"I am not saying that we must refrain from criticizing Israel or its leaders—indeed, criticism of Israeli policies and actions is often warranted. Nor should we presuppose that all criticism of Israel is anti-Zionist or based on anti-Semitic prejudice. As with any country, we should subject Israel’s politicians and officials to close scrutiny and critique. Often its political leadership makes mistakes that have terrible consequences. Does the Israeli Defense Force commit war crimes? Yes, sometimes, and the IDF should be held responsible for them. But to work from the premise that Israel itself is illegitimate, and that the very existence of its powerful army is a war crime, passes from normal criticism to the realm of prejudice.
Similarly, we may legitimately scrutinize and criticize Palestinian governance and oppositional movements—something the Left today too often fails to do. In my view, it is not the responsibility of leftists to support either Zionism or Palestinian nationalism; nationalism is, as Oscar Wilde put it, “the virtue of the vicious.” But what makes no sense is to seek to eradicate only one form of nationalism, namely the Israeli. Those who seek alternatives that are cosmopolitan and internationalist—indeed antinationalist—have no alternative but to expose and oppose both Zionism and anti-Zionism, as well as all oppression and discrimination along religious, cultural, and ethnic lines. But to presume that primarily Jewish nationalism and Israel must disappear to achieve a free society is dangerously wrong." - Eirik Eiglad
