Zionism Today, Judaism Tomorrow

A friend notes I don’t fit well into either the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) or the BDS (boycott-divestment-sanctions) boxes. So be it.

For an anti- or non-Zionist Jew with an interest in Jewish identity (admittedly weak in my case), JVP is the place to be. Trouble is, anti-Zionism is impossible politics in the present, in the U.S. The same goes for BDS, with which I have no ethical issues. The associated attacks on random, innocent Israelis are troublesome, but after all, it is non-violent and look at what it is up against.

The anti-Zionist mania inside Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) embodies the same blindness to practical political realism. For all the marxoid pretensions of the group, its (our, I’m still a dues-paying member) ideology is usually idealist and sees things in binary terms. A big exception I like to cite is the constructive role of DSA in campaigning against the Kansas anti-abortion referendum in 2022, which noble effort after all was in defense of law that remains flawed from a pro-choice perspective.

Another friend cites a difference between “anti-Zionist-ism” and anti-Zionism. Just so. The former is antisemitic-adjacent and pervasive in DSA. The real enemy is not miscellaneous individuals, but the ideology underlying the murderous policies of a pariah state.

The practical route towards affecting national electoral politics in the present is alignment with J Street, especially now as the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee is mobilizing its considerable resources to exterminate our most valued Members of Congress, particularly Jamaal Bowman and Summer Lee. They have already knocked off a few progressive Jewish members who were mildly critical of Israel. Fortunately, epic fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is no longer free to use his enormous fortune to meddle in Democratic primaries.

That’s the inside game. There is also an outside game that puts on external pressure, analogous to what Jesse Jackson used to say about “tree-shakers and jelly-makers.” The tree-shakers help to create political space for the jelly-makers to make deals that provide incremental gains. We need both.

I have attended JVP demonstrations in D.C. There seemed to be no point to being part of the invisible, pro-peace minority at the huge pro-Israel demonstration. As far as the relatively modest demand for ceasefire goes, the much smaller JVP actions by my reckoning have had a much bigger impact.

Medium term and longer, liberal/labor Zionism is bankrupt. Perhaps with two states it could stage a revival. If U.S. politics trends left, JVP and similar outfits provide an exit ramp for Zionist Jews in the U.S. Currently they have to be pretty mixed up, not to say distressed over the discrediting of life-long sympathies.

To advance a fully inclusive, Jewish-friendly radical movement in the U.S., JVP and such are the ticket. To defend Jamaal Bowman and others, J Street is the way to go. Me, I like to cover both bases.