In a previous blogpost, I argued that anti-Zionists show their stupidity (i.e., lack of ability to process and analyze simple information) by demonizing Israel while giving a pass to enemies even though Israel’s behavior is far more ethical than its enemies’ behavior. One wonders, however, how can so many people blind themselves to the fact that Israel deserves support far more than its enemies do?

The fact that these people cannot tolerate the idea of Jewish self-determination is obvious. They are antisemites. But it’s a lot more complicated than that. Most of them are likely not consciously aware of their antisemitism. Some of them probably have Jewish friends or at least interact with Jews in a friendly manner. A few of them are even Jewish themselves. Most of my readers will have no difficulty thinking of a couple of names.

But if they don’t hate individual Jews, what is going on?

Anyone who has ever argued with anti-Zionists knows the answer, at least at some level. It is simply that they have bought into the false anti-Israel narrative lock, stock, and barrel.

That narrative, which has been around for as long as Israel exists goes as follows: The Jews have no legitimate right to Aliyah (the immigration of Jewish people to the Land of Israel) and therefore no right to a state. Therefore Jews, by that logic, are colonizers and should be opposed by any means possible.

This narrative has conveniently transformed Zionist Jews (i.e., practically all Jews) into evil beings that deserve no rights and no compassion. This narrative allows their proponents to justify the worst violence against Israel, including the horrific October 7 attacks. This narrative leaves no room to accept that Israel’s actions against its enemies, no matter how restrained, can ever be anything other than the violent oppression of freedom fighters.

And here again is where stupidity pops its head because believing in this narrative is deeply stupid at two levels.

First, this narrative is stupid because it justifies violence, such as the murder of children and the raping and mutilation of women, when any reasonable person knows that even in a legitimate war (which the anti-Israel wars are not), such actions are never justifiable.

Secondly, the narrative’s claim that Jews are colonizers on the land of Israel is obviously false and easy to disprove if one knows anything about the history of the Middle East.

When cornered on this point, anti-Zionists come up with absurd justifications. One of them is that the Jews who left the land of Israel, even though they were forced to leave, have given up their rights. Another one – and this is a real doozy – is that today’s Jews aren’t really Jews but that the Jews of the past are now the Palestinians. This is stupidity on steroids.

Would anti-Zionists use the same logic for the aboriginal people of North America or Australia? Would they be okay with any level of violence perpetrated by white people, and relatively newcomers to those places, against aboriginal people? Not likely. In fact, anti-Zionists see themselves as anti-colonialists when they are exactly the opposite.

The anti-Zionists’ ultimate defense is that the Jews’ colonialism is demonstrated by the fact that Jews aren’t containing themselves to the Green Line (the armistice lines delineated at the end of the 1947/1948 war). They point to Jews building settlements in the West Bank and talking about building settlements again in Gaza and maybe even in Lebanon.

By doing so, however, they are mixing up two separate issues. Many Zionists, including many Israelis, do not support settlements outside of the Green Line. Being opposed to these settlements does not make someone opposed to Israel’s existence and right to self-defense.

More than that, it is because of the false anti-Zionist narrative that any of these settlements exist. If it wasn’t for the refusal to accept Israel of any size, the 1947 UN partition would have been accepted by the Arabs just as it was accepted by the Jews. If that had happened, Israel would have been even smaller than the current size within the Green Line. It is because of that refusal and repeated refusals since then that the settlements are even possible. The anti-Zionists shot themselves in the foot and they’re too stupid to see it.

The settlements issue can be resolved, but that can only happen if anti-Zionism stops controlling the Palestinians’ position, and the sooner the better for the Palestinians.

But even though anti-Zionists see themselves as the Palestinians’ allies, reality is of no importance to them. They are unable to think beyond their false and hateful narrative. If this isn’t stupidity, then I don’t know what is.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)