Why Post-Zionism? Where I Stand
Why Post-Zionism? Where I Stand
There is a reason I identify as post-Zionist specifically and not Zionist, liberal Zionist, or anti-Zionist, and the reason is because after nearly three years of obsessively studying this conflict, arguing with people on every side of it, reading history, listening to Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Arabs, scholars, activists, propagandists, and random assholes online, I have come to the conclusion that the only intellectually honest position for me is the messy one.
There are some people in anti-Zionist spaces who say post-Zionism is just another way of saying liberal Zionism, and I disagree with that.
I am not a Zionist.
I do not identify as a Zionist because even though many Jewish American Zionists will insist all Zionism technically means is “Israel has the right to exist” and “the Jewish people have the right to self determination,” unfortunately that is not what the word means to most of the world anymore. To most people outside mainstream Jewish spaces, Zionism is associated with what Israel is doing in Gaza right now, which is genocide.
And frankly, a lot of Zionists are not helping their own case.
You cannot keep telling the world that Zionism is inseparable from Jewish identity, insist converts “must” be Zionist to be legitimate Jews, insist anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic, wrap Jewishness and Zionism together into one inseparable package, and then suddenly turn around and say “hey don’t blame Jews for what Netanyahu is doing.”
No. You don't get to have it both ways.
If you insist Zionism is mandatory for Jewish legitimacy, then people are naturally going to associate Jews with the actions of the Israeli government.
Especially when that government includes people like Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is openly associated with Kahanism.
For people unfamiliar with that term, Kahanism is an extremist ultranationalist ideology founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane. It advocates Jewish supremacy in the land, supports expelling Arabs from Israel and Palestine, and has historically been associated with outright fascist rhetoric and terrorism. Kahane’s own political party was banned in Israel for racism, and the ideology was classified as a terrorist movement by both Israel and the United States for years. So when people act like concerns about the Israeli far right are hysterical exaggerations, no. There are literally people in power connected to a movement with openly ethnonationalist politics.
And yes, I know many Zionists hate Ben-Gvir too. But that does not magically erase the reality that these people are in government.
My problem with Zionism is not merely Netanyahu and Likud. It is also historical.
Israel absolutely became a refuge for Mizrahi Jews expelled or terrorized out of Arab and Muslim majority countries. It became a refuge for Holocaust survivors who had nowhere else to go. Those things are real. Those traumas are real. Jewish fear is real. Jewish attachment to the land is real.
But the Nakba was also real.
The mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 was real. Villages were destroyed. Families were expelled. People lost homes they had lived in for generations. People were brutalized. And I think some Zionists become deeply uncomfortable whenever Palestinians are treated as actual human beings with a legitimate historical grievance instead of obstacles in the story of Jewish survival.
On top of that, early Zionist culture often treated Diaspora Jews with outright contempt. Yiddish speaking Jews were mocked as weak, passive, cowardly, effeminate, bent over by exile. The “new Jew” was supposed to be muscular, agricultural, militarized, sun bronzed, tough. The sabra ideal. The strong Hebrew replacing the allegedly pathetic ghetto Jew.
As a disabled queer convert who does not remotely fit macho nationalist ideals, I do not feel particularly drawn toward that mythology. I actually find parts of it repulsive.
And yes, I know not every Zionist consciously believes any of this. But cultures carry historical DNA long after people stop consciously thinking about it.
That is why I cannot wear the label Zionist.
Liberal Zionists have repeatedly tried to persuade me to keep it. Many liberal Zionists are horrified by what is happening in Gaza. Many of them support ceasefire. Many support a two-state solution with Palestinian statehood. Many despise Netanyahu and the settlers and the religious extremists.
The problem is that I think the word itself has become radioactive.
You can spend all day insisting “that’s not what Zionism means,” but language is shaped socially, not academically. And globally, Zionism has become associated with apartheid, occupation, bombardment, displacement, and ultranationalism. Whether Zionists like that or not is so far past beside the point that "beside the point" isn't even on the map anymore.
And another issue I have with liberal Zionism is that many liberal Zionists still become incredibly defensive if you use words like apartheid or genocide.
That is a problem for me.
Because I think reality matters more than tribal discomfort.
I also differ from liberal Zionists politically because most of them still strongly support a two state solution specifically, whereas I am agnostic on whether a two state or one state solution is more viable long term.
Maybe two states are the only practical answer.
Maybe one democratic secular state with equal rights for Palestinians and Israeli Jews is the only practical and morally sustainable answer.
I genuinely don't know, and I think people pretending certainty about one of the most complicated conflicts on Earth are often full of shit.
