Understanding What We’re For in Four Words

Americans are traditionally self-absorbed, focused on their lives and, at best, domestic politics. That’s why it’s stunning to see how much coverage, fury and focus, there has been for two years on Israel in Gaza.

It’s not casual. It’s not coincidental. Manipulative, well-funded networks have cultivated this Israel-obsession and Palestinian-romanticization. Now, useful idiots in media, academia, certain political circles and even parts of the Jewish community, stoke it, as it is magnified mindlessly online.

America seems filled with laptop warriors who never fired a gun and cannot tell friend from foe, arrogantly making long-distance military calls about IDF strategy.  Meanwhile, suddenly foreign-policy-oriented armchair moralists throw lightning bolts of condemnation at Israel, having ignored their own country’s behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Amid this barrage, too many Jews have become overly apologetic about Israel. Too many judge Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly. They forget. Despite many flaws, he freed 168 hostages and vanquished multiple enemies in merely two years.

I get it. The media mania imprisons us in the weeds, stuck arguing about Bibi, his most reprehensible allies and Hamas’ latest mind-game. But never forget: Hamas’ Iranian-funded Oct. 7 massacre imposed this existential war for survival on Israel.  Ultimately, this is a continuing war against anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-Hatred — and for Zionism.

Oct. 7 marks the latest, bloodiest, chapter in Palestinian exterminationists’ decades-long war against Zionism. Read their charters, speeches, and sermons. They’ve framed their “struggle” as an all-or-nothing, do-or-die fight to eliminate the “Zionist entity.” They’re the ones who repeatedly rejected compromise since the 1940s, and keep improvising various ways to kill Jews, from Olympian massacres to flying kites to marauding masses. They’re the ones who taught misguided “progressives” to misread Zionism as “settler-colonialism,” brand Israel the perennial oppressor, and make “Zio” the ultimate curse-word. Yet Israelis are the obstacle to peace?

Outrageously, Palestinian extremists worldwide infused their anti-Zionism with old fashioned antisemitism, drawing from history’s poisoned reservoir of anti-Jewish images. They yell “itbach al-yahud,” slaughter the Jew, while killing Israelis, and punish “the Jews” by targeting synagogues globally not just Israeli army bases.

They’ve made Jew-hating a full-time, comprehensive, vision-distorting, soul-curdling obsession. When Zohran Mamdani, who kept doubling down on his anti-Zionism during his campaign, years ago said, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF….,” he showed how that fixation defines him. While maligning New York’s police officers, Mamdani made the classic anti-Semite’s move, blaming Jews for every problem.  Medieval anti-Semites obsessed about the individual Jew; today, Mamdani anti-Semites, oops, I meant modern anti-Semites, obsess about Israel, the Jewish state, as fueling all evils.

Elegant, saccharine-sweet, human-rights-talking, Progressive policy-championing Zio-bashers like Mamdani are classic anti-Semites. They make Jews defensive. Somehow, Jews feel compelled to prove that anti-Zionists are anti-Semites, although the burden of proof should be on the bashers to prove they’re NOT bigots. Spewing venom, spouting conspiracy theories, priming bullies, they insist they’d never hurt a fly. That’s why I distinguish in my latest e-book, “The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-Hatred,” between antisemitic theorists – and actual Jew-haters.

Riled up by lovely, dissembling anti-Semites, Jew-haters lack finesse. They just menace Jews, hitting Jews eating sushi in Beverly Grove, firebombing Montreal’s Congregation Beth Tikvah, drawing swastikas on Brooklyn’s Magen David Yeshivah, celebrating Oct. 7 in Sydney by yelling “Gas the Jews.”

This advances the Palestinian strategy. Unable to defeat Israel militarily, they want to rob Israel, Jews and Israel-supporters of our joy – and legitimacy. Just as Palestinian terrorists picked “soft” civilian targets in the 1970s, Palestinian propagandists target gullible audiences today.  Their sanctimony cyclone with disproportionate coverage and outrageous accusations, stirring black word clouds of genocide … starvation … occupation … settler-colonialism … oppression, puts Israel perennially on the docket – and its supporters in a defensive crouch.  These days, too much pro-Israel discourse comes from the “No, we’re not wife-beaters” school of rhetoric.

That’s where Zionism comes in – actually, saves the day. Zionism resets this conversation to nowhere. It transcends the defensiveness, refuting the accusations in deeds not words, with joy not anguish, victories not defeatism. Zionism’s peoplehood platform unites Jews worldwide.  Accentuating the eternals – identity, history, community, continuity, survival – it diminishes Jews’ self-sabotaging over-emphasis on the passing politics of this moment.

Zionism takes Israel off probation, celebrating Jews’ historic commitment to one another, our people, state and land — our intertwined fate. It repudiates those who would never leave America no matter who is president, but only support Israel contingent on good behavior and leaders they deem acceptable.

Zionism, which has long been counter-cultural, is doubly transgressive today. Zionism rejects the Israel conversation’s hyper-politicization. It challenges Jews – especially too many rabbis – to build conversations, pride, vision, solidarity, around Judaism’s forever-fundamentals not today’s controversies or their frustrations with Israel. And this Identity Zionism roots Jews in a centrifugal reality spinning around our tradition, our land, our people, our state. That superpower resists modern Western culture’s centripetal force, spinning everyone into ever more individualistic and fragmented affinities, thereby undermining our loyalties to others, to the collective.

Beyond these abstractions, Zionism has three exemplary proofs that it works and remains compelling. First, the Jewish people. Consider how much stronger, prouder, freer every Jew is thanks to Zionism. Zionism helped free Jews from oppression in Muslim lands, Ethiopia, the Soviet Union, while giving Jews everywhere extra springs in their steps. Second, Israel. Look what the state’s accomplished in 77 years, its many contributions to humanity, the Jewish people, and its citizens. Finally, remember where we were on Oct. 7, how young Israelis defeated the enemy on multiple fronts and how many Jews and non-Jews rallied to support Israel, countering Palestinian antisemitic anti-Zionism worldwide.

Since Simchat Torah, whenever I speak, I end by inviting audiences to rise. I toast one fallen Israeli hero since Oct. 7, saying the prayer over the wine. Then, I lead everyone in saying “the shehecheiyanu prayer,” thanking God for sustaining us and bringing us to this day.

There’s more work to do. The haters still hate. But, thanks to Zionism, we won – and will continue winning, while teaching the West about self-defense, self-reliance and self-respect.

Gil Troy is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year he published, “To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream” and “The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath.” His latest E-book, “The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred” was just published and can be downloaded on the JPPI  – Jewish People Policy Institute – Website.