THE ARROGANCE OF THE ANTI-ZIONIST JEW
WE CAN’T HAVE THE CONVERSATION WE NEED TO HAVE ABOUT ANTISEMITISM UNTIL WE HAVE THE CONVERSATION ABOUT ANTI-ZIONISM.
We sometimes hear uninformed people (who often seem to think that the word “Zionist” is a disparaging term) declare that “not all Jews are Zionists.” This is especially true of Jews they happen to like.
A lot of non-Jews seem to have a mania for putting Jews into good Jew/bad Jew boxes — the Jews they know being non-Zionists (good Jews) and the Jews they don’t know or don’t like being Zionists (bad Jews). They often make these assumptions without asking the Jews they know, assuming that, Since Ben is a Jew I like, he must agree with me that Israel is an abomination on the face of the planet.
Those of us with a little more personal connection to actual Jews have always known that most Jews — probably a vast majority — a have a deep connection with the land and the state of Israel. Until recently, we didn’t have a lot of tangible, quantifiable data. Now we do.
A landmark study of Canadian Jews by Professor Robert Brym, a University of Toronto sociologist, indicates that 91% of respondents say Israel has a right to exist (the definition of “Zionist”), 3% say Israel doesn’t have a right to exist, and 6% don’t know. Give or take, these numbers are probably similar across the Jewish Diaspora.
Keep these numbers in mind next time someone tells you “not all Jews are Zionists.” What they probably mean is, “I know a Jew who isn’t a Zionist and I’m extrapolating that acquaintance by a factor of 30, 40 or 97.”
Ridiculous groups like Independent Jewish Voices and others, made up primarily of Jews who exploit their Jewishness only to attack other Jews, represent maybe 3 in 100 Jews.
What is especially galling about these 3 in 100 is their astonishing arrogance.
I’m not saying that anti-Zionism is necessarily or always a conspiracy theory, but what anti-Zionism absolutely has in common with conspiracies is that, like a lot of conspiracy theorists, anti-Zionists are certain that they alone (or they and a small coterie of the Enlightened) have discovered The Truth.
Such is the case with Dr. Zach Foster. In a future post, I’m going to debunk the truly disturbing disinformation contained in this video, which purports to be a sort of Israel-Palestine 101 but which is actually a fabulous case study of the complex of lies, misrepresentations and misunderstandings that underpin the Palestinianist narrative.
My point today, though, is not the lies. It’s the arrogance of the anti-Zionist Jews.
Growing up in an apparently conventional Jewish environment, Foster later fell into “researching” some of the topics he and his Jewish community and peers had taken for granted. Listing off a litany of propagandists and polemicists as his sources, he then utters the quintessence of the truly deluded self-own.
“It was that cognitive dissonance,” he says in an interview with the credulously head-bobbing podcast host Kat Dodds. “That feeling that, gosh, I feel like I’ve been lied to for so many years.”
Yes, his parents, his peers, his camp counsellors, his teachers, his rabbis, everyone around him was part of a big conspiracy to fill li’l Zach’s head with lies.
They are the liars. They are the ones who don’t see The Truth.
All those years of being lied to and, thanks to extraordinary powers of deduction, independent investigation, defying the conventional wisdom, he alone (well, he among about 3% of Jews) has seen the light that everyone else missed.
And you thought your kid was special.
This condescension is replicated among all the anti-Zionist Jews I’ve encountered in my life: This idea that they alone have the answer, if only the masses would wake up to their secret knowledge, if only the benighted masses understood the clandestine wisdom they have uncovered.
Then there is the unmitigated chutzpah of a group modestly calling itself If Americans Knew. Their mission statement declares: “It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power — and duty — to bring a resolution.”
Bahahahaha.
Talk about insulting your target market. Their very name asserts that all 347 million Americans (except whatever little faction of fanatics put this dog’s breakfast of a website together) are ignoramuses when it comes to foreign affairs. They might as well have called themselves HeyIdiots.com. (I see the URL is available, actually.)
