Non-Zionist Jews lament the conflation of all Jewish life with a creed of bigotry, insularity and belligerence. They must call out Israel’s crimes against humanity and call for the dissolution of the Zionist state. Otherwise, antisemitic voices will continue to equate Judaism with Zionism.
In my youth, I was persuaded – with no countervailing assertion proffered – that Zionism was both a citadel of mind and of landscape, that as a Jew Israel was my true place of sanctuary in a world that might tolerate me on sight one moment and shove me into a deathcamp-bound cattle car next, and that this homicidal intent was partly true of Arabs, and the closer the proximity of said Arab – that is Palestinians – the greater the degree of homicidal intent.
In the small Appalachian industrial city of my birth, Birmingham, Alabama, the locals were given to throw pennies against the windows of my step-grandfather’s small, men’s clothing store. My father, in turn, was given to gather up the coinage, thank the assembled knuckle-dragging bigots, and use the proceeds to purchase bubble gum and penny candy for my sister and me.
Thus, from the precincts of our small world, the Holocaust still a fresh memory (my mother was a Kindertransport escapee), tales of the murderous aspirations of the gentile world aligned with fraught realities. Thus Israel’s ‘right to exist’ and defend herself seemed an immutable truth. My family and I were little David confronted with the cracker Goliath of the larger world.
‘The Arabs’ were viewed, in the most simplistic manner, as distant, exotic, irrational Jew-haters. I was warned at synagogue, Hebrew school and Jewish summer camp that ‘the Arabs’ were a more dangerous menace than even classic Jew-haters such as Klansmen and Nazis. If Israel’s vigilance and will were to falter then Israeli Jews would be ‘driven into the sea by blood-lusting Arabs’; a new Holocaust would befall all Jewry.
The wounds of memory worked as a self-resonating circuitry of nebulous angst transformed into self-perpetuating anger: incessant showers of pennies against store windows. Of course, a separation wall is necessary for survival. The boot of an IDF soldier must remain upon every Palestinian neck. ‘The grass must be mowed’ in Gaza; every structure leveled.
When anti-Zionist Jews compare Israelis to Third Reich-era Germans, we are dismissed as kapos — all while Israeli settlers, with the full complicity of the IDF, perpetrate Kristallnacht on an hourly basis in the West Bank. Even so, Zionist Jews insist on remaining in perpetual victimhood. It would seem self-awareness and a sense of proportion are regarded as a path to doom.
This is part and parcel of what we non-Zionist Jews talk about when we talk about Zionism. We are talking about the malignant conflation of all Jewish life with a creed of bigotry, insularity and belligerence. The Zionist mind is a fortress guarded by malevolent ghosts. We are faced with nightmare precincts of the mind where it is permissible to train dogs to rape prisoners, shoot children dead, livestream war crimes.
As an anti-Zionist Jew, I wonder how many people witness such (incessant) actions perpetrated by Israel and conclude there is an inherent rot at the heart of Judaism. Between the machinations of the Upper East Side Epstein class and the blood-drenched actions of the Zionist thugacracy, as a Jewish person, I’m tempted to wash my hands of it all.
But as Jews of conscience, we must, in no uncertain terms, condemn the abomination that is the Zionist state. Jewish voices must be the loudest and the most resolute in calling out Israel’s perpetual crimes against humanity and calling for the dissolution of the Zionist state. Otherwise, antisemitic voices will continue to conflate Judaism and Zionism.
In the US, an ideological sea change has transpired. Among US Jews, Zionism is falling from favor. Israel has rendered far too many innocent men, women and children into corpses to claim endless victimhood. So, instead of supporting corrupted-by-Zionism Jewish organisations, money should be earmarked for a fund of restitution for the Palestinian people.
The world, at some point, will ask, of Jews in particular, as was the case with Third Reich-era Germans, where did you stand and what actions did you take during the Zionist reign of terror? The people of the world, to greater and greater degrees, have apprehended the following: Israel is a nation established in ethnic cleansing with the agenda of creating an ethno-supremacist state. The Zionist state, since its inception, has perpetuated continual crimes against humanity, from wars waged for territorial expansion (the Greater Israel project), the presence of torture prisons, and a compulsion for genocidal rampages.
Israel demonstrates little intention of amending its odious ways. Thus, the Zionist state reveals its lack of legitimacy to exist. The only people who appear to be in denial of the reality are insular Israelis and aging Zionist dead-enders.
We humans move through our days and are able to sleep through the night due to a (dismal and deranged) comedy of delusions. As a mundane example, my dog’s loyalty stems from her misapprehension that I am an alpha wolf. It is my blessing that she couldn’t be more wrong.
This also explains Trump’s hold over (steadily sinking numbers of) MAGA true believers who buy into his ‘I am a billionaire therefore I’m an Alpha male’ fraud and Israeli propagandists’ hold over the minds of fear-based, authoritarian personality types. Accordingly, Trump will declare he will win bigly in his war with Iran, and Israel will proceed with its crimes against humanity as, all the while, claiming perpetual victimhood. Yet the reality is Trump’s and Netanyahu’s war has elevated Iran into a position of global power broker and has ended US military and monetary imperium in West Asia.
Trump, lacking the ability to experience a sense of humility thus admit error, will be unable to abide the humiliation of defeat and will double down on his doomed gambit. Israel will, in the myopic manner of death cults, careen onward with murder-suicidal intent.
There is truth in ashes. Thus, the world will witness, and will regard the event as a beautiful thing, when Trump’s and Israel’s hubris-borne self-immolation comes to pass.
People who resonate with my writing regarding Israel are enraged by Israel’s perpetual crimes against humanity. But others respond with variations of this strawman rampage in uppercase:
KAPO!!! BY INSULTING ISRAEL YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO YOUR TRIBE!!!. ISRAEL IS THE PROMISED LAND FOR G-D’S CHOSEN PEOPLE!!!!!!!
My question then is why did G-d retrofit the DNA of the Jews of the Torah within the people known as Palestinians?
It comes down to this: Zionism is a (Eurocentric, colonialist) political philosophy while Judaism is a religion, with diverse cultural flowerings. Zionist conflation of the genocidally prone, ethno-nationalist state of Israel with all Jewish people is, in fact, anti-Semitic. Perhaps, after we settler-colonialist Jews make proper amends and restitution, we can live together with our Palestinian cousins, as one people, in a democratic Palestine.
Those Israelis too rancid with hatred-borne-of-bigotry will be welcome to find their way to the exits. Do not let the progressive door of history hit you in your tokhes (תּחת) as you go.
What does this Jew talk about when he talks about Zionism? I speak in regret and lament. I speak in favour of evincing remorse and proffering reparations. I speak on behalf of the reclamation of the Jewish soul.
This edited version is republished from CounterPunch, 30 April 2026
Phil Rockstroh
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist, and essayist. His poems, short fiction, poetry and essays have been published in numerous print publications and anthologies; his political essays have been widely posted on the progressive/left side of the internet.