Why We Keep Saying “Zionism”
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
At the core of liberalism stands the belief in every person’s right to determine their own life, their own destiny, and their own identity. Liberals don’t let others define them - and at LIBRAEL, we refuse to let others define who we are.
In recent years, opponents of Israel have worked tirelessly to turn the word Zionism into something else entirely - a slur, an accusation, a stand-in for ideas that have nothing to do with its origins or its values. It would be like turning “progressive” into “someone who hates white people,” or “Christian” into “Islamophobe.”
Some people - many of them Zionists - suggest we should stop using the word altogether. But abandoning it because others have tried to poison it would mean surrendering our identity, our history, and our future. We won’t do that.
Liberal Zionism is not a new invention. It is rooted in the foundational writings of the Zionist movement’s earliest thinkers. Herzl was committed to liberal democracy, and Jabotinsky wrote extensively about the necessity of a Jewish–Arab alliance. These were not fringe ideas, nor idealism reserved for the naïve. They were the backbone of a political project that sought not only safety for Jews - safety denied to them for centuries - but a free society for everyone living in the newly formed country.
The connection between Jewish patriotism and liberal democracy is not accidental. The Israeli Declaration of Independence and the American Declaration of Independence share core beliefs. Both documents are built on the same moral architecture: that all people are created equal, that liberty requires self-government, and that people have the right to shape their own destiny. This shared democratic DNA is exactly why the U.S.-Israel alliance has never been merely strategic or interest-based, but an alliance of values and ideals.
But today, the most basic premise of Zionism - that the Jewish people, like any other people, are entitled to self-determination - is under attack. It is not disagreement over policy, nor criticism of government decisions, but rejection of the very idea that the Jewish people belong to the family of nations, entitled with the same rights. Denying the Jewish aspiration for self-determination is denying a fundamental aspect of being Jewish - and of being a free person.
And that is precisely why we keep saying the word Zionism. Giving up on Zionism means accepting the abuse our ideological rivals are inflicting. It means caving in to the zeitgeist. Most importantly, it means ignoring the fact that we have yet to fulfill our mission: to live as a free people in our homeland. Zionism is a story of a people who built a society - deeply imperfect, yet sincerely striving - grounded in democratic ideals. To walk away from the word now would be to say that others get to decide what Zionism means. They don’t.
Liberal Zionism - Zionism that comes at no one else’s expense, and that sees Palestinians as human beings equally entitled to freedom, security, and dignity - is worth fighting for, whether one is Jewish or not. It represents a vision of Israel that is secure and prosperous, Jewish and democratic, rooted in heritage and history, committed to democracy and diversity, and guided toward a better future.
We uphold the word Zionism because it is ours. Because it carries the hopes of generations before us and the responsibilities to generations after us. Because Jewish self-determination remains at risk - whether you’re walking into a synagogue in Michigan or running to a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv. And because no one - not extremists seeking attention, not antisemites in disguise, not our loudest critics - gets to hijack our identity.
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