Why is Zionism still open for debate?
Let’s start with a question that sounds simple, but isn’t:
Why is the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state still treated as an open question?
Why are people so obsessed with this tiny state called Israel, pretending that Zionism is the source of all evil that ever existed in the history of the world?
It has been nearly 150 years since the Zionist movement was formed, and nearly 80 years since the establishment of the State of Israel. Why is this an ongoing debate in international politics, media and social movements?
This is not about Israeli government policy, or about Benjamin Netanyahu, settlements in Judea and Samaria, the war in Gaza, or Israel’s borders. Those are legitimate subjects for political debate.
The question here is something much more fundamental:
Why is the existence of Israel – and therefore the idea of Jewish national self-determination – is still treated by so many people as something that needs to be justified, negotiated or even reversed?
Think about it. How often do you hear people debate whether India should exist? Or Pakistan?
Ever heard of anyone challenging the existence of Arab states like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria? Most of the modern political map of the Middle East was formed during the 20th century, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent British and French mandates.
What about countries like Australia, Canada and the USA, which were founded as a result of British colonialism?
Is anyone other than Vladimir Putin dares to argue that Ukraine shouldn’t exist?
What about Japan and Germany after the devastation they brought to humanity during the Second World War?
Or African nations battered by ongoing civil wars and catastrophic humanitarian crises like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo?
And finally, well, we better not mention it because the Chinese government might be listening. What about Taiwan?
Most countries have a complicated history. Many were created through wars, imperialism, partitions, migrations, ethnic conflicts, treaties, population transfers and changing borders.
Yet we generally accept a very basic principle:
Whatever the circumstances that created a country, its present-day existence is a political reality. It is an absolute fact and we cannot change it, whether we like it or not.
We can debate government policies, foreign affairs and even internal affairs of any country. But we don’t routinely debate whether its entire population should have a country at all.
So why does Israel seem to be different? What makes it so unique that every man and his dog forms an opinion on whether it should exist or not?
What actually is Zionism?
Zionism is the Jewish national movement supporting Jewish self-determination and a Jewish national homeland in the historic Land of Israel. That land is mentioned in the Bible, the Old Testament, with stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons, King David, King Solomon, and the Jewish Holy Temple (Beit Hamikdash). All this ancient history happened in the city of Zion which is Jerusalem and in the land of Zion which is Ancient Israel. You can find that book pretty much anywhere, in libraries, book stores, synagogues and even online on Amazon.
Modern political Zionism was created in 1897 when Theodor Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. However, the roots and early proto-nationalist groups like the “Lovers of Zion” began forming in Europe during the 1880s, and the term “Zionism” itself was first coined in 1885.
Modern political Zionism emerged in Europe in the late nineteenth century, in an environment of intense antisemitism, persecution against Jewish people and rising European nationalism.
The movement wasn’t like a European government deciding to colonise another country. It was a Jewish national movement, and its objective was connected to a very specific historical reality:
- Jews had maintained a continuous historical, cultural and religious connection to the Land of Israel despite centuries of dispersion.
- Jerusalem is central to Jewish history and religion.
- Hebrew is an ancient Jewish language that was revived as a modern spoken language.
- Jewish communities continued to exist in parts of the land across centuries.
What Led to the Creation of Israel
Israel was established in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when approximately six million European Jews had been systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
But Jewish persecution did not begin with Hitler. For centuries, Jews had faced expulsions, pogroms, discriminatory laws and violence throughout Europe.
Also, Jewish communities in parts of the Middle East and North Africa experienced discrimination, violence, dispossession and mass departures, particularly during the upheavals surrounding the establishment of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
For many Jews, the lesson of the twentieth century was devastatingly clear:
If Jews were dependent entirely on other governments for their safety, they could become powerless when those governments failed them.
Zionism offered another proposition: Jews should have the ability to determine their own political future and defend themselves.
Why are we having this conversation at all?
Zionism describes a position on the right of the Jewish people to have their own land after years of prosecution and racism against Jews across:
- Europe and the Soviet Union
- Middle East and North Africa across Muslim countries
But look what is happening right now all around the world. Antisemitism – which is Racism against Jewish people – has risen all over the world, especially in Western democracies. Europe (same as in the 1930s), USA, Canada and Australia (unlike ever before in modern history).
Today, Jewish people feel much safer in their own land – in Israel – rather than anywhere else in the world. That’s the reality as history repeats itself.
But where is the logic? Those fanatic haters and their oblivious followers created such a hostile environment in Western countries on one hand by calling to “Globalise the Intifada”, and chant to remove the Jews “From the River to the Sea” – which is literally the State of Israel – on the other.
