Monday, January 05, 2026
Elder of Ziyon
What's not surprising is that this isn't surprising. For years, leftists have reflexively associated anything they don't like with Zionism, no matter how distant from Israel. Whether it is energy pipelines, or police brutality, or climate change, Zionism is the universal bogeyman that can explain everything.
We’ve seen this film before.
For decades, much of the Arab world used Israel – and later “Zionism” – in exactly this way. Fragmented societies with deep internal divisions needed a unifying theme, and anti-Zionism served that function perfectly. It helped regimes stay in power, redirected public anger outward, and provided a simple explanation for complex failures.
It didn’t matter whether Israel was actually responsible for a given economic collapse, military defeat, or political embarrassment. What mattered was that blaming Israel – or “the Zionists” – reliably mobilized the street to keep the people on the side of the leaders instead of blaming them. Leaders would then tell Western diplomats that they had no choice, that public opinion demanded hostility, that moderation would trigger revolt.
Anti-Zionism was not primarily about Israel. It was about coalition management. Anti-Zionism worked in the Arab and Muslim world because it functioned as a symbol, not because it described reality accurately. It compressed multiple grievances into a single target. It allowed wildly different factions – Islamists, Arab nationalists, socialists, Sunnis, Shiites – to coexist under one banner. It required no precision, no policy knowledge, and no internal consistency.
And crucially, the symbolic Zionist enemy came preloaded with a familiar set of attributes: it is foreign, powerful, conspiratorial and morally illegitimate.
These accusations long predate Zionism and were historically attached to Jews themselves. Zionism simply became a modern, more respectable wrapper.
Today's progressive world have replicated this structure. “Zionism” as a concept has nothing to do with Jewish national self-determination or even as a political movement with a definable history. It has become an explanatory blank slate, a word that can become anything critics want it to mean.
That is why Zionism is now linked to climate change, women’s rights, animal rights, policing, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism – even when no causal argument is offered. The linkage is symbolic, not analytical. Once something is labeled “Zionist,” moral judgment is automatic.
This is not a coincidence. It is the same coalition logic at work. When a movement is internally diverse and often contradictory, a universal villain is invaluable. It keeps the tent together.
But the Arab world, which the progressives had seen as a reliable partner despite its own anti-progressive policies, changed.
Arab states, for all their authoritarianism, are ultimately tethered to reality. They face military defeat, economic collapse, demographic pressure, and popular unrest. Over time, anti-Zionism stopped delivering the political results it had in the past. It explained nothing and solved nothing.
Internet access exposed propaganda. Iran became a clearer threat than Israel. Cooperation with Israel increasingly aligned with national self-interest. Anti-Zionism did not disappear, but it lost its power as a governing principle.
Progressive movements face no such constraints.
They are not responsible for running states. Their primary currency is influence – cultural, institutional, and moral. When something fails, there is no electorate to punish them, no economy to stabilize, no borders to defend. Being wrong has no cost.
In that environment, a shapeless enemy is not a liability. It is an asset.
This also explains why the target is Zionism rather than Israel itself.
Criticizing Israel requires specificity. Policies can be debated. Facts can be checked. Alternatives can be proposed. Criticism can succeed or fail. Saying Israel is behind Maduro's capture requires some level of proof.
Blaming Zionism avoids all of that. Simply define Trump or the US as "Zionist," and the work is done. Zionism doesn't need to be defined precisely. It can mean whatever the speaker needs it to mean in the moment. It is the black-hatted villain with the twirly mustache – instantly recognizable, morally condemned on sight.
Most importantly, it is non-falsifiable. There is nothing that would disprove the charge, because the accusation is not about behavior. It is about essence. It is a conspiracy theory that explains everything.
Progressives often imagine themselves aligned with the “Global South” or the non-aligned world in their hostility to Israel. In reality, much of the Arab world has already moved past the stage progressives now occupy.
Nations must eventually confront reality. Movements do not.
As long as “Zionism” can be endlessly redefined to explain every failure and unify every grievance, there is no incentive to abandon it as the universal enemy. Anti-Zionism now occupies the same psychic role antisemitism has filled for centuries. The myth sustains the movement even as it corrodes moral reasoning.
That, more than any single policy dispute, is the real problem.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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