As odd as it seems now, supporting Israel was originally a left wing cause. A lot of the early Zionists claimed to be socialists. The USSR was one of the first countries to recognize Israel, Israel won the 1948 war against the Arabs largely thanks to arms shipments from Communist Czechoslovakia, many of the early kibbutzim were proto socialist communities(Noam Chomsky worked on one), David Ben Gurion the founding father of Israel was the leader of ‘Mapai’ the ‘Workers Party’ a democratic socialist organization. A lot of the Old Left was pro Israel as a result. There was enormous sympathy for the new Jewish state because of the Holocaust, moreover in 1948 Israel looked like the more progressive option compared to the feudal Arab regimes which surrounded it.
In the 1960’s and 70’s this all changed. The coming to power in the Arab world of socialist oriented leaders like Nasser in Egypt(who became a staunch Soviet ally), Israel openly aligning with Western imperialism against Third World liberation movements, and the discarding of any pretense of ‘socialism’ by the leaders of Israel, culminating in the victory of Likud over Labour in 1977, made Israel untenable as something leftists could support.
By the 80’s Israel had lost the support of both the Old Left and the New Left. By the 2009 massacre in Gaza, it lost support from social Democrats and left liberals. And at this point, Israel is struggling to maintain support even from neoliberal centrists, since Netanyahu sabotaged Obama’s Iran deal and flagrantly allied himself with Trump for four years. Israel’s staunchest allies these days tend to be the most reactionary and fascistic forces- evangelical Christians in the US, the nativist Trump wing of the GOP, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, the Wahabbist Gulf monarchies, Modi in India.
This is because the ‘leftism’ of early Zionism was incoherent. You can have socialism or ethno nationalism, you cannot have both. You cannot build a better society for the workers while stealing one group of workers land from them. If you want liberation you must fight against imperialism, not on the side of imperialism. ‘Zionist socialists’ had to choose between their Zionism and their socialism and guess which one won out.
Let this be a warning to all those who try to mix racial/ethnic identitarianism with socialism/Marxism. One or the other will prevail, you cannot ‘do both’.
As many of you likely know, there have been many situations in history where fascists had the potential to seize power and build a fascist empire. Many of these situations were those where crises of capitalism were so severe, that they dislocated society significantly, putting the political order at stake, ultimately driving people towards political radicalism that could provide the answers and the solutions to the many crises (economic, political, militarily, ideologically) they were facing, that the former dominant ideology (commonly liberalism or conservatism) couldn't offer.
Were we to face such a breaking point again, and you had to choose between joining the fascists or the communists, which side would you go for and why?
