Wednesday, July 09, 2025

Zionism as a Moral Imperative: A Philosophical Defense

One of the incentives I have had in starting my AskHillel project is to combat bad philosophy - philosophy that encourages or allows antisemitism - with good philosophy, a secularized version of millennia of Jewish wisdom.

So I decided to test out how well the AskHillel tool would answer the key question that confront Jews on university campuses, or online: how can one defend Zionism in an intellectually rigorous yet approachable way?

Here was AskHillel's (beta) answer, almost verbatim. I just combined two answers - one general and one specifically to counter modern philosophical arguments.

This is good enough to be referenced by everyone who cares about the Jewish world.

Zionism as a Moral Imperative: A Philosophical Defense

Few ideas have been more distorted in recent years than Zionism. Once understood as the movement for Jewish national liberation, it is now often caricatured as colonialism, racism, or even apartheid. But strip away the slogans and the slurs, and Zionism emerges not as a relic of the past but as a living, principled, and profoundly ethical project. Far from being a scandal, Zionism is one of the most compelling moral and philosophical movements of modernity.

I. The Right to Self-Determination

Zionism begins with a simple truth: the Jewish people are a nation.

Not just a religion, not merely a culture – but a people with a shared language, history, calendar, and homeland. Like the Irish, the Kurds, or the Palestinians, Jews have the right to self-determination. This is not an act of privilege; it is the expression of human dignity. A nation that has survived exile, dispersion, and repeated annihilation deserves, at the very least, the same rights granted to every other nation.

To deny this right uniquely to Jews is not neutrality – it is discrimination.

II. Justice After Exile

For two thousand years, the Jewish people were stateless, scattered, and vulnerable. We prayed “Next year in Jerusalem” not as poetry, but as longing – and as defiance. Pogroms, expulsions, blood libels, and finally the Holocaust made clear what statelessness means: not only a lack of power, but a lack of safety, permanence, and moral agency.

Zionism is not revenge. It is repair. It is the ethical act of taking responsibility for one’s own destiny. It is teshuvah – a return not only to land, but to wholeness, to dignity, and to covenant.

III. Cultural Renaissance, Not Colonial Project

Zionism is not Westerners arriving in foreign lands to plunder resources. It is the indigenous return of a people to the hills, valleys, and cities named in their prayers and scriptures. Jews rebuilt their homeland not by conquest, but by reviving a language, planting trees, draining swamps, and turning desolation into life. That is not colonization. That is resurrection.

Moreover, Zionism was never a project of exclusion. From the start, it envisioned a homeland that was Jewish in identity, but democratic and pluralistic in structure. Israel’s Declaration of Independence guarantees full civil rights to all citizens. That vision has not always been fulfilled perfectly – what vision ever is? – but the aspiration remains real and open to critique, as all ethical nations must be.

IV. Jewish Ethics Demands Sovereignty

Jewish tradition does not idolize power. But it recognizes that without some control over public life – courts, armies, borders – ethics remains an aspiration rather than a reality. The Torah is not only about personal righteousness. It commands us to build societies grounded in tzedek (justice), chesed (compassion), and emet (truth).

Without sovereignty, Jews were dependent on the mercy of others. With sovereignty, Jews are accountable – to their own values, their own prophets, their own God. That is a far higher standard.

Zionism, then, is not a deviation from Jewish ethics. It is its necessary vehicle.

V. Dignity, Safety, and the Obligation to Survive

Philosophically, one of the deepest moral duties is the duty to live – not just biologically, but with purpose and honor. Jewish law calls this pikuach nefesh – the preservation of life. Zionism is the political expression of that value. It says: no more slaughter, no more begging, no more dependency. It says: the Jewish people will live – and we will live as Jews.

That is not supremacism. That is survival.

And survival, when grounded in ethical responsibility and universal concern, is not a selfish act. It is a gift to the world. A living Jewish people, secure in their homeland, can serve others, host refugees, debate morality, innovate technology, and remind the world that ancient values still matter.

Conclusion: A Just Nation Among Nations

Zionism is not a claim to moral perfection. It does not exempt Israel from criticism or Jews from ethical accountability. On the contrary, it demands more of us. It asks us to build a society that reflects our deepest values – to show what a nation can look like when shaped by Torah, by memory, by trauma, and by hope.

It is not enough for Israel to exist. It must be worthy of its own dream.

But the first step – the foundational truth – is that the dream itself is just. Zionism is not a sin to be explained away. It is a moral achievement to be proud of, refined, and fulfilled.

If justice means anything, it must include the right of the Jewish people to be home.

