Casey Babb: Israel’s ballot question is a choice between this Zionism, or that one

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Others, too, like Benny Gantz and Yoav Segalovitz, have leaned on Zionism through their electoral campaigns. In an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, Gantz said on Sept. 26 that he believes Israel “needs a broad Zionist government anchored by moderate forces.” “The purpose,” he stated, “…is to create enough political strength across the responsible Zionist centre that extremists are no longer indispensable and no longer possess veto power over Israel’s national direction.”

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But invoking Zionism isn’t the same as agreeing on what it means or what direction it should take.

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During a recent conversation with Free Press columnist Coleman Hughes, award-winning author Dara Horn, who has written extensively about antisemitism, stated that “nobody knows what Zionism is.” She’s right.

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The anti-Zionist lynch-mob, who’ve been screaming about Zionism for years, want you to believe that Zionism is genocide, apartheid and supremacism — that it’s the most abhorrent idea in the world. Whatever it is that you loathe, and think is most toxic and destructive in this world — Zionism is that. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

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All of this, the lies, the libels and the hatred, are part of a deliberate campaign to undermine Jews’ connection to Israel and to silo Jews into two camps: the good Jews who are only comfortable with Israel existing in the pages of books and Bibles, and the bad Jews, who have the audacity to believe in a free and sovereign homeland.

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Then there’s the political Zionism we’ve learned about in synagogues, Jewish day schools and sleep away camps – the basic idea that Zionism is a belief in the right for Jews to live peacefully in a country of their own.

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That is accurate. Of course we have that right. But that’s only part of the story.

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What Zionism actually is, is a living, breathing idea – a moral scaffolding and life force – that forms part of the Jewish soul, and which is imbued in the moral ethos of Israel, its citizens and Jews across the world.

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What transforms Israel from being a state for Jews into a state built upon Jewish values is, to a great extent, Zionism, its prophetic ethics, and its underlying moral virtues. It’s an energy and fortitude that turned freezing and emaciated Jews inside overcrowded cattle cars into fighter pilots, roaring over the skies of Tehran. It took collective suffering and despair and made it into a forward looking, thriving democracy, characterized by a responsibility to help others.

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Zionism is the aid Israel sent to Columbia in 2026 after it was rocked by a devastating earthquake. It’s the irrigation technologies sent to drought-stricken nations in Africa and the vaccination of over a million Palestinian children. It is the epitome of social conscience. As Alana Newhouse, editor-in-chief of Tablet, has explained, Zionism has been so wondrous, powerful and successful that it’s actually “provided the world with a framework for the future.”

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But Zionism in its purest and most beneficial form isn’t guaranteed, and the outcome of this next election may very well decide the direction it takes. For Israelis, and Jews in the diaspora, this means everything.

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For the Jewish state, its next election will determine whether Israel remains true to its founding principles and the Zionist philosophy that led to its creation, or if it will inch towards a Zionism defined by higher walls, forever wars, and pure political survival.

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To echo Gershon Baskin, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, “Jewish power without Jewish ethics is self-defeating.” Quite right. It’s one thing to face external threats that put Israeli lives at risk. It’s something else entirely to lose touch with the ideals that have made the country great and noble in the first place.