Even before Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the definition and meaning of “Zionism” had increasingly come to be understood in far-left-progressive circles in the United States and around the world in strongly cynical and pejorative terms. Zionism became even more so understood negatively once Israel began its morally just counterattack against Hamas beginning on October 8th and later against Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. Those who were in league with the world-wide anti-Israel movement before October 7 and who had sought for years to re-frame the Zionist narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and a product of European imperialism discovered that they were gaining increasing support among many politically progressive left-wing Americans who claimed the humanitarian mantle against what they believed was Israel’s military over-reaction to what Hamas did to Israelis on that bloodiest day in the history of the State of Israel.  

Every people has the right of self-definition, and we Zionists – and especially we liberal American Zionists – have that right as well.

I believe that this is the time for us to take back our liberal American Zionist narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. That is what I want to do in this blog post, to express why I am a proud liberal American Zionist despite my deep protest against the policies of this most extremist Israeli right-wing messianic government in the history of Israel.

I am a proud liberal American Zionist and as such I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of the Jewish State militarily to defend itself when attacked by terrorists and hostile states.

As a liberal American Zionist I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, namely that justice, equality, human rights, compassion, and peace must be core values guiding every Israeli government’s policies, its military and civil society.

As a liberal American Zionist I am proud of what the Zionist movement and the people and State of Israel have accomplished in virtually every arena of human endeavor including immigration and the absorption of refugees, agriculture, education, the sciences, medicine, bio-technology, cyber, culture, the arts, diplomacy, human rights, civil society, and self-defense.

As a liberal American Zionist I understand that the intent of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran is to destroy the State of Israel and murder as many Jews as possible in their messianic zeal to establish an extremist caliphate over all of historic Palestine “from the river to the sea.” As one example of this murderous intent, Hamas’ leadership said early on in the war that 100,000 Palestinian martyrs were not too many to fulfill its extremist mission to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish state.

As a liberal American Zionist I am proud and grateful that the United States historically has been Israel’s most important and generous ally and that Israel’s security needs have enjoyed bi-partisan American political support.

As a student of Israeli and Middle East history, I know that Israel has tried many times to resolve diplomatically the Israeli-Arab and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts resulting in two-states for two-peoples as a matter of justice for the Palestinians and enlightened self-interest for Israel, but that extremist and uncompromising Palestinian leadership has walked away every time.

As a liberal American Zionist I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen, that I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military to fight in Israel’s wars. Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the decisions that directly impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew and liberal Zionist who loves Israel I believe that I have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies that I believe are harmful not only to Israel’s own best interests as a Jewish and democratic state but to my security and well-being as a Diaspora Jew and my liberal Jewish and democratic values.

As a liberal American Zionist, for months I have felt the anguish, grief and rage of what Hamas did on October 7^th. I continue to worry daily about the survival of the remaining hostages and the well-being of their families and the families of the Israeli soldiers killed and injured in this war. I have worried as well since this war began about the suffering of the two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

As a liberal American Zionist I believe that Israel, in fighting this just war has not always fought the war justly. It ought to be clear that Israel has crossed many red-lines despite all the challenges and difficulties in fighting a war against a non-state actor that deliberately hides behind and uses its own people as human shields. Israel’s massive killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and its use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war are immoral and un-Jewish.

It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of U.S. weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who voted recently to halt the sale of offensive weapons to Israel as a way to put pressure on PM Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war now, to stop the suffering, the starvation, the killing of civilians, and the deaths of Israeli soldiers and hostages.

These 27 Senators are friends of Israel, every one of them. They have always supported Israel’s true security needs. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons now after all these months of war they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling, which save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be criticized for their vote or accused of being anti-Israel. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinians and for applying necessary pressure on this extremist Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate – to end this war now, to bring home the hostages immediately, to pour massive humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to stop the killing and injury of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.

The vast majority of Israelis themselves and the vast majority of the American Jewish community agree that the war must end now, the hostages returned home, and humanitarian aid be provided in quantities that can stop the hunger and starvation.

I say all of these things as a committed liberal American Zionist and as a lover of the people and State of Israel.