Members of extreme anti-Zionist group “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Photo: NGO Monitor.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a self-described group of “Jews organizing toward Palestinian liberation and Judaism beyond Zionism.” The organization has chapters in major cities across the country, as well as on a host of college campuses, including NYU, George Washington University, and Columbia University. On April 10, JVP published a post on its Instagram account, explaining the rationale behind its anti-Zionist ideology.

“We’re proud anti-Zionists at JVP,” the post declared. It went on to assert that “the Zionist movement embraced settler-colonialism,” arguing that “Zionism is a 19th century political ideology that claimed Jewish safety required a Jewish-only nation-state.”

This allegation is not a new one; the assertion that Zionists are setter colonialists is a common one among Israel’s detractors. This narrative misrepresents the State of Israel by lumping it into a category that it does not belong in.

Colonialism is primarily defined as the domination of a people or territory by a foreign power; a mother country sends colonists to establish themselves on foreign soil to bolster their economic prospects and exploit the local population. The more narrow settler colonialism term adds another layer to the enterprise: “the complete destruction and replacement of indigenous people and their cultures by the settler’s own.”

One need only look to Israeli history to see that the Jewish state does not fit these criteria.

There is no “mother country” that exported Zionist settlers; Jews who emigrated to the land came from a host of countries. Many, if not most of them, did so to escape persecution, and moreover, to return to their ancestral lands conquered by a series of imperial powers.

A cursory glimpse at contemporary Israel reveals that Zionism in no way sought a “Jewish-only state.” It was Israel that accepted a two-state solution, where the Arab population undertook a war with its neighbors that tried to destroy Israel, and push out its Jewish inhabitants.

Moreover, according to 2021 numbers, Arabs make up approximately 21 percent of Israel’s population.

Arab-Israelis are granted equal rights, serve on the country’s highest court and in the Knesset, and fully participate in academia, the military, and government.

An examination of Israel also helps to counter the claim of settler colonialism. No colonial entity seeking the destruction of the other population present in the territory would accept a plan that establishes an independent state for them, as Israel did with the partition plan proposed by the United Nations in 1948.

In addition to its contrived settler colonialism claims, JVP likens Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, writing: “In 1948, Zionist militias established a Jewish state on Palestinian land, instituted a military occupation over Palestinians, and mandated a system of Jewish legal supremacy — apartheid.”

To equate Israel with the repressive white supremacy and segregation of pre-1990s South Africa demonstrates a lack of even a basic understanding of the events of the period. Apartheid South Africa stripped non-whites of suffrage, segregated public facilities, and banned interracial marriage; segregation was the very basis of governance, implemented and defended by the law.

Israel has never had any such system. As touched upon earlier, Arab-Israelis were granted recognized legal standing and equal rights under the law.

The situation of Israeli Arab citizens is not the same as their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The reality that Palestinians face is a more complex one. The West Bank is primarily under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (PA), while Gaza is under the control of Hamas, an internationally-recognized terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of the State of Israel.

Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank are subject to checkpoints where the jurisdictions intersect, and limitations thus arise for security reasons. While its implementation has not always been perfect, for a tiny country facing existential threats on a daily basis, Israel has often done more to help the Palestinians than Arabs in neighboring countries. 

The checkpoints were not constructed in a vacuum; they are a result of decades of unending tensions brought about by terrorism in the region. Israeli citizens, unfortunately, face Palestinian terrorism day after day, including street stabbings, car ramming, shootings, bus bombings, and incendiary balloons launched into populated areas.

“Don’t be fooled by claims that Zionism is a movement for Jewish self-determination — it never was,” the JVP post went on to assert. “Despite hardship, diaspora Jews created thriving communities, cultural practices, and histories.”

This ahistorical statement stands as an absurd commentary on the hideous events of the 19th and 20th centuries, affecting Jews of both Europe and the Arab world. The Jewish state was established in the wake of global Jewish persecution, and a generations-long desire to return “home.”

To argue that Jewish self-determination does not underpin Zionism is a blatant distortion of history. JVP should be ashamed of itself; its values are far from those most Jews would recognize.

Alexandra Orbuch is a junior at Princeton University and an undergraduate fellow for CAMERA on Campus.