AntiZionism: A Culture of Guilt and Fear
By: Selene Jade
Tags: Antizionism, Antisemitism, Israel, Zionism, Judaism

“She brainwashed herself”

That’s a phrase I’ve seen multiple people say about me over the last two months. It’s been an interesting time. I’ve lost every friend I’ve ever had. Ex “friends” came out of the woodwork to accuse me of heinous things. I’ve received multiple messages from people telling me to kill myself. The day after I came out as a Zionist, I even had someone stand outside my house screaming my name until the cops showed up. So why did I do it? Why put myself through this?

To put it simply? Because it is the right thing to do.

I have always been someone who cares deeply for others, and wants to help them. This has manifested itself in my life in many ways. I worked in a vet clinic for a few years. I volunteered at women’s shelters. I went to college to help foster children like I once was. I organized BLM protests in my hometown, resulting in an officer who shot and paralyzed a black man from the neck down being fired from our local police force. I even received the Carl S Lackl award from former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, for helping to bring a serial rapist to justice. And, I was a vocal anti-Zionist.

To many on the left, social justice and the Free Palestine movement go hand in hand. It seems antithetical to any non-Jewish progressive to be a Zionist. Zionism is colonialism. Zionism is apartheid. Zionism is ethnic cleansing and genocide. Zionism is indicative of everything wrong with the world. But, the fact is, it isn’t.

Zionism is everything right with the world. The portrayal of Zionism is what’s wrong. The spread of misinformation is what’s wrong. The demonization and dehumanization of an entire group of people is what’s wrong. This is what I’ve learned over the past two months.

It started small. It started with a tweet I made that received immense backlash. During the height of this year’s conflict between Israel and Hamas, the UN decided to create a panel of probes into possible Israeli war crimes. Germany opposed it. In my anti-Zionist mindset, I thought “well of course they did, they are overcompensating for their guilt over the Holocaust by standing beside Israel now” and I tweeted as such, albeit in a very crass tongue-in-cheek way. It got the backlash it deserved. It also started a wave of undeserved harrassment — death threats, photoshopping of myself and my partner with nazis and missiles and nooses around my neck. Doxxing my real name, etc.

I found out that there was a Facebook group talking about my tweet, so I joined it to see what they were saying. When they recognized my name, they tagged me in a post. Underneath the post were over a hundred comments about me, mostly attacking, but some questioning and some hurt. I replied to the ones who seemed open to having a dialogue, and we talked. I realized that in my attempt to help one group, I had harmed and ostracized another. This was something I felt deeply ashamed of and wanted to fix.

So I posted an apology. It was immediately inundated with my now-former anti-Zionist friends, telling me to delete this, not to apologize, not to humanize anyone, and not to unblock, interact or follow anyone. It also set off a string of subtweets. In my thread, I had said that in my effort to be an ally to Palestinians, I had been a bad ally to Israelis. It also said that I was against the expulsion of Jews from Israel. Frankly, I didn’t think that would be such a wild concept. I was naive to how extreme my friends were in their beliefs. After my thread, one of them even posted that it was up to the Palestinians whether or not they expelled Jews from Israel. And people agreed. That was my first step towards seeing anti-Zionism for what it truly is.

Over the next month, many things happened that pushed me further and further towards Zionism. One person posted a tweet saying that modern Hebrew was a colonizer language, and that it should be done away with. A group called SAJIC (Socialist Antizionist Jewish International Collective), followed by many of my anti-Zionist friends, came out with their group goals — including setting up “Nuremberg style trials for every Israeli government official and IDF soldier” (of course, Israel has a mandatory draft, so it would be for basically all Israelis), and “demistifying the Holocaust”. Another anti-Zionist leader, while making a thread accusing me of doxxing them, said “all white Jews are fucked up” “ashkenazim are genealogically damaged” “all white Jews or BIPOC Jews raised by white Jews are genocidal” and “Jews are afraid of black people” and to my surprise, even those tweets were liked by some of my anti-Zionist friends. The last straw for me was what happened on Tish B’av. On the most solemn day of mourning for the destroyed temple, Jews in Israel went to pray. It was treated as them “storming the Temple Mount” and “an Israeli escalation” and in response, the JVP released a statement saying that as anti-Zionist Jews, they were relinquishing all connection to the temple. After over a month of seeing my friends support heinous thing after heinous thing, this misinformation and anti-Jewish stance was my breaking point.

I can no longer watch as anti-Zionist Jews, some of whom were not raised Jewish, nor did they convert, spread harmful misinformation about Judaism and Zionism. I cannot watch as people who aren’t Jewish, have not done any research on the I-P conflict, and are simply regurgitating online talking points, and quoting articles with no sources, dehumanize the majority of the Jewish population. I cannot stand by while the community that has done so much for the world, is ostracized by the world. This is too far.

