Yes, I was once an anti-Zionist

My initial reaction when someone told me the news was one of slight bewilderment. I have talked about my shift in the past and referred to it implicitly in my writing so it should not come as a shock. In any case my change of opinion does not prove that my current stance is wrong.

To make matters clear I will spell out my earlier anti-Zionist view before explaining what has changed and why. In an important respect I think my earlier take was wrong although I also think the situation has changed fundamentally. There are notable differences between the 1990s and now. In addition, despite what my critic seemed to imply, even back then my position differed in critical ways from that of contemporary anti-Israel activists. There are substantial differences between what I argued back then and what they argue today.

The hostile Facebook post consisted of a quote from an article (scroll to P32) I wrote under the pen name Daniel Nassim in Living Marxism, a now defunct magazine, from June 1993 (an image of the cover is reproduced above). I will pull out the quote in full as reproduced on the post ( a sentence from the original was omitted but no matter). The article was on the Clinton administration’s attempt to back a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

“The problem with the peace process is that it accepts the existence of Israel. Once it is accepted that Israel is here to stay, Palestinian autonomy can mean only one thing: a prison camp for Palestinians policed by Israelis…The very existence of the Israeli state implies the denial of Palestinian rights. The problem is not one of Jews and Arabs living together. It is the exclusivist character of Israel which defines itself as a Jewish state. This means non-Jewish inhabitants will always be treated as second class citizens. It’s a relationship between a state of colonial settlers and its subjects.”

There were several elements to my argument. My starting point was that the Israeli state was discriminatory towards Palestinians. It did not discuss the different legal statuses of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship compared with those living in the West Bank and Gaza (both then under Israeli control). I recognised these at the time but they were outside the article’s scope. My view was that there was a degree of discrimination against Palestinians living within the pre-1967 ‘green line’ – that is with Israeli citizenship – but it was more pronounced in the West Bank and Gaza.

In any case I concluded from my premise of discrimination that the Israeli state had to be dismantled and replaced with a different political set-up. Only then, I argued, could Jews and Arab live together in peace and equality.

In retrospect my main mistake was underestimating the likely catastrophic consequences of the destruction of the Israeli state. It is hard to see how in the foreseeable future such a transition could take place without the large-scale slaughter of Israeli Jews. Even if some who advocate a complete political transformation have honourable intentions there are many bad actors who harbour the opposite. That should have been clear well before the atrocities of 7 October 2023 but that pogrom should have ended any doubt.

That does not mean that I have concluded that Israel is perfect. There are still problems of discrimination even if claims by activists are typically grossly overdone.

In relation to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship it seems to me that they have broadly equal rights with Israel’s Jewish citizens. This should not be forgotten. However, I think there are areas of concern such as alleged discrimination in relation to land policies. These can in my view be resolved through reform.

West Bank Palestinians, on the other hand, live in a kind of legal limbo where they are not Israeli citizens even though they live under ultimate Israeli control (although the Palestinian Authority governs parts of the West Bank). The dilemma facing Israel is that if it makes territorial concessions these could be taken advantage of by those who openly declare their aim of wanting to destroy it. It is a nightmare Catch 22 situation which, under present conditions, is almost impossible to resolve for either side. As long as there are powerful forces with openly declared intent to annihilate Israel it is hard to see how a peaceful settlement can be reached.

Overall the reality is that Israel is judged far more harshly than any other nation. There are numerous examples of this phenomenon. Examples of discrimination worldwide – often much more extreme than anything in Israel – are sadly so legion it is impossible to list them here. But perhaps the starkest comes from the United Nations general assembly in 2023. In that year, the year of the Hamas pogrom, it condemned Israel twice as much as all other countries put together. To emphasise the point that was not twice as much as the next worst country. Israel was condemned twice as much as the approximately 190 other members of the UN combined. Any objective observer should recognise this as an absurd disparity.

It should also be understood that the situation in relation to Israel and the Jews is in important respects far worse than in 1993. For one thing, back then there was still at least some sense that national self-determination was an important goal. Those who supported the Palestinians generally demanded a state as an expression of national rights. For some this meant a two-state solution – with both Israelis and Palestinians enjoying self-determimation - while others favoured formulas such as a secular democratic state.

Since then the balance has shifted fundamentally. The newer generation of activists are more accurately characterised as anti-Israel rather than pro-Palestinian. Typically they have an unhinged animosity to Israel but little regard for Palestinian rights. Their over-riding goal, often openly stated, is to destroy Israel.

One illustration of this shift is the popularity of the slogan “from the river to the sea” (meaning from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean). As I have previously argued this is a coded call for genocide against the Jews. However, it is also telling in another respect. It is a demand to annihilate Israel but it also avoids expressing any support for Palestinian rights.

Of course it would be wrong to argue that the shift over the decades has been absolute. There have always been some whose opposition to Israel has embodied a visceral hatred. In recent years though this has become a mainstream view among anti-Israel activists.

Shifting attitudes in the West have paralleled those in the Middle East and beyond. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), although it had its flaws, in its better moments called for Palestinian self-determination. In contrast, Islamist movements such as Hamas have no redeeming features. As I have argued before Islamist movements regard Jews as an expression of Satanic evil. Their openly stated view is that Israel needs to be destroyed as a precondition for achieving their ultimate aim of an international Islamic order. Hamas abhors Jews but it is also implacably hostile to any notion of rights or freedom even for Palestinians.

The final tragic shift over the decades is the resurgence of anti-Semitism. Whereas it was discredited in mainstream western societies after the second world war it has made a comeback, particularly since the turn of the millennium. Jews have once again come to be seen by a significant section of society as the embodiment of a malevolent spirit.

This new anti-Semitism outlook fits naturally into identity politics. It has come to see Jews as the greatest beneficiaries of supposed white privilege. Israel is then cast as an expression of white supremacy over the ‘global south’. From this perspective terms such as ‘apartheid’ and ‘settler colonialism’, stripped of their original meaning, become ways of signifying the supposed wicked character of Israel.

It was because I saw these dangerous ideas coming to the fore that I decided to set up this website in 2021. I felt the situation was becoming so dire that I had to spend a large proportion of my time countering such dangerous notions.

But if anti-Israel activists want to know why my views have changed there is a simpler way. They need only look in the mirror.

Checkout the social media feeds of anti-Israel activists and – although many would staunchly deny being anti-Semitic – their words and members all too often bear its key features. Israel is not seen by them as a state which, like any other, has flaws. It is all too often viewed as an expression of evil in the world. That is what lies behind the frequent alleged parallels with Nazism and the accusations that Israelis are, in their nature, child-killers. Such reproaches do not bear any serious examination yet they are intoned with fervent passion by such activists.

Since 7 October of course things have become especially bad. I have had former friends trying to excuse the atrocities on the grounds that the historical “context” makes the slaughter of Jews justified. I have even had one former friend – although I have not spoken to him for decades – justifying the flamethrower attack on Jewish protestors in Boulder, Colorado on the grounds that Palestinians also suffer.

To such bigoted activists I say, yes, I have changed my mind. And if you want to know why just look at what you have become.

To others I say, yes, in important respects my opinion has shifted. But that is what happens when we grow older and – at least hopefully – wiser.

In any event I think it is vital to take an unequivocal stance against all forms of anti-Semitism and for Israel’s right to exist.

The fact that people change their opinions over the decades should not come as a surprise to anyone. Yet a prominent anti-Israel social media warrior has gleefully ‘outed’ me for having radically changed my view on Israel since 1993.