The Psychopathology of Zionism

Well, here we are again. And again, and again, and again. For anyone who is just returning from an expedition to Antarctica and hasn’t been following the news, let me catch you up. Two days ago (June 13) Israel launched a large-scale surprise attack against dozens of targets in Iran. The initial barrage was a spectacular success, killing several high-ranking Iranian officials and scientists, degrading Iran’s air defenses, and damaging some bases, government buildings, and military equipment. Since then, the Iranians have struck back, causing damage to Israeli targets with drones and ballistic missiles. The Israelis seemed surprised by the strength of the Iranian response, and within 24 hours of the initial attack were already demanding American military intervention. At this time, both sides are promising to escalate if the other side doesn’t back down, and neither side seems remotely prepared to back down. A few independent sources in a position to know, and who have never led me astray before, have told me that direct US involvement in Israel’s attack on Iran is all but a done deal. I hope they’re leading me astray this time. The Trump coalition has been torn in two, with one side expressing concern over American involvement in another open-ended Middle Eastern war, and the other side denouncing them as cowardly, evil antisemites. My sources tell me that US military planners think the Iranian regime is teetering and will be easy to push over the cliff. Maybe they’re right, but they thought that about Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and… well, pretty much every other conflict in the last 30 years, so who knows?

This essay will recapitulate and expand on one I wrote last year.

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I was thinking earlier today about an exchange I had on Noam Dworman’s podcast. Noam objected to an old tweet in which I referred to Israel as a Jewish ethnostate. I was confused, since Israel calls itself the Jewish State, and since many Jews in other countries have an affinity for Israel on that very basis. I realized that Noam thought I was using the term ‘ethnostate’ as some kind of pejorative, so I explained that the term was morally-neutral to me and that organizing a nation state around the interests of the dominant ethnic group was as good a way as any. He got my point, but he still didn’t like it. The exchange revealed a pathological contradiction within Zionist ideology. Noam reflexively objected to characterizing Israel as an ethnostate because, like most Zionists, Noam is a committed liberal who sees ethnostates as fundamentally immoral, a charge against which Israel must be defended. Yet, the fact is that in Israel, Jews cannot marry non-Jews¹, and until recently every citizen’s ethnicity was printed on his or her ID cards for easy identification by authorities.² It is the official position of the Israeli government that it can and will take any action it deems necessary to ensure the population remains majority-Jewish, and political parties and individuals who advocate for a state that belongs to all Israeli citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity, are forbidden from serving in government. How does a good liberal Zionist reconcile his ingrained aversion to the idea of an ethnostate with his support for one of the most explicitly-defined ethnostates on the planet? The answer is simple, and it goes to the heart of what makes Zionism a particularly virulent and dangerous kind of nationalism.

Last year, in a video urging support for Israel, the American Jewish Committee insisted that Israel was the only country in the world where Jews could be safe. A strange statement by the American Jewish Committee, and X pundit Michael Tracey asked the obvious question:

In response to the video, I wrote:

Everyone has heard the saying, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” True enough, but fewer have heard the equally true flip side of that quip: “Just because they are out to get you doesn’t mean you’re not paranoid.” Paranoia is a neurotic complex that is toxic to the personality whether or not it’s based on something real. In fact, traumatic experiences of betrayal or attack form the basis of most paranoid complexes. The paranoiac insists that experience has proven their attitude is necessary to survive in a world full of enemies. One psychologist has referred to the paranoid complex as the “warfare personality,” because it places a person in a hostile relationship to the rest of the world. Such a belief has a tendency to become self-fulfilling.