The problem with Zionism is that it is, at heart, congenital nationalism birthed in a time and place (Europe!) that has historically birthed, housed, and perpetually driven nationalism in many forms; ideologies that have lingered long past the dead empires they were forged in as a reaction to the nationalist movements of the time threatening the very existence of Jews. Fighting fire with fire. “My ideology is bigger than your ideology!” I’m deliberately pointing to Europe (don’t get me started on Russia… it’ll be a long post and I won’t be as sure of my words, which, even now, are flawed).
Theodor Herzl, certainly Zionism’s most progressive and influential leader, came from a family whose Jewish roots were similar to those of my own European ancestors’. They were secular Jews. Assimilation, back then, was necessary. It came at a cost of one’s authentic identity. My family was German first, Jewish second. Much in the way that I am British first, American second, simply because I’ve lived here longer and have assimilated. I no longer feel at home in America… and yet, deep down, my authentic self is passionately American. This is a flawed comparison. I get it.
The difference is, being American in the UK brings me no intolerance and has never been a barricade to opportunities, safety, and well-being here in my adopted homeland. I have assimilated because of time and ease and raising a family in this culture that is now my own. I have not assimilated because I am trying to avoid persecution. Being Jewish in Europe, for centuries, came with a myriad of barriers, with laws imposed in order to secure those barriers. It’s true, some places were better than others, the Rhineland once being Europe’s Jewish heartland where the term Ashkenazi was derived.
Zionism was a nationalist ideology for Jews who felt, very rightfully, unsafe, rejected, devalued, and walking scapegoats in a society fuelled by a host of nationalist ideologies, many specifically established to assist in the destruction of European Jewish identity, livelihood, and safety in regions many Jews, like my own family, had lived in for hundreds of years. I am a first generation American. When I look at my family tree, I see hundreds of old branches from old trees, poisoned at their roots by systemic antisemitism, genocide, and perpetual war. I feel very alone in my history. My family tree is a sad one. But I am proud of it, nonetheless. I can’t help but think the Palestinian people feel the same.
I am not anti Zionist. I’m not pro Zionist. My father never attached himself to ANY ideology, so suffocated was he by (what felt to him like) Europe’s conveyor belt of ideologies. I follow his path. My choice.
My father’s family never wanted to go to Israel. They were strudel eating, mountain hiking Germans… and Jews. He grew up in the Carpathian Mountains. A Middle Eastern desert and Biblical ideology of a homeland made little sense to my family. I’m just telling you what Israel meant to my family. My dad wasn’t anti Zionist or antisemitic. He was fucking tired. Tired of running. Tired of looking like he was 50 at the age of 20. He used to laugh and say, “We were too tired to go and work on a kibbutz in the desert after everything.” Starvation gave my dad rickets and its telltale bow legs and early onset heart failure. He had yet to hold a girl’s hand. He was tired of trying to outrun an inherited, collective existential threat that had preceded him. He was tired of what he called The Malignancy of Man, “I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it,” he told me. So when I see the Palestinian people, their babies’ limbs being blown off before they take a final breath, and the Israeli hostages going down with this geopolitical nightmare of a fucking ship, and the innocent Israeli victims of October 7th enjoying one last dance underneath a cloudless blue sky, I see victims of the mankind’s malignancy. How to stop its spread when it froths from our own bilious mouths is another matter.
What I won’t see in my lifetime is a two state solution. It’s been 75 years. It hasn’t worked. Theodor Herzl’s infamous quote, “If you will it, it is no dream,” has become an existential nightmare for Israel and the entire region. An ideology, founded in late 19th century Europe as a reaction to the longstanding persecution of Jews across Europe, then transplanted to the Levant on the broken wings of Biblical ideology by mostly secular Jews who sought safety through a system that green lighted the usurping of security and homes of the region’s longstanding inhabitants, has not worked. It’s the world’s filthiest argument over real estate EVER. And we’re further away from a two state solution than ever before. This will get zapped. I know.