They are effectively saying “we don’t want the Jews anywhere in the world”. Not in Israel, not in the Middle East, and not in any of the Western countries. So what do you do with the Jews? Eliminate them? Isn’t that a call for a Genocide?
Israel is 78 years old. So why are we still debating whether it should exist?
In 2026, Israel celebrated its 78th birthday. Quite a similar age to countries like India and Pakistan, Jordan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Three generations of Israelis have been born there, adding to the few generations who already lived there for centuries.
They speak Hebrew.
They have families, schools, universities, businesses, cultural institutions and political parties.
They have cities and communities that have existed for decades.
They have club and national teams playing football, basketball, ETC and representing their country in the Olympic Games, winning medals.
They have national memories.
They have cemeteries containing generations of Israeli families.
For millions of Israeli Jews, Israel isn’t somewhere their grandparents decided to move to.
It is home.
And Israel isn’t an isolated society. It has diplomatic relations with countries across the world, including major Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
It is a significant economic and technological power.
It has a highly developed military and defence industry.
It has internationally recognised universities and research institutions.
It has become a global centre for technology, medicine, agriculture, cybersecurity and entrepreneurship.
It is also a diverse society.
Approximately one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab citizens, including Muslims, Christians and Druze, alongside other minority communities.
Arab citizens participate in Israeli elections, vote for and serve in political institutions, and work throughout Israeli society.
Anti-Zionism isn’t the same thing as Anti-Netanyahu
This is one of the most important distinctions missing from many social-media conversations.
Zionism is not a synonym for the Israeli government. If you oppose the actions of the Israeli government, it doesn’t make you an Anti-Zionist. Governments change, policies change, leaders come and go. But the people of Israel, whether Jews or Arabs, will stay there forever.
You can oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader. It is a democratic country after all, the only democratic country in the Middle East. In fact, many Israelis want to see Netanyahu leaving office in the next elections, but that doesn’t make them Anti-Zionists. The opposite, they are seeking a better future for their children in the Land of Zion.
You can support the Two-State Solution. You can oppose settlements in the West Bank. You can hold very different political views. But that doesn’t make you an Anti-Zionist. The people are not the government, and the government is hardly ever the people.
Why are People Still Using the term Zionists?
After the foundation of Israel in 1948, wouldn’t you expect for the term Zionism and Zionists to belong to the history books? Why is it still used Today?
The answer is Political Denial.
Arab countries rejected Zionism early on, denied the existence of Israel, and declared a war of annihilation immediately after it was founded. They expected to destroy the tiny little state, but the Israelis who had nowhere else to go, fought back and defeated their enemies.
But anti-Zionist rhetoric did not emerge solely from the Arab League. A substantial body of the language and imagery used against Zionism was developed and disseminated by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The Soviet position on Zionism changed dramatically over time. In the aftermath of World War II, Moscow initially supported the establishment of Israel, partly because Soviet leaders believed the new state might become socialist and weaken British influence in the Middle East.
But that relationship quickly deteriorated. Israel increasingly aligned with the West, particularly the United States, and after the 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviet Union became one of the world’s most important political and propaganda opponents of Israel. Soviet-controlled media and Communist Party propaganda intensified their attacks on Israel and Zionism.
It increasingly constructed an ideological narrative in which Zionism itself was portrayed as a global conspiracy and an instrument of Western imperialism. They repeatedly portrayed Zionism as evil.
In the mid 20th century Arab countries across the Middle East referred to Israel as the “Zionist Enemy” in every news update by the hour. Children were educated to hate the Zionists and destroy the Jews.
In recent years, especially since the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the rise of Islamist Terrorist Jihadi groups like Hamas, the anti-Zionist propaganda transformed into a religious duty to destroy the Zionist Enemy and murder all Jews.
Today, in many western countries, the rise of the progressive left ideology married with Marxism and radical Islam are using that same language 100 years on.
So when someone says, “I oppose Zionism”, the next question should be:
What exactly do you mean?
If they mean they oppose a particular Israeli government policy, like settlements, or they support Palestinian statehood, that’s one conversation.
But if they mean:
“I don’t believe Jews should have a country” or “Israel should cease to exist“, then we’re discussing something fundamentally different.
Israel isn’t a proposal.
It isn’t a political theory.
It isn’t a country waiting for Western social activists and Islamists to decide whether it deserves to exist or not.
The existence of Israel itself is no longer a hypothetical question. It is an established historical reality.
