What is Zionism?
A POST TO STIMULATE THOUGHTFUL REFLECTION
On October 8th, 2023 everyone was a Zionist, just the same as everyone was Charlie Hebdo on January 8th, 2015. It’s a natural human response to a threat to gather together in opposition until we’ve determined the threat level and various courses of action to neutralise the threat. What is Zionism? Well, on October 8th, 2023 Zionism was this Hamas massacre and the Palestinian celebration thereof is horsesh1t how about nah, go Israel go IDF, kick ass forever. Speaking personally, that’s what I thought and felt when I embraced Zionism on October 8th.
I was an adult when the World Trade Centre towers fell, I remember well the collective effervescence of fear and rage— both drugs as powerful as crack cocaine, which I have experienced intensely in my past via insufflation. In the immediacy of 9/11 I remember a colleague’s mother lived in New York and commuted through the WTC and my colleague did not know for a day or so whether she survived. I remember in those days that death left no one in New York City untouched. A sea of grief and rage and betrayal washed over us all in North America. I remember.
The collective trauma hangover from October 8th feels the same as the one from 9/11 did. In fact, it feels more acute because I am 25 years older, with that much more life experience and grief, and because I saw all the Hamas snuff videos of the massacres and because I saw every ZAKA interview and video footage in the initial weeks following the pogrom. Over and over I shoved the worst carnage I ever ever ever witnessed and felt, into my eyes and my mind and heart and nervous system. I saw bodies without heads. I saw bodies burnt to a crisp. I saw killers killing, I saw I saw I saw I saw—
I saw my daughter’s face in a young Nova Massacre victim. I pleaded to G-d for strangers’ lives. I begged G-d for Noa Argamami’s safe return to her parents—knowing the pain of losing a child, I begged G-d for her life. Remembering the pain of my mother dying in my absence, I begged G-d for Liora Argamami’s life to last long enough to see her daughter one last time. Pleading to G-d for the lives of people I have never met humbles me, I never planned to do this and yet I found myself doing it.
Seeing the pogrom take place made it personal to me. Seeing the survivors recount their feelings of betrayal, watching them reevaluate the hope for peace, seeing people lose faith in the thing they devoted their life to doing—that sh1t weighs heavy in my heart. I can’t sit here in my easy life and preach two-state and peaceful co-existence when people who lived it at Kfar Aza got fcuked up in the most horrific fashion. That’s hypocrisy and apathy, not compassion and humility and mercy.
Okay. So, what the fcuk is Zionism, then? Cuz I never answered that question yet, despite dragging you into this post.
Zionism. It’s a loaded term, with very different meanings to different cultures of thought. I have harboured ambivalence about Zionism for much of my adult life.1 There’s loads of religious references to buzz your brain if that’s your jam — [Sefaria]. You can find any text there to justify what Smotrich is doing right now, if you want to. Absolute political extremists can find backing in any religious text they look at: the secret to religious texts is they function like a mirror, they give you what you emote into the words, they show you yourself. Yes, Smotrich and the Religious Zionist Party is one interpretation of Zionism, we do need to acknowledge Kahanism—the extreme and terrorist form of Zionism—as a racist and fascist approach to human organisation and governance. I’m gonna point out that Bezalel Smotrich represents Judaism the way Ismail Haniyeh represents Islam, the way Marcial Maciel represented Christianity—not really except in the sh1tty wealthy elite men without self control or conflict resolution skills circles of humanity.
So, Zionism, what is it?
Let’s look at the word Zion. ציון. According to this Jewish source zion means a marking or indication, referring to the fact that Jewish people have a special spiritual marking (presumably this would be the Torah revealed to them, that’s my own initial read, knowing nothing and thinking out loud). So, a strong case exists for a non geopolitical definition of Zionism, one not anchored in place and politics and land ownership. This seems to fit with existing cautions to discern between Israel as a fulfillment of all the commandments in and of itself and Israel as a means to fulfilling the commandments2.
According to this linguistic source the word zion comes from following root words: “the noun ציון (sayon), dry place or sign post … the verb צוה (sawa), to be dry or to command.” This intrigues me when I consider that roots of the word Torah, “verb ירה (yara),” a unified effect of many smaller composite forces such casting stones to build a fortress or a rain fall, and “noun יורה (yoreh)”, rain received by the soil early in the growing period and also teaching a child to think for themselves. So zion means a dry place, a place once awash in the ocean waters which have since run dry—akin to the waning of ancient wisdom from modern society, perhaps. That dry parched place seems like the human soul or psyche, in search of some kind of universal order.