It did not have to be like this. We do not have to fight in this way. We do not have to dehumanize each other. We do not have to doxx and threaten each other. We do not have to lie about each other. This is not the way to peace.

Just because I am a Zionist does not mean I do not care for and support the Palestinian people, even if many of them do not care for or support me. Advocacy is not transactional. I expect nothing, not even acceptance, from those I wish to help. I am taking on both causes — from a perspective of someone who understands both sides and just wants to create some kind of dialogue.

I can acknowledge the vast history and culture Palestinians have built, and want to see them live in safety and happiness, AND support the Zionist claim to Eretz Yisrael. I can want Jews to live in safety and peace in their homeland AND criticize the Israeli government’s many failings and provocations. I do not plan to pander to any side. I plan to do the research for myself, and speak on the truth, as much as I can attain it.

The Zionist way is not one sided. It does not trap you in an echo chamber of “this is the one truth, this is the one way to do what is right”. If anyone tries to define Zionism as anything other than the Jewish right to self determination in their homeland, they are wrong. They are fundamentally misunderstanding what Zionism is. They are taking all actions done by some in the name of Zionism, and assuming that means all Zionists support it. But I have not found this to be the case. In speaking with Zionists, I have found a depth of information and disagreement I have never seen anywhere else on the left. I have had so many interactions with people who have said “I believe this, I disagree with this, but I still consider you part of the tribe and will treat you with all the respect that entails”. It’s been so refreshing.

No two Zionists will agree on everything. Because this is a complex situation with so many variables, and so many of us have vastly different connections to it. Meanwhile, on the anti-Zionist side, what I have found is that most people don’t even know why they believe what they believe. I didn’t. I just listened to the people who told me “this is the right way, this is the only way”. When I asked questions, most of the time the reply was “ask a Palestinian” or “we don’t have a say in this as Jews”. When asking why they believe Free Palestine and BDS are the correct solution, most people can’t give you a concrete reasoning as to why. Why? Because it’s just what they’ve seen online from people that they follow and trust, who heard it from someone they follow and trust, who heard it from someone else. Social media has created a dissemination of information and moral values that is completely based on a game of telephone. No one fact checks their sources. No one steps back and says “this seems like an important issue, I am going to research its history”. No, they say “this person introduced me to this issue, so I’m going to listen to them and the people they follow” without ever glancing at any opposing arguments.

It’s a culture of fear. The fear of not being seen as a moral person. Of being seen as a colonialist, as a racist, as a genocide denier. These phrases hold so much weight. And in leftist spaces, there is nothing worse than being called one of those things. So when leftists who have no context for the situation hear people they respect calling Zionists any of those things, they believe them.

It’s also a culture of guilt. The anti-Zionist cause (mis)uses terminology about race and colonization, and completely ignores intersectionality and paints Jews as privileged. Ignoring the long history of Jews being seen as “white pretenders”, they paint them as the epitome of whiteness. They then use that guilt to control people. To say “here is what you can do to make up for your privilege”, while simultaneously denying any danger from being Jewish. When hate crimes occur, they are only sometimes condemned, other times brushed under the rug as unimportant, or even, sometimes, excused. Truly, I think they believe that antisemitism is the Jews fault, and that if they can just be good enough Jews, and get rid of enough of their culture that makes people uncomfortable, they will be accepted. This is flawed and honestly sad reasoning.

Many of these issues are not solely connected to anti-Zionism, in fact I’ve seen them all across leftist spaces, from everything from fandom to LGBTQIA+ discourse. This culture of guilt and fear and permeated not just online and college leftist spaces, but progressive spaces as a whole. The only group I see who is maintaining a true leftist stance, without giving into that culture, is Zionists.

I have met so many wonderful Zionists over the course of the last two months. From indigenous rights activists, to IDF soldiers, to Israeli sex workers, to diaspora Jews of all movements. They all care about Palestinians, as well as their own people. They all want what’s best for everyone. They all want peace. And you know what, not all of them agree on the best way to go about it, but that’s okay to them! Part of being Jewish is disagreeing sometimes. And they accept that. Sometimes, of course, people go too far. And they have no problems in calling those people out. But many of them try to do it in an open dialogue, not in the way you usually see online which is by insulting, attacking, dog piling, and blocking. They treat those they disagree with like people. Which honestly, after being online for so many years, is truly refreshing.

I look forward to continuing my research and making connections with those on the left, whether they are Jewish or not, Zionist or not. I hope to use my story to help others to learn to think for themselves, and humanize those they may disagree with, and examine their own views and ask themselves, “do I have a strong basis for this belief, or do I only feel that it’s right, without knowing why?”. I think it’s important that we examine our views, even if we end up coming to the conclusion that we were right all along.

And for me, in this case, I’m proud to admit that I wasn’t right. That I took that step back and learned from my mistakes, and instead of wallowing in shame, I took action to mitigate the harm I had caused. That’s all I could’ve asked from myself, and all I can ever ask of anyone else.