Its establishment followed the United Nations General Assembly’s 1947 recommendation to partition the British Mandate for Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish leadership accepted the partition recommendation; Arab leaders rejected it, and civil war followed, becoming a wider regional war after Israel declared independence in May 1948.
Israel has existed since 1948.
The history that followed was extraordinarily complicated and deeply traumatic for both Israelis and Palestinians.
But one fact is no longer complicated:
Israel exists.
It is a powerful country, economically and militarily, a world leader in technology, agriculture, sciences, literature, you name it.
It exists because the Jewish national movement established a state, survived the 1948 war and subsequently developed a functioning country.
But because its surrounding neighbours are consistently attacking Israel from all directions – Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah from Lebanon, and Iran either directly or using its proxies in Iraq and Yemen – then Israel has to keep fighting back.
These military agencies adopted a forever-war strategy against the Zionist Enemy with a clear and transparent goal – to destroy the Jewish State.
Israel doesn’t need to apologise for defending itself.
Israel doesn’t need anyone’s approval to exist.
But What about the Palestinians?
I’m sure you were just about to ask – “What about the Palestinians”?
None of this means Palestinians don’t have a history. They do. Well, their story is relatively a very short one compared to most nations. They only found their identity somewhere around 1964 with the establishment of the PLO – Palestinian Liberation Organisation. That was 16 years after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, backed by the UN Partition Plan.
Until then they were identified as Arabs who lived under the British Mandate of Palestine, same as other Arabs in Jordan and Iraq, and similar to Arabs who lived under the French Mandate in what we now call Syria and Lebanon.
None of it means Palestinians don’t have legitimate national aspirations. They do.
If they only agreed to make some compromises, they could have achieved those aspirations a long time ago. Instead, they always chose negation and terrorism.
But acknowledging Palestinian history, no matter how short and non-distinct, does not require erasing Jewish history, and recognising Palestinian national rights does not logically require rejecting Jewish national rights.
That distinction is crucial. Especially if you seek co-existence in the Middle East rather than a forever-war or what some activists and terrorists refer to as Resistance.
Anti-Zionism is a Political Agenda based on Lies, Lies and more Lies
Everybody knows that propaganda is a powerful tool to create bias against opponents. The propaganda against Zionism is no different. You create a false narrative based on a lie, and you say it again and again, repeating the same false argument in a constant loop, you push back any criticism and hide behind freedom of speech – on social media, on street demonstrations, on news outlets, in university campuses, on Al Jazira, BBC, ABC, CNN – so-called news outlets.
And it works!
People around the world, especially young audiences, fall into this trap because they hear the same slogans again and again, until eventually they are convinced this is the truth. Complete lies about the Jews, Israel and those filthy Zionists who support them, become the narrative. Stalin did it, Hitler did it, the Arab League did it, and now Qatar, Iran, and the progressive left.
Anti-Zionism had effectively become a political tool used by socialists like Mamdani and El-Sayed, who like many others ride the wave of anti-Israel to gain political benefit. This is the simplest form of uniting people behind lies and hatred.
Why bother dealing with our own problems if we can blame all our problems on someone else – blame the Jews, blame Israel, for everything.
This way politicians unite people behind them, get their vote and get in power, without having to deal with the real issues at home. But these so-called progressive left politicians did not invent this trick. They are following the footsteps of Lenin, Hitler, and other authoritarian regimes across the Muslim world.
Here are a few examples of lies, Lies and more LIES:
- The “Zionism is Colonialism” argument is absurd. There was no Jewish empire in Europe sending an army to Palestine to create a Jewish colony there and extract resources and send them back to its European capital.
- The “Jews have no connection to the Land“ is ridiculous. Open the Book of Books (The Bible) and you will find its enormous influence on Jewish identity, history, language and the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. If you believe that “Indigenous people have a right to national self-determination”, apply it to the Jewish people as well.
- The “Zionism is Racism” claim is based on a UN General Assembly Resolution from 1975, which declared that Zionism was a form of racial discrimination. But in 1991, the General Assembly formally revoked that determination. If self-determination is a human right, why does it suddenly become racism when Jews exercise it?
- And our favourite – “Israel is an Apartheid State” – 20% of Israel’s population are Arab citizens who have full citizenship and voting rights and participate in the country’s political institutions, equally part of the workforce and has members in the Israeli High Court of Justice. Can you tell me how many Jews live happily ever after among the 50 Muslim-majority countries around the world?
The Universality Test: Apply the Same Standard to Everyone
This is where the critical-thinking test becomes useful.
Ask yourself: Would I apply the same argument to another country?
India? Pakistan? Jordan? Ukraine? Australia?
