You are right that the Haganah's condemnation of Irgun and Lehi terrorism does not absolve it of its own conduct. The expulsions from Lydda and Ramle happened, Rabin's role is documented, and the Labor Zionist establishment bears responsibility for its own actions. I have no reason to deny any of that.
But you then construct a continuous division of labor between the Zionist left and right, extending from 1948 to the present, in which opposition to violence and dispossession is itself evidence of complicity. You haven't demonstrated that relationship. You have assumed it.
Your argument leaves no room for Zionists who actually opposed territorial expansion, Palestinian dispossession, or exclusive Jewish political sovereignty. It cannot adequately account for the binational Zionism of Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, the political commitments of Brit Shalom and Ihud, or the subsequent history of Zionists who fought against settlement expansion and for Palestinian national self-determination.
Consider Peace Now, founded in 1978, its opposition to settlements, its demonstrations, and its decades of documenting settlement activity. Consider the political struggle surrounding Oslo and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist opposed to that process. These were real conflicts among Zionists, involving profoundly different understandings of Israel's future.
Nor does the failure of liberal Zionists to prevent the occupation establish that their opposition was insincere. Some liberal Zionist governments actively perpetuated the occupation, and their responsibility deserves examination. But you cannot assign their actions and intentions to everyone who shared some version of Jewish national identification.
Your previous essay, about the history of Reform anti-Zionism and binational Jewish nationalism, recognizes that Jewish political thought contained serious disagreements about sovereignty, equality, and the rights of Arabs in Palestine. Yet here those disagreements disappear into a single project whose participants supposedly understood their respective roles all along.
I have been a Zionist all my life. My Zionism does not make me an accomplice to Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, or the settlement movement, any more than the existence of Jewish terrorists in 1948 establishes that everyone who supported Jewish national self-determination endorsed their actions.
If you want to establish complicity, examine what particular people advocated, what they did, what power they exercised, and what consequences followed. I am perfectly willing to have that examination include Zionists, including those whose political commitments resemble my own.
But I will not accept a theory in which the very act of opposing a crime becomes proof that one was helping to commit it. That would make your conclusion immune to contrary evidence, and it would erase the lives and political commitments of people who fought other Zionists over precisely these questions.
So I have a question for you, and I would appreciate a direct answer. What evidence would you accept that a liberal Zionist genuinely opposed dispossession rather than merely providing moral cover for it? Is there any historical example of a Zionist whose opposition you would recognize as genuine? If so, who, and what distinguishes that person from the people you accuse of complicity? If not, how could your theory ever be contradicted by evidence?
You insist, rightly, that Jewish history should not be rewritten to exclude people whose political commitments were defeated. Why, then, should I accept your rewriting of Zionist history to exclude people whose political commitments contradict your account of what Zionism has always been?
Michael, the central charge is right and I’m going to answer it directly rather than defend the piece.
You’re asking what evidence could contradict my theory. As I wrote it — none. If condemnation is itself the mechanism, then every act of opposition confirms the thesis, and a theory that cannot be contradicted isn’t a theory. That’s a fair description of what I published and I don’t have an answer to it.
So let me answer the other question, about whether there’s any Zionist whose opposition I’d recognize as genuine. Yes, and I should have said so.
Rabin. A Jew from the national-religious right murdered him for going too far toward peace. I’ve written about Rabin’s signature on the Lydda order and I stand by that, but a man does not get shot by his own countrymen for providing moral cover. That is not two hands on one project. It is one hand shooting the other, and my framework has no room for it.
The refuseniks. Yesh Gvul in 1982. The reserve pilots’ letter in 2003. People who went to military prison rather than serve in the territories. They paid a personal price, which is precisely the thing moral cover does not require.
Peace Now, whose settlement documentation has been the evidentiary basis for actual High Court cases. That’s not deploring. That’s work with consequences.
Here is what I think survives, and it’s narrower than what I published. My claim should have been about effect, not about sincerity. Not “the Left’s opposition was cover” — I can’t see into anyone, and you’re right that I wrote as though I could. But rather: across thirty years, that opposition did not impose costs the expansionist project had to absorb. The settlements grew through every government including the ones negotiating their end. The Left stayed inside coalitions that continued it.
That version is falsifiable. Show me the settlement not built, the law blocked, the government that fell because the respectable side refused to continue — and I’ll have to account for it.
You’ve already conceded most of what I’d need to argue the narrow version. You wrote that some liberal Zionist governments actively perpetuated the occupation and that their responsibility deserves examination. That’s the live question between us, and it’s a better one than the one I posed.
I’m going to correct both pieces. And my offer stands: if you want to write the examination of how these different Zionisms developed and why some prevailed, I’ll publish it here without editing it.
Coby, I appreciate your response, especially that you took my criticism seriously and acknowledged the problem with your original argument. I also appreciate your willingness to correct the pieces.
Your distinction between sincerity and effect gives us something worth examining. But I would still question whether failing to stop settlement expansion means that opposition imposed no costs. Those are different things. We'd need to look at particular governments, decisions, settlements prevented or delayed, legal challenges, and political consequences before drawing conclusions.
