Clarity in Sound and Vision

It has become fashionable in some circles to proudly proclaim, “I’m an antizionist,” and to look down on, even attack, those who refuse the label. But when people say they’re antizionists… what exactly do they mean? There are two very different possibilities.

First: Change Israel. Address its conflicts with its neighbors. Keep a country called Israel — a Jewish national homeland — while reforming its policies or political structure. There are any number of possibilities. Perhaps Israel alongside a Palestinian state. Perhaps some form of federation or confederation. Serious questions remain about whether any of these ideas could actually work, whether they would be accepted and honored, and whether they might trigger still more violence. But the premise is reform of an existing country — not its erasure.

The second approach is far more radical: No State of Israel. No Jewish state at all. The claim is that Israel is an “ethnonational state,” a “settler-colonial project,” an apartheid regime — and therefore uniquely illegitimate because it speciously defines itself as the national home of the Jewish people.

This argument rests on a glaring double standard. Dozens of countries openly tie their national identity to a particular people or faith. There are Islamic republics and officially Islamic states. Several European nations maintain established churches; England’s is headed by the King. Many countries recognize an official religion while still granting citizenship and rights to minorities. Israel does the same: it is the nation-state of the Jewish people, yet it grants full civil and political rights to its non-Jewish citizens - hardly "apartheid". Why, then, is Jewish national self-determination singled out as uniquely unacceptable? Why is an indigenous people reclaiming their ancestral homeland framed as colonialism, ethnonationalism, while the national projects of others are treated as normal?

But set the double standard aside and ask the human question that matters most: If Israel is dismantled, what happens to the more than ten million people who live there?

They will not simply disappear. More than seven million are Jews. After generations of war, rejection, and trauma, do we truly believe they can safely become a vulnerable minority inside an Arab-majority state? Do we imagine they have some other country “to go back to”? The rest of the population — Arab citizens of Israel and the Arab Palestinians of the territories — would also face upheaval, power struggles, and the collapse of the institutions that currently provide order, services, and relative stability. How would they choose to interact with their former enemies?

History gives us no reason for optimism. Forcibly erasing a functioning, legally created, state in the middle of a deep, violent, unresolved national conflict does not produce peace. It produces mass displacement, civil war, ethnic cleansing, and enormous, genocidal, bloodshed — on every side. The human cost would be catastrophic.

There is therefore a fundamental moral difference between saying “Israel should change” and saying “Israel should cease to exist.” The first is a political argument open to debate and negotiation. The second is an extraordinary gamble with the lives, security, and futures of entire populations. Even those who have reached the radical and highly debatable conclusion that Israel is illegitimate still have a basic moral obligation to confront, honestly and without euphemism, the inevitable and horrifying human tragedy that dismantling it would most certainly unleash.

[David]
Sarah, you've been looking at the comments recently made by Megan Romer, the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, about October 7th. What's the problem you see with her argument?

[Sarah]
The basic problem is that she takes a very complicated reality and turns it into a simple morality play. Romer described Gaza as an “open-air concentration camp” and argued that October 7th was, in many ways, inevitable because of the conditions Palestinians were living under. But that's not history. That's a political narrative.

[David]
Let's be fair, though. Gaza did have poverty, unemployment and restrictions before October 7th.

[Sarah]
Of course. And we shouldn't pretend otherwise. There was food insecurity and humanitarian need. But we also have to understand what happened to Gaza's economy under Hamas. Hamas diverted enormous resources — including substantial international assistance and other revenues — into creating what became a terror empire: tunnels, weapons production, rockets, missiles, drones and an enormous military infrastructure designed primarily for war with Israel. That doesn't mean Hamas caused every economic problem in Gaza. It means that the resources and priorities of Hamas profoundly distorted Gaza's development. And Gaza itself was not some sealed Nazi-style camp. Before the war there were hotels along the Mediterranean, restaurants, cafés, universities, high-rise buildings, businesses, shopping areas and a functioning civilian society. There were serious economic problems. Absolutely. But poverty is not a concentration camp. Restrictions are not a concentration camp. And hardship does not make mass murder inevitable.