A lot of my Jewish friends view these anti-Zionist Jews as “self-loathing Jews.” But that seems wrong to me. (Now it’s my turn to tell Jews they’re wrong!)
Anti-Zionist Jews I have engaged with are usually the opposite of self-loathing. They are among the most self-infatuated, arrogant, pompous people I’ve ever encountered.
They believe that they, alone among almost all the Jews in the world, have managed to wade through the misinformation and overcome being “lied to for so many years” to miraculously come out the other side with their tinfoil yarmulkes, evangelizing for anti-Zionism like converts to flat eartherism.
Everyone is wrong but them. That’s not self-loathing. That’s sort of a hybrid between narcissism and whackadoodle.
Until recently, we thought — and non-Jewish Israel-haters who wanted to believe that anti-Zionism does not put them in league with outright antisemites insisted — that this cadre of kooks represented a notable chunk of Jews. Now we know it is maybe 3 in 100.
Why does this matter?
Well, for Jews, that’s a family fight. As a non-Jew, I’ve got my opinions on that internal battle but it’s not really my fight.
Here’s what is my fight: A lot of non-Jews take it upon themselves to define for Jews who and what they are, what aspects of their identity are acceptable (Judaism) and what aspects are not (Zionism).
I’ll be going down a few rabbit holes of my own in the next little while because until we confront the hard shell of anti-Zionism, we really can’t get to the meaty nut of antisemitism.
Maybe I’ve been beating around this bush but it’s time to crack this nut wide open.
We can keep pretending to talk about antisemitism. But if we segregate that conversation from anti-Zionism (and the wider issue of pervasive ideas about Jews and their relationship with Israel) we are spinning in circles. We can’t have the conversation we need to have about antisemitism if we avoid the conversation we need to have about anti-Zionism.
All good people agree that antisemitism is bad. But then a bunch of those same (non-Jewish) people take exception to Zionism and insist that they are free to unleash a firehose of condemnation against Zionism and assume their Jewish friends should just suck it up. Their crazed, rabid, single-minded apoplexy about Zionism bears no relationship to millennia of antisemitism, they insist, and their Jewish friends are just so oversensitive.
Put simply, until non-Jews understand the role Zionism plays in the identity of Jewish people, we cannot understand how the world’s hysteria around Israel affects Jewish people.
So why am I the one to tell this story? Why is a non-Jew explaining to non-Jews (and, by extension, Jews who happen to be reading) the importance of Israel in the identity of Jewish people?
Because a bit part of the problem is this: All the evidence shows that people aren’t listening to Jews when they share their experiences.
That alone is a huge problem in an antiracism movement where lived experience is supposed to be the defining factor for understanding and respecting the perspectives of others. That, too, is the subject for another day.
A little more patbabble …
I started this Substack because I thought my perspective as a progressive, gay, non-Jewish, Zionist Canadian offered something different to the dialogue about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Palestinians and peace. It actually never crossed my mind that people might give me money for it. When people started generously subscribing and donating, I threw myself into this project more, partly because I am a writer by trade and I am still building my RSPs for some distant retirement. Based on online advice (!) I started making some posts for “Paid Subscribers Only.” But, I modestly acknowledge, each one is too delicious to paywall. So I am going to assume that, if you like my stuff and want more of it, you’ll give if you can. If not, please share. (Please share regardless!) No more paywalls. If you don’t want to subscribe, but would be kind enough to make a one-time contribution, you can do so securely on PayPal by clicking here.
You are so correct about the "self-hating"Jew. They are narcissistic and wackadoodle, not self hating in a sense that they hate themselves. They think they see the truth and thus are better than the rest of us. They just hate everything the overwhelming majority of Jews stand for. They endanger the Jewish community in Israel and the diaspora. They are traitors no less than those who betray their country. Unfortunately, they are used to Jew-wash the antisemite who wants to eradicate Israel, providing cover to some truly heinous people whose goal is Jewish genocide.
Thank you Pat. You are right that only a non-jew can make this case as a jew making this case is immediately cancelled. So thank you for taking up that unpleasant, but so important and appreciated, role!