And also, part of why I identify as post-Zionist is because I am an ex-Zionist and I feel that label is closer to understanding that I changed my mind on the subject of Israel.
Immediately after October 7th, I was still in what I would now call my liberal Zionist phase. I believed Israel had the right to defend itself after Hamas murdered civilians. And at the time I genuinely believed a lot of anti-Zionist rhetoric was simply antisemitism in progressive packaging.
Then the bombing campaign escalated.
And escalated.
And escalated.
And at some point I could no longer psychologically maintain the idea that this was proportional self-defense. Entire neighborhoods flattened. Hospitals, schools, refugee camps bombed. Children buried under rubble. Humanitarian aid withheld.
Hind Rajab was shot 335 times.
That was when the switch flipped for me.
That was when I became post-Zionist, as in "I am so over this 'rah rah Israel' shit."
Over time, I also interacted with many anti-Zionist Jews and realized very quickly that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not inherently identical. Some anti-Zionist Jews are among the most morally serious people I have encountered in this entire conversation.
And to be perfectly blunt, my sympathies are much closer to the anti-Zionist side than the Zionist side at this point. Anti-Zionists generally agree on this:
the state of Israel was founded in a way that was deeply unjust to Palestinians
Israel is an apartheid state
the current government of Israel is committing genocide
there needs to be an immediate ceasefire
equal rights and reparations for Palestinians
the West Bank settlements are illegal and should be ended
All of which I also agree with. Yes to #freepalestine.
But I still stop short of fully identifying as anti-Zionist myself, even though I generally will not correct someone if they describe me that way.
And the reason is why I haven't embraced the label is because anti-Zionist spaces have serious problems too.
I have seen Holocaust denialism and Holocaust minimization.
I have seen people casually throwing around “271K” conspiracy rhetoric to downplay the Holocaust death toll.
I have seen people dismiss rising antisemitism as fake or exaggerated.
I have seen people say antisemitic shit, like calling Jews "parasites", and not get enough pushback.
I have seen people deny the rapes and murders committed on October 7th.
I have also seen people justify October 7th, calling Hamas "freedom fighters" as if massacring civilians at a music festival is revolutionary praxis.
Those who actually admit October 7th was horrible often follow it up with "but it's understandable why it happened", like rape or murder is ever "understandable".
Then you have those who admit it happened and was horrible but also tell Jews to "get over it" because "Palestinians have it worse". While I agree that "October 7th happens to Palestinians every day", as I saw it put once, I also think suffering should not be treated like a competition.
And I have seen a tremendous amount of dehumanization directed toward Israeli Jews collectively, as if every Israeli personally supports mass slaughter.
That logic disgusts me because I am American, and I do not want to be personally blamed for every evil thing Donald Trump says or does either.
I have interacted with Israelis who are horrified by what their government is doing. Israelis protesting in the streets. Israelis refusing military service.
Some of the peace activists in Israel were once IDF soldiers who saw things firsthand that broke them,
There are Israelis trying desperately to stop this nightmare. They exist.
The problematic elements in anti-Zionist spaces are not everyone, and not even necessarily the majority, but they're there, and pretending the problematic elements don't exist or aren't "that big of a deal" aren't helping to persuade liberal Zionists to unpack Zionism and come join the team.
The thing that probably pushes me away from fully embracing anti-Zionism more than anything else, though, is the sheer number of people who think Israeli Jews should simply be deported “back to Europe".
First of all, that completely erases Mizrahi Jews whose families were driven out of Middle Eastern and North African countries.
Second, when Ashkenazi Jews hear “go back to Poland,” many of them hear “go back to Auschwitz.” People can sneer at that all they want, but historical trauma does not disappear because activists find it inconvenient.
Third, from a realpolitik perspective, mass expulsion is an absolutely catastrophic idea.
Even if someone believes removing all Israeli Jews would theoretically create justice for Palestinians, in practice what you would actually create is generational revanchism, endless bloodshed, and probably an even more horrifying conflict later. If you hate Zionism now, you are going to hate its sequel even more after a mass ethnic expulsion scenario. "One state solution" isn't a fucking Uno Reverse card.
And this is part of why I get deeply irritated by certain online activist spaces, especially among Americans who only learned where Gaza was after October 7th and suddenly speak with absolute certainty about what millions of Israelis and Palestinians should do with their futures.
I am American too. Which is exactly why I try to maintain some humility here.
I study the conflict obsessively. I care deeply. I have strong opinions. But I am not living there. I am not dodging rockets. I am not digging family members out of rubble. I am not raising children under occupation. I am not sitting in the Knesset or negotiating borders or security policy.
A lot of online discourse completely loses sight of the human reality underneath the flags and emojis and slogans.
