{"id":3820,"date":"2026-09-14T16:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=3820"},"modified":"2026-09-14T16:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:08:15","slug":"can-a-party-be-leftist-and-zionist-israel-palestine-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=3820","title":{"rendered":"Can a party be leftist and Zionist? | Israel-Palestine conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>6 Minute, 10 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>


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Ahead of Israel\u2019s October 27 elections, Israel\u2019s Young Democrats, the youth wing of the newly formed Democrats party,\u00a0are seeking foreign allies.\u00a0They recently announced a joint campaign<\/a> with the Young Greens of Austria to support \u201cprogressive voices on the ground and work with them towards a sustainable peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another youth group described as \u201cleftist\u201d, Hamahanot Haolim (the Ascending Camps), is exploring plans to build a new kibbutz in the occupied West Bank, near Jericho.<\/p>\n

When questioned <\/a>about the impact on the Palestinian population, the group\u2019s director, Ilan Gazit, explained that since Israeli settlements are being built regardless, \u201cthe left\u201d should make sure it is Israeli \u201cleftists\u201d, not far-right settlers, who populate them. \u201cWe aren\u2019t ashamed of this, and we aren\u2019t hiding it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

These two youth movements and their foreign sympathisers appear to\u00a0treat \u201cleftist Zionism\u201d as a coherent political identity. But can a party, a movement, or an individual be both leftist and Zionist?<\/p>\n

The short answer, from a Palestinian and anti\u2011colonial perspective, is no. So why is it touted in Israel and beyond as a legitimate ideological belief? Because it is a political technology designed to shield Zionism from any critique while preserving the structures of oppression.<\/p>\n

A question with history<\/h2>\n

The question about the viability of \u201cleftist Zionism\u201d is not new. Zionism emerged as an organised Jewish nationalist movement in Europe in the 19th century. At its core was the aim of establishing a Jewish national home, an idea shaped by European nationalism, European anti-Semitism, and colonial expansion.<\/p>\n

Its early political architects advanced two connected projects: redefining Judaism as a national identity and colonising Palestine. Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jewish journalist who is seen as the founder of Zionism, was motivated not by religious zeal, as he espoused secularism, but by the growing anti-Semitism in Europe.<\/p>\n

After Herzl\u2019s death in 1904, leftist ideas entered the movement as various socialist factions rose to dominance within the World Zionist Organization and in early settler communities in Palestine itself.<\/p>\n

But these leftist elements were not driven by a genuine commitment to class-based struggle and internationalism. Rather, they used a socialist vocabulary to justify a settler-colonial nation-building project, carried out through kibbutzim, labour unions, and diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Whatever position early Zionists staked out on the political spectrum, what the movement ultimately produced \u2014 the state of Israel \u2014 was in direct contradiction with the anti-colonial, anti-racist politics the left was supposed to stand for.<\/p>\n

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly acknowledged this by adopting Resolution 3379, declaring that \u201cZionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination\u201d. The resolution was revoked in 1991, after sustained pressure from Israel and its allies and in the wake of the Soviet collapse.<\/p>\n

The debate about \u201cleftist Zionism\u201d continues till today. The issue is not whether individual Zionists can hold progressive views on particular social or economic questions. Some might.<\/p>\n

The real question is whether a political project organised around building and sustaining a state premised on Jewish supremacy through ethnic cleansing, dispossession, apartheid, and now genocide can be reconciled with the left\u2019s foundational commitments: equity, anti\u2011racism, decolonisation, and social justice for everyone.<\/p>\n

It clearly cannot.<\/p>\n

Leftist politics in Israel<\/h2>\n

When considering the historical record, it is important to note that for decades, Israel was governed by parties that would self-describe as \u201cleftist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mapai was established as a Labour Zionist party in 1930, led by David Ben-Gurion. It became the dominant force within early Zionist politics and the principal architect of the pre\u2011state and early institutions, including the Haganah, which carried out various terrorist attacks and massacres against the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Mapai governed Israel well into the 1960s, giving way to the Labour Party, which dominated Israeli politics until the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Labour Zionism spoke the language of workers\u2019 solidarity while building institutions that excluded Palestinians by design.<\/p>\n

The Histadrut, Israel\u2019s dominant trade\u2011union confederation, was founded in 1920 as an instrument<\/a> of the Zionist \u201cconquest of labour\u201d: a project designed to build Jewish settlements by systematically displacing Palestinian workers from the economy and reducing dependence on Indigenous labour. After 1948, this exclusion was institutionalised: Palestinian workers were either barred from membership outright or confined to second\u2011class status for decades, denied voting rights and meaningful representation even as they paid union fees.<\/p>\n

Today, even when on paper Palestinians should have the same rights as Jewish Israeli workers, in practice, they do not. Collective bargaining agreements in key sectors, such as construction<\/a>, are consistently not applied to them because their employment is rendered unstable, informal, and \u201ctemporary\u201d by design.\u00a0In this way, the Histadrut functions less as a defender of workers\u2019 rights and more as a key actor in reproducing a settler\u2011colonial order that segregates, exploits, and disempowers Palestinian labour.<\/p>\n

The school system set up by early Labour governments functioned as an instrument of ideological formation: forging Jewish national consciousness while erasing Palestinian presence, and recasting settlement as national redemption rather than colonisation.<\/p>\n

The kibbutz and moshav movements, the flagship institutions of Labour Zionism, were central to the project of land theft and displacement. Many kibbutzim, due to their location, served as staging grounds for Haganah operations in 1948, including the depopulation of nearby Palestinian villages, making the settlement map itself part of the operational infrastructure of the Nakba.<\/p>\n

Falling into the left-right Zionist trap<\/h2>\n

Despite the long historical record of crimes committed by Mapai and Labour governments against the Palestinians, many leftists in the West continue to fall for the \u201cleftist\u201d label within the context of Israeli politics. They appear to believe that what is happening in Palestine could be solely blamed on Israel\u2019s right-wing political forces led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

Campaigns like that of the Young Greens of Austria and Israel\u2019s Young Democrats seemingly reinforce this misguided belief. In the end, their ultimate aim is not to amplify \u201cprogressive voices\u201d or deliver a \u201cjust peace\u201d to the Palestinians, but to impose a political category \u2013 \u201cleftist Zionist\u201d \u2013 that is, in essence, incoherent and contradictory.<\/p>\n

The constant reference to a \u201cfar\u2011right Netanyahu government\u201d does real political work. It implies that a \u201cZionist left\u201d could be a credible progressive alternative, one that is capable of changing the colonial reality Palestinians live under and one that is not to blame for Israeli crimes.<\/p>\n

That framing lets the underlying structure \u2013 Israel\u2019s settler colonialism \u2013 off the hook, treating it as a policy choice of the Israeli far right specifically rather than the logic of Zionism itself.<\/p>\n

Palestinians do not need political theory to see the truth. Generations of them know, in their flesh, that there is no difference between Zionism on the left and Zionism on the right when it comes to their dispossession. The occupation did not start with Netanyahu, and a change in government will not end it.<\/p>\n

Any leftist party in Europe or beyond that wants to remain aligned with its own values has one path. It should listen to Palestinians, follow and support forces like the Green Party of England and Wales in naming Zionism for what it is: a racist, settler-colonial ideology. Not a policy to be reformed, but an ideology to be abolished.<\/p>\n

The views expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera\u2019s editorial stance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n