The purpose of Zionism was simple: The desire of Jews “to be a free people in our land.” The words are right there in the anthem.
Judged by that goal, any reasonable person would conclude that Zionism has utterly failed. Today Jews feel less secure than ever in Israel, and they are fighting yet another in an endless series of wars, to try and gain the sense of security they have never had.
Today’s war is an “existential” war — the commentators on i24 say — and yet it is against the non-Jewish people among whom the Zionists live. And it is also vast and open-ended, threatening peace across the Middle East and even the world. Because Israel’s war with Iran is also “existential.” And the war against the boycott campaign is “existential.”
The Israelis are widely hated for their actions. “The world sees Israelis as monsters” — even a liberal American-Israeli Jew declares to Americans for Peace Now.
The reasons for that hatred are obvious. Zionists have denied the people who lived on the land when they arrived any rights, and they have never stopped resisting (as others surely would — including with terrorism against civilians.) Israel’s response is mass slaughter. The global community is justly angered and sickened by the endless reports on Al Jazeera of Palestinian children being operated on without anesthesia. Even PBS can’t ignore the reality.
The political lesson of October 7 is also obvious: Israel and its lapdog, the U.S., sought to extend the policy of bypassing Palestine and bribing Arab monarchies to overlook apartheid and normalize relations with Israel — and they got what some have called the worst war of Israel’s existence. The political lesson is: you can never take Palestinian serfdom for granted, even if you are a nuclear power and economic powerhouse with a European standard of living.
Today, the failure of Israel’s latest existential war is clear in reports from Israeli media: the goal was to get rid of Hamas, but oh, by the way, it is impossible to get rid of Hamas, and in the meantime, the hostages are dying anyway. And if the hostages are sacrificed to get rid of Hamas, “Israeli society will not be able to live with itself.”
Israel has had Zero Vision on this war from the first day. “The war that began as perhaps the most justified war in the history of the State of Israel continues without clear political goals,” a J Street official writes.