Almost every modern state has a complicated history. Take India and Pakistan for example:
- The British partition of India in 1947 created two independent states.
- Millions of people moved.
- Mass violence followed.
- Hundreds of thousands, perhaps more, were killed.
- The borders were controversial.
- The consequences remain politically significant.
Yet today, most Western activists don’t argue that “Pakistan is illegitimate because Britain created it.” Nor do they argue: “India should be dismantled because its modern borders emerged from British colonial rule.”
Instead, we recognise an important principle: A country’s complicated origin does not automatically invalidate its present-day existence.
So why should Israel be different?
The universality test is perhaps the simplest tool anyone can use: Take your principle and apply it everywhere. If it works everywhere, you probably have a principle. If it only works against Israel, you may have a double standard.
If you think “Jews should not have a state,” then ask yourself why is Jewish national self-determination uniquely illegitimate? Why does Palestinian national self-determination deserve recognition but Jewish national self-determination not?
Why should the creation of Israel be reversed after nearly eight decades? And what happens to the millions of people who live there? Where do they go? Who guarantees their security? What political system replaces Israel? What happens to the Jewish population if that system becomes hostile to them?
These aren’t rhetorical details. They’re the consequences of the proposition.
The post-October 7 Transformation
Then came October 7, 2023.
Hamas-led terrorists attacked communities in southern Israel, murdering civilians and taking hostages, in one of the most devastating days for Israelis and Jews since the state’s establishment.
Whatever one’s views on Israeli policy, the attack forced a fundamental question:
What happens when a movement that rejects Israel’s existence controls territory, builds a military infrastructure and attacks Israeli civilians?
1200 people were murdered on that day, 250 hostages were stolen into Gaza by Palestinians.
Yet in parts of the Western activist movement, October 7 was rapidly absorbed into a pre-existing narrative:
- Israel was described simply as the aggressor.
- The attackers were contextualised as freedom fighters rather than barbaric terrorists.
- The Israeli victims became secondary to the political argument.
This should concern anyone who claims to believe in universal human rights. Because human rights are supposed to be universal.
- The murder of an Israeli civilian doesn’t become less horrifying because the victim is Israeli.
- A woman doesn’t become less deserving of sympathy because she is Jewish.
- A child doesn’t become less innocent because they live in Israel.
If our moral framework changes depending on the identity of the victim, then it isn’t really universal. It’s hypocrisy on steroids.
When anti-Zionism becomes something else
History gives us another reason to pay attention. Antisemitism has repeatedly adapted itself to the political language of the time.
Religious antisemitism portrayed Jews as spiritually corrupt.
Racial antisemitism portrayed Jews as biologically inferior.
Conspiracy theories portrayed Jews as secretly controlling governments, banks and media.
In contemporary political discourse, some old ideas can acquire a new vocabulary.
The Jew becomes the “coloniser.”
Jewish national identity becomes uniquely racist.
Jewish self-determination becomes inherently illegitimate.
Israel becomes uniquely evil rather than simply a country whose actions can be judged like those of any other state.
We should be alert to the possibility that old prejudices can survive by changing their language.
The Progressive Paradox
This is where the argument becomes particularly uncomfortable for Western progressive politics.
Modern progressive activism often places enormous emphasis on:
- identity
- minority rights
- historical trauma
- indigenous rights
- self-determination
- national liberation
- representation
These principles can be powerful and worthwhile.
But if they are genuinely universal, they have to apply to Jews too.
You cannot say: “Your history matters” to one group and then dismiss Jewish history as irrelevant.
You cannot say: “Indigenous peoples deserve self-determination” and then automatically exclude Jews from the discussion.
You cannot celebrate one people’s nationalism as liberation while defining another people’s nationalism as inherently racist.
And then there is the question of obsession. Israel is one country. The world has nearly 200 countries.
There are enormous conflicts around the world. Wars. Occupation. Authoritarian regimes. Ethnic persecution. Religious persecution. Political imprisonment. Civil wars. Mass displacement. Humanitarian disasters.
And yet Israel repeatedly occupies a remarkable amount of attention in Western political culture.
University campuses debate Zionism. Protests about Israel occur thousands of kilometres from the conflict. Social-media feeds are saturated with content about Israel. Political campaigns increasingly make Israel a central issue. International organisations devote extraordinary attention to Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most popular geo-political human tragedy of all.
Why this level of obsession? Is Israel uniquely powerful? Is it uniquely responsible? Is the conflict uniquely important? Or are there sometimes ideological, political and historical forces that make Israel a uniquely attractive target?
