One of the biggest blind spots in current discourse on Israel and Palestine is the refusal—or inability—to treat Zionism as a complex ideology existing on a spectrum. This refusal comes from both sides: from pro-Zionists who want to shield Zionism from critique by conflating all criticism with antisemitism, and from militant anti-Zionists who reduce all forms of Zionism to settler-colonial violence. But here’s the truth: everything in politics, identity, and belief exists on a continuum—from moderate to extreme, from nuanced to dogmatic. Zionism is no exception.
When we treat Zionism as a monolith—an ideology of pure, unrelenting evil—we fall into the same absolutist trap that reactionary actors rely on. We erase internal differences, silence dissent within Zionist communities, and miss the opportunity to build pressure from within. Overbroad demonization reduces people to caricatures and alienates potential allies—especially those Zionists who are not militant nationalists, but cultural Zionists, diaspora Jews, or even conflicted liberals uncomfortable with the Israeli state’s actions. If we claim to care about real justice, we have to get better at telling the difference between someone holding onto a belief they were raised with, and someone actively pushing for ethnic cleansing.
By embracing the reality that Zionism exists on a spectrum, anti-Zionist movements can do far more than just oppose the violence in Gaza or the occupation of the West Bank. They can:
- Build bridges with less extreme Zionists who can challenge hardliners from within—and who may be more likely to shift if they aren’t immediately treated as enemies.
- Foster honest, pragmatic conversations about what Zionism means today, and how it has changed over time, including how it has been co-opted by the far right in Israel and abroad.
- Avoid reproducing conspiratorial or reductionist narratives that make anti-Zionism indistinguishable from antisemitism in the eyes of the public or of potential allies.
- Focus the critique on systems and structures—state violence, militarism, apartheid, nationalism—rather than collapsing every individual into the label of “Zionist = evil.”
This approach is often dismissed in leftist spaces as a liberal cop-out or a sign of weakness. But in reality, it is deeply strategic. Real progress often comes from fissures within movements, not just external opposition. We’ve seen this in feminist movements, LGBTQ+ spaces, labor unions, and even nationalist struggles themselves. Engaging with moderate Zionists—not by validating the ideology, but by destabilizing its more toxic expressions—may be one of the few ways to shift public opinion and political conditions.
That doesn’t mean ignoring the atrocities. It doesn’t mean soft-pedaling the genocide in Gaza or the apartheid system enforced by the Israeli government. It means building a stronger resistance movement by understanding the enemy and the system, not just condemning it.
It also helps clarify who is not worth engaging: the grifter anti-Zionists like Jimmy Dore, The Greyzone, and similar reactionaries who use anti-Zionist language not out of solidarity with Palestine, but to score points, spread conspiracies, or align with authoritarian regimes. These actors don’t deepen anti-Zionist thought—they flatten it. Their militant posturing, often paired with praise for right-wing populists or silence on fascism, corrodes left solidarity. Even worse, it allows actual neo-Nazis and fascists to piggyback off anti-Zionist talking points, weaponizing them to launder antisemitism under the guise of “solidarity.”
When these bad-faith actors dominate the discourse, it becomes harder to critique more subtle forms of Zionism—such as liberal Zionists in American politics or cultural Zionists in progressive media spaces—because the conversation gets drowned out by noise. The extremes provoke each other, and what’s left in the middle is confusion, silence, or worse: apathy.
This is also how genuine anti-Zionists sometimes get misled or hardened. When the only loud voices they hear are the militant reactionaries on either side—hardline Zionists defending apartheid, or grifter anti-Zionists peddling shallow outrage—they start to think that’s the terrain. Nuanced, principled anti-Zionism begins to look weak or fake by comparison. But it’s not. It’s where the real work gets done.
We need to reclaim that space.
Recognizing Zionism as an ideology that exists on a spectrum doesn’t mean accepting it. It means knowing how to dismantle it more effectively. It means understanding that not everyone who identifies as Zionist is your enemy, and not everyone who says they oppose Zionism is your ally. It means knowing that systems don’t fall just because we yell the loudest. They fall when their internal contradictions are exposed—especially by those inside the system who stop defending it.
For now, I’m keeping this idea on the back burner—because the political climate is hostile to this kind of nuance. But I believe it deserves serious attention. Because if we want to build real, sustainable, justice-oriented movements for Palestinian liberation, we need to get smarter. We need to recognize that Zionism, like all ideologies, is not singular. And that liberation will not come from purity politics or aesthetic militancy—it will come from deep strategy, principled engagement, and moral clarity.