[David]
But Romer's argument is that people were being pushed to the point where something was bound to happen.

[Sarah]
And that's where I think the argument becomes morally unacceptable. Even if every allegation about Gaza's conditions were true — even if Gaza had been exactly as terrible as Romer describes it — what follows? Does that make rape inevitable? Does it make murdering families in their homes inevitable? Does it make killing infants inevitable? Does it make kidnapping infants and taking them hostage inevitable? Of course not. Those were choices. Hamas chose to massacre civilians. And that's one of the recurring problems with anti-Zionist propaganda: it often begins with a legitimate grievance, adds exaggeration or falsehood, and then uses that narrative to make Israel responsible for everything that follows.

[David]
And you think the “concentration camp” comparison is part of that?

[Sarah]
Absolutely! Because it isn't just inaccurate. It's loaded with historical meaning. Calling Gaza a concentration camp invites comparisons with the Holocaust. Calling Israel an apartheid state, a genocidal state, or the equivalent of Nazi Germany does the same thing. And these claims have been made repeatedly for years — including the claim that Israel is committing genocide. Israel can and should be criticized. Israeli governments can make terrible decisions. Palestinians have legitimate grievances and legitimate national aspirations. But criticism doesn't require historical distortion. Don't erase the distinction between a deeply troubled, impoverished society under severe restrictions and a concentration camp — particularly when many of those restrictions were profoundly shaped by Hamas's decision to devote enormous resources to armaments, weaponry, rockets, missiles, drones and tunnels, all in the pursuit of its stated war against Israel. The claim that Gaza was simply a concentration camp, that Palestinians were being deliberately starved, and that the Hamas massacre was therefore inevitable — those aren't neutral descriptions of reality. They are lies. They're lies designed to reach a predetermined conclusion: Israel is uniquely evil and totally responsible for all Palestinian suffering. That's not honest history. That's propaganda. And it certainly isn't a justification for October 7th

People proudly call themselves antizionist but what does that actually mean?

There are two very different answers.

The first approach accepts the country exists but demands profound changes. They want to solve problems through major policy shifts.

The second approach is radical calling Israel an ethnonational state and illegitimate and wants it demolished.

Setting aside that dozens of countries are tied to specific religions.

We must ask what happens to the ten million people living there.

People do not magically vanish into thin air.

Wiping away an entire nation has heavy real world consequences.

Erasing the entire country means mass displacement and brutal civil unrest.

It creates human tragedy and enormous bloodshed for everyone involved.

Pushing for policy change is a normal political argument.

But demanding complete eradication guarantees a massive human catastrophe. Making that demand places a moral obligation on you. You have to understand the devastating reality of those extreme words.

Megan Romer, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, recently told David Remnick of the New Yorker, that October 7th was, in effect, inevitable — because Gaza was an “open-air concentration camp,” where Arab Palestinians were denied food and basic necessities.

Were there economic struggles in Gaza? Absolutely. But calling it a concentration camp? Absolutely NOT!!!

Before October 7th, Gaza had hotels, restaurants, universities, high-rise buildings, wealthy successful business men and woman, shopping centers, and a civilian economy with growth potential.

But that economy was distorted by Hamas. Instead of building up their society, they chose to invest in Jihad.

They poured massive resources into rockets, drones, and hundreds of miles of underground attack tunnels designed to reach Israel.

And even if the extreme claims were true, poverty never makes the torture and murder of civilians, rape, the murder of babies, and the elderly, or kidnapping inevitable. Those were choices made by Hamas.

Falsely using the term concentration camp is a deliberate attempt to equate Israelis with Nazis. It only serves to excuse horrific atrocities.

Honest people must reject these lies so the Middle East can finally build a peaceful future.