It’s precisely the sort of question activists should be asking.
There is also a broader geopolitical dimension that cannot simply be ignored.
Israel has enemies that openly reject its existence.
Hamas has an explicit ideological goal of opposing Israel’s existence.
Iran’s leadership has repeatedly described Israel as an illegitimate enemy and provides support to armed groups hostile to Israel.
Other regional actors like Qatar have promoted political and media narratives through Al-Jazira that portray Zionism and Israel as fundamentally illegitimate.
Those narratives don’t stay in the Middle East. They travel through media networks, political movements, activist organisations and, increasingly, social media. And social media is uniquely suited to turning complicated political narratives into emotionally powerful slogans.
A thousand-page history becomes an infographic.
A century of conflict becomes a 20-second video.
A complicated political movement becomes: “Zionism = Racism.”
A terrorist attack becomes: “Resistance.”
A war becomes: “Genocide.”
A country becomes: “Settler Colonialism.”
Once those labels become accepted, the underlying history becomes almost irrelevant.
The algorithm has already decided who is good and who is evil.
And that is precisely why young activists need to be especially careful.
If your political worldview comes primarily from TikTok, Instagram or X, you aren’t necessarily becoming informed.
You are ignorant and may simply be becoming very efficiently persuaded. You become a tool.
You fall into the hands of a well funded propaganda machine that wishes to erase historical facts, replaces truth with narrative, and destroy the only Jewish state.
Critical thinking means resisting your own side.
That is what intellectual consistency looks like:
- Not choosing the politically fashionable side.
- Not repeating the slogan that gets the biggest applause.
- Not changing your position because your social-media tribe tells you what the correct opinion is.
The Debate that Actually Matters
Perhaps we should finally separate two completely different questions.
Question one: Should Israel exist?
It does. That question has been settled by history.
Question two: What should Israel look like, what should its borders be, what rights should Palestinians have, and how can Israelis and Palestinians live in security and freedom?
That is the debate worth having. That is where the difficult questions begin.
How should a Palestinian state be created?
How are Israeli security concerns addressed?
How do you prevent terrorism?
How do you change the Palestinian discourse of negation?
How do you create incentives for cooperation rather than perpetual conflict?
These are enormously difficult questions. But they’re real questions. And unlike the demand that Israel simply disappear, they have the potential to produce an actual political future.
And perhaps the conclusion that today’s anti-Zionist movement finds hardest to accept is that Israel isn’t going anywhere.
Israel exists. It has existed for 78 years. It has millions of citizens. It has a strong economy. A vibrant society. A language. A culture. A political democratic system. A military. International relationships. And a population with no intention of collectively disappearing.
History cannot be rewound by a hashtag. A country cannot be erased by a protest chant. And millions of people cannot simply be told that their national identity was a historical mistake and therefore no longer counts.
The real challenge for the next generation isn’t figuring out how to make Israel disappear. That is not a realistic political programme. And it’s time you leave the Jews alone and focus on your own problems without blaming the Jews for everything.
Conclusion
Anti-Zionism is not a real debate about history, human rights or borders. This has become a full scale propaganda against the State of Israel, led and funded by its enemies and adversaries in the Middle East – Hamas, Iran and Qatar – and continuously pumped on social media by Israel’s haters across the Western world. It’s a death wish aiming to destroy the only Jewish state, backed by old school antisemitism, hardcore Woke and progressive agendas, and riding the wave of the October 7 atrocities against Israeli men, women and children.
Their arguments are based on Lies, lies and more lies. We can tear apart each and every single lie they spread about Jews, Israelis and the State of Israel.
- They won’t tell you how much Israelis are dreaming about peace and co-existence in the region.
- They won’t tell you how many times Israel was willing to compromise with the Palestinians, but all they got in return was negation and terror against civilians.
- Whatever they stand for – which is Terrorism, Racism, Genocide and more – they will always blame it on the other side.
But the main point is that any discussion about Zionism and whether you support it or oppose it, is completely useless and irrelevant. It belongs to history and it’s not up for debate in the 21st century. Hate belongs to the past, and if we want to move forward we have to accept reality, accept each other, and more importantly:
We must reject any form of Hate Speech, Racism or Violence against anyone from any ethnic group, skin colour, religion or sexual identity – and that includes the Jews.
Otherwise, your social justice and claims for equality does not meet the basis of universality. It is up to you to stand up against any form of hate, either online on social media, or on the streets of your city. And when it comes to any call against Zionism, well – that is a waste of time – the State of Israel is not going anywhere, it’s here to stay, and instead of rejecting it we all must accept it and move on.
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