all other modes for them to politically mobilize.

It would have been a miracle if something like October 7th had not happened, sooner or later. Innocent people have not deserved what has befallen them over the past thirty days, but desert has nothing to do with it.