And we should be careful about treating the Zionist left as one continuous political constituency. Some Labor governments promoted settlements. Other Zionists fought them. People changed their positions, sometimes profoundly. Rabin himself is an example, and his assassination tells us something about just how serious those disagreements became.
As for your offer, yes, I'd like to take you up on it. I propose examining the competing understandings of Jewish national self-determination from the late nineteenth century to the present. Political, cultural, Labor, Revisionist, religious, binational Zionism, and the disagreements within them. Who believed what, what they actually did, how their positions changed, and why some prevailed while others failed.
That includes Zionist movements and governments responsible for Palestinian dispossession, as well as those that sought accommodation, binationalism, or political equality. And Palestinians can't be treated merely as people reacting to Jewish political movements. Their own national aspirations, decisions, and political history belong in the account.
One thing I want clear from the outset. Regardless of what we find, my Zionism stands. I believe in Jewish national self-determination, and I believe Palestinians have the same right to national self-determination and political equality. I don't see those commitments as contradictory. Nor do I accept that the conduct of people who called themselves Zionists determines what my Zionism means.
I'm willing to discover that I've misunderstood events, misjudged people, or gotten parts of the history wrong. That's part of doing this seriously. But I'm not undertaking it to find out whether I should still call myself a Zionist.
I appreciate the invitation, and your willingness to publish something that may challenge your own conclusions. Let's see where the evidence takes us.
Michael, yes — with one change, and then I’m going to stop answering in the comments and save the rest for the page.
Your proposed scope is a book. Late nineteenth century to the present, across six strands, is more than either of us can carry in a Substack post, and I’d rather have one thing properly argued than a survey.
So take the question you raised in your second paragraph, which is the one I can’t answer and which nobody in this thread has: did liberal Zionist opposition impose costs, or only fail to stop expansion? You named what it would take — particular governments, particular decisions, settlements prevented or delayed, legal challenges, political consequences. Nobody has put that on the table. If the answer is that real costs were imposed, my argument is in trouble and I’d like to know.
Two thousand words, give or take. Take three or four weeks. I’ll publish it under your name, unedited, and put my response underneath it a week later. If you’d rather I didn’t respond at all, I’ll do that instead.
On your condition: agreed, and I want to be clear I’m not asking you to stop calling yourself a Zionist. That isn’t the question and I wouldn’t know what to do with the answer. I’m asking you to answer one question with evidence, and I’ll take the result whichever way it goes.
You are right that the Haganah's condemnation of Irgun and Lehi terrorism does not absolve it of its own conduct. The expulsions from Lydda and Ramle happened, Rabin's role is documented, and the Labor Zionist establishment bears responsibility for its own actions. I have no reason to deny any of that.
But you then construct a continuous division of labor between the Zionist left and right, extending from 1948 to the present, in which opposition to violence and dispossession is itself evidence of complicity. You haven't demonstrated that relationship. You have assumed it.
Your argument leaves no room for Zionists who actually opposed territorial expansion, Palestinian dispossession, or exclusive Jewish political sovereignty. It cannot adequately account for the binational Zionism of Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, the political commitments of Brit Shalom and Ihud, or the subsequent history of Zionists who fought against settlement expansion and for Palestinian national self-determination.
Consider Peace Now, founded in 1978, its opposition to settlements, its demonstrations, and its decades of documenting settlement activity. Consider the political struggle surrounding Oslo and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist opposed to that process. These were real conflicts among Zionists, involving profoundly different understandings of Israel's future.
Nor does the failure of liberal Zionists to prevent the occupation establish that their opposition was insincere. Some liberal Zionist governments actively perpetuated the occupation, and their responsibility deserves examination. But you cannot assign their actions and intentions to everyone who shared some version of Jewish national identification.
Your previous essay, about the history of Reform anti-Zionism and binational Jewish nationalism, recognizes that Jewish political thought contained serious disagreements about sovereignty, equality, and the rights of Arabs in Palestine. Yet here those disagreements disappear into a single project whose participants supposedly understood their respective roles all along.
I have been a Zionist all my life. My Zionism does not make me an accomplice to Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, or the settlement movement, any more than the existence of Jewish terrorists in 1948 establishes that everyone who supported Jewish national self-determination endorsed their actions.
If you want to establish complicity, examine what particular people advocated, what they did, what power they exercised, and what consequences followed. I am perfectly willing to have that examination include Zionists, including those whose political commitments resemble my own.
But I will not accept a theory in which the very act of opposing a crime becomes proof that one was helping to commit it. That would make your conclusion immune to contrary evidence, and it would erase the lives and political commitments of people who fought other Zionists over precisely these questions.
So I have a question for you, and I would appreciate a direct answer. What evidence would you accept that a liberal Zionist genuinely opposed dispossession rather than merely providing moral cover for it? Is there any historical example of a Zionist whose opposition you would recognize as genuine? If so, who, and what distinguishes that person from the people you accuse of complicity? If not, how could your theory ever be contradicted by evidence?