Which is... another reason why I don't fully embrace the label of anti-Zionism. I am, at the time of this post (May 2026), 46 years old (I will be 47 in late November Sag season). Most of the people I encounter in anti-Zionist discussion groups are 18 to 35 and are Extremely Online in a way I'm not. I don't do social media, so I am literally not on Facebook, X, Threads, Instagram, Tumblr, TikTok or wherever the "kids these days" are hanging out; I noped out of social media in 2016 because even back then I recognized how corrosive social media was and it's only gotten worse in the decade since I burned my Internet footprint to the ground. I tried Dreamwidth from 2020-2024 and found that rather than being a call back to the good old days of LiveJournal, it was all the same bullshit from social media except now the discourse was in long form and reminded me of why I stay the fuck away from social media.
What I'm getting at here is that a lot of this online “activism” feels less like genuine solidarity and more like identity performance. And before somebody deliberately misreads me, no, I am not saying people should not care about Palestine unless they are Palestinian, Jewish, Arab, Israeli, or otherwise personally connected to the region. Of course people should care about fascism, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, genocide, and human suffering. Empathy should not stop at borders. But there is a difference between caring about something and turning it into social currency.
A lot of what I see online honestly feels like people performing moral purity for an audience. Watermelon emoji in the display name. “From the river to the sea” copy pasted everywhere regardless of whether the person saying it could explain the actual political implications of a one state outcome. “Globalize the intifada” repeated like a fashionable slogan without any apparent awareness that “intifada” in the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict explicitly calls for violence.
And because I lived through the evolution of online culture from the 00s into the 20s, I cannot shake the feeling that a lot of people are once again attaching themselves to “the current righteous cause” less because they deeply understand it and more because they want to be perceived as the kind of person who cares. The performance of goodness becomes more important than the hard, ugly, complicated reality underneath.
And maybe part of why that bothers me so much is because my reasons for speaking about this are deeply personal and spiritually uncomfortable. I keep going on about Palestine because I am Jewish and I believe what the Israeli government is doing is a shanda, a disgrace, a moral catastrophe. I think about Hind Rajab and her family, and so many others like them. All the death and destruction, all the Palestinians who have to live with the trauma of watching their families die, their homes in ruins. I pray for peace every night, sometimes with tears, and I have literally wept after pouring out some of my thoughts here, especially when I wrote Children of the Same Father. I'm not telling you this so you will think I'm a good person. I don't know you, so I really don't give a shit. I'm telling you this because I'm illustrating that this is a very painful burden for me to carry as a Jew, watching a genocide done in our name. Never again means for anyone.
But when I look at some online spaces, especially heavily Gen Z activist spaces, I sometimes get the sense that the actual Palestinians and Israelis involved almost become secondary to the social dynamics of the discourse itself, led by white Americans, Brits, Canadians, Australians and Europeans. The hashtags, the slogans, the purity tests, the callouts, the performance of radicalism, the race to sound the most maximalist and uncompromising. All the while this majority of this online "activism" is done by people who live on unceded land of indigenous peoples or who live in countries that engaged in a fair amount of colonizing. If you are a non-indigenous person and you live in America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand and want to "send all the Jews back to Europe", are you prepared to give up your home to an indigenous person who asks, and "just leave"? No? Bless your heart.
This is why I remain deeply wary of fully immersing myself in ideological online movements in general. I have seen too many of them become less about helping human beings and more about constructing a public identity around “being one of the good people” while being sanctimonious wokescolding hypocrites.
Post Zionism, for me, means rejecting nationalist mythology without denying Jewish history. It means acknowledging Palestinian suffering without pretending Jewish fear is fake. It means refusing hasbara propaganda while also refusing vibes-based activist reductionism.
It means admitting the entire situation is ugly, traumatic, contradictory, historically layered, emotionally explosive, and morally horrifying.
It means recognizing that Jews are indigenous to the region and Palestinians are also indigenous to the region.
It means recognizing the Holocaust happened and the Nakba happened.
It means recognizing October 7th was monstrous and the response was disproportionate, above and beyond any legitimate "self-defense", where Gaza has been devastated beyond comprehension.
It means understanding you do not rectify the displacement of one people with the displacement of another unless you want endless cycles of bloodshed.
It means refusing simplistic narratives because simplistic narratives are exactly what got everybody here in the first place.
And yes, if somebody absolutely forced me into a binary choice between “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist,” my sympathies are far closer to anti-Zionists at this point.
But I still call myself post-Zionist because I think the reality is not merely not binary but way more complicated than either side wants to admit.
And honestly?
I distrust anyone who sounds too certain about any of this anymore.