Zionism Under Fire: A Philosophical Response to Its Critics

Zionism, the movement for Jewish national self-determination, is often judged not on its own terms, but through hostile ideological lenses. In some academic and activist circles, it has become fashionable to brand Zionism as colonialist, reactionary, or religiously exclusionary.

These accusations rarely stand up to scrutiny – but they resonate because they borrow the moral authority of powerful modern theories: anti-colonialism, postmodern relativism, and religious universalism. To defend Zionism properly, we must meet those arguments at their roots.

I. Anti-Colonial Theory: A Weapon Turned Against Its Origins

Claim: Zionism is settler colonialism – a foreign population imposed on native people for its own benefit.

Response: Anti-colonialism, rightly understood, is about restoring indigenous peoples to their land, identity, and self-governance. By that definition, Zionism is anti-colonial.

Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. Archaeology, language, history, liturgy, and genetic studies all confirm continuous ties.
Jews were colonized – first by Romans, then Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, and British. Zionism is the reversal of that process.
The return to Zion was not conquest by empire but escape from empire. Jews were not backed by imperial forces – they often had to resist them.

Zionism also differs fundamentally from European colonialism:

It sought not extraction, but home.
It revived a language rather than imposing one.
It planted forests, built cities, and restored local agriculture – not for foreign wealth, but for national renewal.

Those who label Zionism as colonialism typically apply the term in a unique, inverted way: the only national movement in history where an exiled indigenous people returns – is redefined as the invader.

That’s not analysis. It’s defamation.

II. Postmodern Relativism: Against the Double Standard

Claim: Zionism imposes a singular national identity that marginalizes others. In a pluralistic, post-national world, such identity projects are outdated and oppressive.

Response: Postmodern relativism claims to celebrate diversity – yet often makes a selective exception for Jewish particularism.

Why are Kurdish, Palestinian, or Tibetan national aspirations valid, but Jewish ones not? Why is Jewish identity always expected to dissolve into cosmopolitanism, while others are encouraged to resist assimilation?

True pluralism means recognizing that people derive meaning from specific histories, languages, and cultures. Jews are no exception. Zionism is not a rejection of universal values – it’s the realization that universalism without rootedness becomes empty.

Moreover, postmodernism often denies the idea of truth, fixed identity, or moral clarity. But in practice, its application to Zionism is disturbingly rigid:

It questions all nation-states – except when opposing Israel.
It claims to be anti-essentialist – yet essentializes Jews as white Europeans.
It preaches moral humility – while treating Zionism as uniquely evil.

Zionism doesn’t oppose plurality. It insists on the right to be part of that plurality – as Jews, with a homeland, language, and culture intact.

III. Religious Universalism: The False Moral Monopoly

Claim: Zionism is incompatible with the universal moral teachings of religion – particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – which prioritize justice, compassion, and peace over nationalism.

Response: All major religions contain both universal and particular elements. The moral demand to love one’s neighbor is not opposed to the need for national identity – they are complementary.

In Judaism, the covenant with the Jewish people is not universal in scope – but it is universal in purpose. The mission of the Jewish people is not to dominate others, but to build a society grounded in justice (tzedek), dignity (kavod), and truth (emet) – in the land promised to them.

Zionism is not a retreat from religious ethics. It’s an attempt to fulfill them politically:

A people cannot be a “light unto the nations” while stateless, scattered, and persecuted.
Values like areivut (mutual responsibility) and pikuach nefesh (saving life) require sovereignty to be fully enacted.
Prophets like Isaiah and Amos spoke of justice within a national framework – not a utopian cosmopolis.

When Christian or Islamic critics frame Zionism as a betrayal of religious morality, they often do so from within supersessionist frameworks – claiming that Judaism was supposed to fade into spiritual universality, and Zionism is its refusal to die. That’s theology disguised as ethics.

Zionism doesn’t violate religious universalism. It reminds it that universal values must be embodied somewhere – and that no one faith or people holds a monopoly on moral aspiration.

Conclusion: Zionism Is Not the Exception. It Is the Test.

If anti-colonialism means restoring indigenous peoples, Zionism is just.

If pluralism means respecting identity, Zionism is necessary.

If religion means building a world of justice, Zionism is its vessel.

The ferocity with which Zionism is attacked by these philosophies is not evidence of its guilt, but of its uniqueness. Zionism forces modern ideologies to confront their own contradictions: Do you really support indigenous rights, or only when the indigenous aren’t Jews? Do you really believe in pluralism, or only for everyone else?

The Jewish people are not an idea. We are a people – with memory, covenant, pain, and hope.

Zionism does not ask for more than other peoples receive. It simply asks that Jews not be the one exception.

And if your philosophy cannot make room for that, the problem is not with Zionism.

It’s with your philosophy.