As protests against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and discrimination within Israel are sure to continue this coming fall semester, some liberal students will conclude that they should perhaps not support the existence of a Jewish state. But even though liberal students may oppose certain Israeli policies, supporting Israel’s fundamental existence is a liberal cause.
These Supreme Court judgments, however, support what nobody can deny: injustices do occur in Israel and the West Bank–and it’s not enough to say that Israel is better than its neighbors. But Israel’s illiberal actions, serious as they may be, do not invalidate the Zionist dream or mean that a Jewish, democratic state cannot exist. Rather, Zionism is based upon liberal values, as it embodies the Jewish quest for freedom self-determination, and equality.
Liberalism entails a belief in individual liberties, equality and peaceful coexistence of democracies. Zionism holds that much like the Greeks have Greece and the French have France, the Jewish people deserve their own democratic country where they can enjoy freedom and equality. Those who rightly believe that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own would do well to understand that their views rest on the same liberal principles that support the Jewish people’s right to a state.
From its inception, the Zionist movement’s primary goal was to realize the promises of liberalism for the Jewish people. While European democracies purported to treat all citizens equally, Jews were denied legal rights or excluded from society unless they completely assimilated. The choice, then, was either to live fully Jewish or fully free.
Theodore Herzl and the early Zionists sought complete equality and freedom for the Jewish people. Their original mission was not to create a Jewish state, but to find a way to save the Jewish people from anti-Semitism and assimilation. Ultimately, they realized that this required the creation of a sovereign state for the Jews. The Zionist dream, and Israel’s existence, are about guaranteeing Jewish people the ability to live freely as Jews.
Zionism also proclaimed the equality and freedom of the Jews as a people. Zionism holds that just as every people has the right to live in a democratic state, and just as former colonial states declared their independence during decolonization, so too do the Jewish people deserve an independent state. A Jewish nation-state guarantees that the Jewish people can control their fate. If students support liberalism and democracy, those students must also support the right of six million Jews in Israel to form a nation that embodies their Jewish values.
But Israel’s founders did not seek to create a society where only Jews would be free. As they made clear in Israel’s declaration of independence, Israel has a secular law system that promises equal rights to citizens of all races. As a state with a majority-Jewish population, Israel’s flag and anthem bear the identity of the Jewish people. As a democracy, its laws respect all citizens.
Disagreements over Israeli policy will persist, but debates over the fundamental justice of Israel’s existence should not. Zionism’s particularistic nature does not contradict liberal values, but rather applies those values to Jews. Since Israel’s creation, Jews have enjoyed a period of unprecedented freedom and safety. Zionism liberated the Jewish people, and transformed their fate from that of a marginalized and persecuted minority into that of a free people living equally as a nation alongside other nations. This generation of liberal students should fully understand the Zionist vision, so that all those who care about the region can support the Jewish state while encouraging it to live up to the highest moral standards.
Sam Greenberg is a rising junior at Yale.
