For most of my adult life, I was aware that my Zionism clashed with the rest of my relatively coherent anarchist politics. I had noticed that both the political thinkers i tended to agree with and the friends who i considered to be the most moral disagreed with my position, but I just chalked it up to the unique complexity of the Jewish experience. Life is strange and nuanced and we all make compromises. I honored the Zionism of my survivor ancestors with a private pledge to not disparage Israel. Criticizing the current government was fine, of course. But I generally counted myself greatful for its existence.
My reluctant Zionism could withstand any number of theoretical arguments, but it could not withstand the first post -10/7 purge of Gaza. Well, maybe it could have, but when I started talking about how deeply shaken I was by the massive death toll, friends and family responded by calling me some of the most hurtful names I've ever been called. (You know the ones. Self-hating. Kapo. Useful idiot. Today they roll off my back. But back then, it stung.)
And they warned me that I would be marched into the gas chambers of the future along with every "faithful" Jew. That only Israel was preventing such a fate.
I didn't disbelieve them so much as I decided that I wasn't going to prioritize future hypothetical violence that might someday be committed against me over real, actual uviolence being committed today, by my people.
I looked at Gaza and thought, "my safety isn't worth that." I would not save myself if it meant claiming that what happened to Hind Rijab was a psyop.
I no longer believed that Israel was a safe place for anyone, including Jews. But maybe it was a place that was still willing to protect me? Was i really going to throw away what might be the only place that I belonged? I tried to square the circle of feeling that I belonged to a country that mass murdered children. I grew up on the land of a people who were genocided 200 years ago, so I was was used to making that kind of calculation.
I was chilled by how American Jews off of the Freedom Flotilla were treated. They were seen by the state not as wayward and misguided childrenp, but as traitors who deserved the worst possible punishment that Israel could stand diplomaticly. They were released alive and without permenant physical injury, so far as I know. I had thought that just being Jewish meant that I qualified for Israels's protection - now I started to see that the protection was reserved for those who didn't criticize the state too harshly.
I was so naive.
This article snaps one of my last remaining ties to Israel as a place which, if I was truely in trouble, would welcome me home.
Is Israel an apartheid state? I do think it is, but more importantly, I had always identified as with idea that Jews will always disagree with each other and that flagrantly voicing those disagreements is part of what binds our culture together. Of course, there is a line in the sand which I only saw once I stepped over it. I was truely surprised at how quickly people I cared about began to see me as "an enemy of the Jews."
At the same time, this weekend's march on the Gaza border articulated Israel's genocidal intetions with a clarity and openness that still, somehow, shocked me.
When i speak to Zionists these days, i feel angry. But when i speak to you guys, I mostly feel sad.
The best part of this new stance is that I no longer feel the cognitive dissonance of trying to justify Israel's continued existence. The worst part is how I can no longer communicate with the people who I use to agree with - it's like we're speaking two different languages.
And then I see some genuine antisemitism in the middle of a pile of anti-Zionist comments and I feel lonely.
How are you all feeling these days?