You insist, rightly, that Jewish history should not be rewritten to exclude people whose political commitments were defeated. Why, then, should I accept your rewriting of Zionist history to exclude people whose political commitments contradict your account of what Zionism has always been?
Michael, the central charge is right and I’m going to answer it directly rather than defend the piece.
You’re asking what evidence could contradict my theory. As I wrote it — none. If condemnation is itself the mechanism, then every act of opposition confirms the thesis, and a theory that cannot be contradicted isn’t a theory. That’s a fair description of what I published and I don’t have an answer to it.
So let me answer the other question, about whether there’s any Zionist whose opposition I’d recognize as genuine. Yes, and I should have said so.
Rabin. A Jew from the national-religious right murdered him for going too far toward peace. I’ve written about Rabin’s signature on the Lydda order and I stand by that, but a man does not get shot by his own countrymen for providing moral cover. That is not two hands on one project. It is one hand shooting the other, and my framework has no room for it.
The refuseniks. Yesh Gvul in 1982. The reserve pilots’ letter in 2003. People who went to military prison rather than serve in the territories. They paid a personal price, which is precisely the thing moral cover does not require.
Peace Now, whose settlement documentation has been the evidentiary basis for actual High Court cases. That’s not deploring. That’s work with consequences.
Here is what I think survives, and it’s narrower than what I published. My claim should have been about effect, not about sincerity. Not “the Left’s opposition was cover” — I can’t see into anyone, and you’re right that I wrote as though I could. But rather: across thirty years, that opposition did not impose costs the expansionist project had to absorb. The settlements grew through every government including the ones negotiating their end. The Left stayed inside coalitions that continued it.
That version is falsifiable. Show me the settlement not built, the law blocked, the government that fell because the respectable side refused to continue — and I’ll have to account for it.
You’ve already conceded most of what I’d need to argue the narrow version. You wrote that some liberal Zionist governments actively perpetuated the occupation and that their responsibility deserves examination. That’s the live question between us, and it’s a better one than the one I posed.
I’m going to correct both pieces. And my offer stands: if you want to write the examination of how these different Zionisms developed and why some prevailed, I’ll publish it here without editing it.
Coby
Coby, I appreciate your response, especially that you took my criticism seriously and acknowledged the problem with your original argument. I also appreciate your willingness to correct the pieces.
Your distinction between sincerity and effect gives us something worth examining. But I would still question whether failing to stop settlement expansion means that opposition imposed no costs. Those are different things. We'd need to look at particular governments, decisions, settlements prevented or delayed, legal challenges, and political consequences before drawing conclusions.
And we should be careful about treating the Zionist left as one continuous political constituency. Some Labor governments promoted settlements. Other Zionists fought them. People changed their positions, sometimes profoundly. Rabin himself is an example, and his assassination tells us something about just how serious those disagreements became.
As for your offer, yes, I'd like to take you up on it. I propose examining the competing understandings of Jewish national self-determination from the late nineteenth century to the present. Political, cultural, Labor, Revisionist, religious, binational Zionism, and the disagreements within them. Who believed what, what they actually did, how their positions changed, and why some prevailed while others failed.
That includes Zionist movements and governments responsible for Palestinian dispossession, as well as those that sought accommodation, binationalism, or political equality. And Palestinians can't be treated merely as people reacting to Jewish political movements. Their own national aspirations, decisions, and political history belong in the account.
One thing I want clear from the outset. Regardless of what we find, my Zionism stands. I believe in Jewish national self-determination, and I believe Palestinians have the same right to national self-determination and political equality. I don't see those commitments as contradictory. Nor do I accept that the conduct of people who called themselves Zionists determines what my Zionism means.
I'm willing to discover that I've misunderstood events, misjudged people, or gotten parts of the history wrong. That's part of doing this seriously. But I'm not undertaking it to find out whether I should still call myself a Zionist.
I appreciate the invitation, and your willingness to publish something that may challenge your own conclusions. Let's see where the evidence takes us.
Michael, yes — with one change, and then I’m going to stop answering in the comments and save the rest for the page.
Your proposed scope is a book. Late nineteenth century to the present, across six strands, is more than either of us can carry in a Substack post, and I’d rather have one thing properly argued than a survey.
So take the question you raised in your second paragraph, which is the one I can’t answer and which nobody in this thread has: did liberal Zionist opposition impose costs, or only fail to stop expansion? You named what it would take — particular governments, particular decisions, settlements prevented or delayed, legal challenges, political consequences. Nobody has put that on the table. If the answer is that real costs were imposed, my argument is in trouble and I’d like to know.
Two thousand words, give or take. Take three or four weeks. I’ll publish it under your name, unedited, and put my response underneath it a week later. If you’d rather I didn’t respond at all, I’ll do that instead.
On your condition: agreed, and I want to be clear I’m not asking you to stop calling yourself a Zionist. That isn’t the question and I wouldn’t know what to do with the answer. I’m asking you to answer one question with evidence, and I’ll take the result whichever way it goes.
Coby