So, what if Zionism has fcuk all to do with geopolitics and land grabs and Zone C? What if Zionism means a placeless nation under G-d? What if Zionism means one nation under the Torah, not any geopolitical entity, republic, or earthly kingdom? What if Israel is not the Torah, not a substitute for the Torah, not a cool secular replacement for the Torah? What if Israel could be a vessel, a way to bring the Torah to life in the world, as opposed to bring the Torah to death and destruction in the world? What if, like G-d instructed the Children of Israel to group themselves in a square formation around the Tabernacle, so to has He spread the Jewish nation across the earth, to centre themselves around Him and His Law, and not a golden calf they themselves fashioned?
We are here now, not in any historical tale of intrigue and conspiracy, so I focussed on being here now in this essay, in the present, when sh1t looks like it’s gone south—I focussed on a simple + easily accessible meaning that anyone can embrace. Because the road to peace is my Vagus Nerve and yours too. That means finding common ground to soothe the angry wound in society, not inciting more Righteous Hatred to make the wound bigger. Tunnelling wounds can heal, they require diligent and rigourous care—roll up your sleeves and let’s repair the tunnelling wound, then.
So, what is Zionism? Zionism is simply a word that refers to the collective of Jews on the planet which are one nation under the Torah, the law given to humans by God in some unknown place in the desert. Can people get behind that definition? A simple yes or no will suffice.
We are giving birth to the future, it will hurt a bit, like birthing does, and there is no epidural for this labouring process in which we find ourselves for the delivery of peaceful coexistence to ourselves.
For much of adulthood, I have had an ambivalent relationship with Zionism and Israel. Note, up until very recently, I considered Zionism synonymous with Israel. I was at one time a hard Zionist—Catholics are Zionists. I heard nothing of Palestinians as a child and young person except they were the source of conflict and misery. In Catholic culture Arabs and Islam are Saladin, the evil warlord who conquered Jerusalem, that is the lens passively shown me as a child through western culture. I softened in early adulthood to consider the Palestinian perspective when I married a mildly anti Semitic man from Switzerland whose father worked for the UN. I spent years dancing between sympathetic to Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Zionism is bad, no its good, no its bad, no it’s—.
I became a Muslim several years ago, then I began to see all the Pallywood propaganda. I witnessed the great extent and normalisation of Muslim Jew hatred, I encountered frequent Holocaust denial within the Muslim world, moreso than any other time in my life. Holocaust denial is considered social taboo and it’s an extreme behaviour in western culture. Less so in Muslim culture, which as convention never acknowledges the Holocaust and does not normalise Jewish existence in the Middle East, nor does it acknowledge the state of Israel. By the way, the very intense Holocaust education that I received from birth and continued throughout my adult life created a kind of shield that immunised me from falling into Jew hatred whilst I was a Muslim.
Media visuals and coverage of the Sheikh Jarrah conflict and Shireen Abu Akleh death hugely impacted me. I saw a lot of Al Jazeera coverage for several months maybe almost a year and it affected my position on political issues. Zionism is bad and racist. I remembered Christian Zionism and the ultimate end of the Christian Zionist myth and the Al Jazeera take on Zionism seemed reasonable if Zionism was indeed Christian Zionism. Muslims described Theodore Hertzl as a sinister character, Zionism is bad, whereas Jews describe him as some guy who founded the modern day Jewish liberation movement which led to the formation of the state of Israel, Zionism is Judaism. I re-read Irshad Manji’s book and the chapter on the Al Aqsa myth sent me down a rabbit hole—Hajj Amin al-Husayni’s story provided another dimension. Zionism is good Arabism is bad and racist.
Presumably if we take the view that Israel’s existence fulfils the commandments and we can do what we want, this fits with the Smotrich worldview of Israeli sovereignty and Jewish ethno-supremacy. In contrast if we take the alternate view, that Israel exists as a vessel to follow/enact the commandments, then that includes Commandment Number 8, Do Not Steal. If any item that a Jew comes across has an identifying mark, religious law instructs that the item must be returned. Items must be returned to non Jews when not to do so would desecrate Hashem’s name. Homes in possession of the same family for generations seem like items with identifying marks on them and must be returned to their rightful owner, to destroy a home makes one an oppressor and take innocent lives recklessly in righteousness and in G-d’s name surely desecrates His name. Apparently, another religious law instructs that to steal from non Jews is forbidden, and considered more morally offensive in some cases. Perhaps present day Smotrich land grabs would fall under such a ruling.