Is Zionism reaching its demise?
It is increasingly becoming clear--even to some Western observers—that the "Zionist project" is running its course. It had an extraordinary run, but it has now reached the end of its settler-colonial track.
The creation of this exclusionary settler-colonial Jewish state was a historical anomaly, among the greatest blunders of Western civilisation in the twentieth century. Despite the deep alliance—between Western and Eastern European Jews and their Western tormentors—that established Israel in the mid-20th century, this Jewish state could not in the long run resist the deep logic of history. A few sober Israelis too can read the writing on the wall.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. At the same time, no one doubts that Israel is capable of inflicting devastating harm in the Middle East. For sure, Israel could kill several million Iranians and Arabs with its arsenal of neutron bombs. But what happens then? Where would that leave the Jewish state?
Say they've destroyed the Middle East, and Netanyahu, Biden and Saudi Arabia's MBS is flying to a new Iranian capital—since they will have obliterated Tehran—to celebrate their victory over Iran, and then fly to Riyadh to seal an enduring Saudi-Israeli alliance, guaranteed for a thousand years by the US, especially if Trump wins the upcoming elections. It is likely that the inimitable Thomas Friedman will be rooting for this scenario in his next New York Times op-ed.
In order to prevent Israel from launching its neutron bombs, the Western powers that birthed and nurtured the Zionist project must now take responsibility for their historic blunder, and manage the transition of this abnormal Jewish state to a normal one that accords equal rights to all its inhabitants—Jews and Arabs alike. Western powers have shielded Israel for seven decades and the result is a brutal genocide with catastrophic implications for the region. It is now time, for them, to make amends.
Acting resolutely and quickly, the United Nations Security Council needs to sanction Israel until it ends its long-standing violations of multiple international laws. Simultaneously, the US, Britain and Germany will need to shut off their arms pipeline to Israel. If Israel refuses to agree to a permanent ceasefire, then the UNSC may also need to impose an embargo on Israel. The suggestions presented here are often counteracted by abusing "anti-Semitism." Before this article falls into that trope, I must make it clear that I oppose Zionism not because it is led by Jews, but because of what Zionism proposed to do, what it has done, and continues to do to the Palestinians. Had this exclusionary settler-colonial project been perpetrated by Palestinians, Pakistanis or any country in the world—I would have held the same view.
Future historians of Zionism will acknowledge that Zionism was a trap set up by British anti-semites—in addition to securing control in the oil-rich Middle East—to diminish the population of Jews in Europe. The original Zionist leaders—overambitious and myopic—especially those in the British parliament, sold their Zionist vision with ease to Jews, who had just suffered from the world's most horrific, traumatising genocide, the Holocaust. The evolution of Zionism, from its often-claimed founding father—Theodor Herzl—to "Social Zionism" in the 1900s, which promoted class collaboration with the Jewish bourgeoisie and as well as support for imperialism and colonialism.
It is quite astonishing how a brilliant people who produced perhaps a fourth of the world's most extraordinary minds—from the mid-19th to mid-20th century—espoused two flawed utopian visions, Communism and Zionism, that might dazzle with their surface brilliance, but were not aligned with the heavenly forces.
The first utopian vision, because of its extreme demands on human nature, collapsed in 1990. Totalitarian socialism also blocked the transition—when the historic window was still open—from the destructive capitalism of the 19th century to humane, democratic socialist alternatives.
The second utopian vision may have run its course, but while the vast Soviet Union—a superpower with the second largest military and a vast nuclear arsenal—imploded itself, without causing any spillover wars—Israel, the embodiment of the Zionist utopia, threatens its neighbours with nuclear apocalypse.
Israeli Jews cannot save Israel from itself, but the Jewish diaspora has a chance—because of its distance from the war and from the current militarist regime of Israel—to use its influence and organising powers to try to reorient the ruling elites in the US, Canada and Uk towards rescuing Jews in Palestine from the Zionist quagmire. But is this even possible since Zionism has dominated the discourse in the Jewish diaspora too?
Nevertheless, there are signs that important sections of Jewish diaspora are beginning to see past their own propaganda. Over the last ten months, many Jews, especially young Jews, have been taking a moral stand against Israel's genocidal war against Palestinians that began in 1947, not October 7, 2023. Also, for the first time, the International Court of Justice has spoken if not clearly and loudly. The International Criminal Court too has filed applications for warrants for the arrest of two Israeli leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. While none of these have stopped Israel's atrocities, one wonders how long it can go on. Such larger-than-life projects that inflict mass sufferings have fallen in history. It is possible that the extreme form of Zionism that underlines the brutal extermination of a population while being opposed by people of the world—will come to an end.
The Jewish diaspora can and should mobilise to save Israel's Jews from the worst instincts of its right-wing Messianic government. For more than 76 years, the Jewish diaspora has mobilised in support of Israeli governments, no matter their crimes against Palestinians. It is time now to show restraint to Israel's extremist leadership. It may not be too late. There may still be time to do the right thing.
M. Shahid Alam is Emeritus Professor, Department of Economics, Northeastern University. He is the author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Springer, 2008) and Yardstick of Life (KDP, 2024), a book of poetry.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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