What is Zionism and why can one be a Zionist without being Jewish or a citizen of Israel?

We are living in strange times in which one of the greatest scourges of history, antisemitism, is resurfacing.

The canary in the mine: the antisemitic wave coincides in France with an antichristian wave
Two states, the story of a solution that was broken by those who wanted to destroy Israel

Antisemitism largely explains the sympathy many far-left and far-right activists feel for an Islamist dictatorship like Iran's, a regime that has made hatred of Jews a cornerstone of its official ideology. This regime has repeatedly threatened the people of Israel with destruction, thereby becoming a magnet for today's new Nazis, both those who display the swastika and those who display the red star.

Today's antisemites have turned the word "Zionist" into one of their standard insults, while still using in their messages another word that actually represents the object of their hatred: Jew. After the Holocaust, openly attacking Jews became despicable, something only the most radical antisemites, especially those on the far right, practice without any shame. The far left prefers to disguise its antisemitism as "anti-Zionism", after spending decades using the word "Zionist" as a new method of demonizing Jews, no longer as individuals, but as a people.

What is Zionism? Reading the messages of anti-Semites of various persuasions (far-left, far-right, and Islamists), one gets the impression that Zionism is something like a perverse and hateful way of thinking, but that's not the case. Zionism is, simply, the defense of the State of Israel's right to exist. That's all. This doesn't mean agreeing with all the actions or opinions of a particular Israeli government, because in that country, as in all democracies, there are different ideologies, beliefs, and ways of thinking. Similarly, defending Spain's right to exist doesn't mean agreeing with its government, because among Spaniards there are political positions as diverse as in Israel.

Israel is a state that emerged in 1948 in the ancestral land of the Jewish people. Despite the lies spread by many against the Jewish people, lies that are still published today by some media outlets without any shame, the Hebrew people have lived uninterruptedly in that land for more than 3,000 years, a figure that few peoples in the world can claim, yet today many extremists continue to try to expel the Jews from the land of their ancestors, starting with Islamic extremists.

Today, Israel serves as a refuge for Jews who survived the Holocaust and who have been expelled from many Islamic countries —a process of expulsion that is never mentioned by those who falsely accuse the State of Israel of "apartheid." This State is the only truly democratic country in the Middle East, the only one with a genuine separation of powers and democratic institutions comparable to those of Western democracies. It is a country where Muslims, Christians, and Druze enjoy the same rights as Jews as citizens, experiencing an equality and freedom that Jews, Christians, and Druze do not have in any Muslim-majority country.

Therefore, I declare myself a Zionist, because I defend the existence of the State of Israel, despite not being Jewish (I am a Catholic Christian) nor a citizen of Israel (I am Spanish). It is astonishing to see that Israel is the only democratic country whose existence is systematically questioned by many people, turning its very defense —Zionism— into an object of demonization. There are around fifty countries in the world with a Muslim majority. Some of them have Islam as their official doctrine and even impose Islamic law on the entire population. In the West, there are no political movements questioning the existence of these countries or calling for their destruction, as there are in relation to the only Jewish state in the world, which is Israel.

Likewise, there are six communist dictatorships in the world (China, North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, and Vietnam) and two other dictatorships ideologically situated on the extreme left: Nicaragua and Venezuela. Demonstrations against these countries are almost never seen in Western cities, and even demonstrations against the communist regimes that oppress these peoples are very rare and often limited to Cuban and Venezuelan exiles. One-fifth of humanity lives under these dictatorships, which means lacking the most basic human rights and being exposed to arrests, torture, and even executions for political reasons, yet anti-Semites are only bothered by Israel.

In the last century, antisemitism led to one of the greatest genocides in history: the Holocaust, which consisted of the systematic extermination of six million Jews, with the aim of wiping the Jewish people off the face of the Earth. It is outrageous that, after this, antisemitism is resurfacing and continuing to attack the Jewish people, disguised as "anti-Zionism" to make it seem less evil, even though it is, in reality, the same moral and ideological garbage. Anti-Zionism is hatred of Jews as a people and is also a form of antisemitism, as we are witnessing today.

What is repulsive is not being a Zionist, that is, defending the right of the Jewish people to live in their ancestral land, but being antisemitic, that is, hating Jews, blaming them for all evils, and trying to use them as scapegoats. It is not the State of Israel that must be eradicated, but antisemitism. The citizens of Israel, whatever their religion, have made it clear since 1948 that they only want to be left alone to live in peace. Their neighboring countries have tried to destroy them on several occasions and have always lost.

The defeat of Israel's enemies has never meant the disappearance of any country: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen have fought against Israel in the past, and their defeat did not lead to their disappearance. The defeat of Israel would mean its disappearance as a country and a new extermination of Jews. This is something the civilized world must prevent, assuming its role in this, just as two great powers, Russia and communist China, support the Islamist dictatorship of Iran. Those who claim to be equidistant between Israel and those who seek its destruction are assuming a false and infamous equivalence: the one that attempts to equate democracy with tyranny, freedom with oppression, and civilization with barbarism. I am very clear about my support for Israel because I stand on the side of democracy, freedom, and civilization.

Am Israel Chai!
The People of Israel live!

---

Photo: Tiia Monto.