When you hear of the words “left-wing”, what usually comes to people’s minds are the mobilising and the empowerment of the social working class, the undercutting of the parasitic wealthy elite and the regulation of resources to benefit all people of the land.

When you hear the word “Zionism”, yes people think the creation and preservation of the “Jewish homeland”, but people also do think of the stolen land of Palestine; the ethnic cleansing of Arabs to clear the way for that “Jewish Homeland”. People also think of the many multitude of human rights violations throughout its history, that are too long to list here.

The former’s main focus is anti-exploitation on the basis of any discrimination (gender, race, religion etc). The latter is a sense of nationalism strengthened by the ideas of one’s own race and religion are the highest priority.

How does the left-wing Zionist reconcile the two opposites?

Historically, both political wings of Zionism has always been critical of eachother. Even the pre-Israel, the two main Zionist terrorist groups, Haganah (left wing) & Irgun (right wing) had their differences. And as Israel has grown in power and impunity, the narratives of Irgun has become more mainstream in the Zionist movement.

Nowadays, Left wing Zionists are never so prominent inside and outside of Israel as their right-wing counterparts. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, has generally occupied the majority in the Israeli Knesset. Abroad, Zionist groups, like AIPAC in the US or BICOM in the UK, generally have the biggest influence and voice. Their counterparts (J-Street & Yachad respectively) generally do not hold much weight, especially given christian and atheist Zionists in the West tend to support AIPAC or BICOM Left wing Zionism has dwindled in influence as Israel has got older. As a result, you always here the mainstream Zionists calling out left-wing Zionists as traitors to Israel.

The only time you hear them most is during a periodic Israeli massacre in Gaza. You will here them say “Israel has gone to far” or “this heavy aggression will does no favours for Israel.” So its not unreasonable to think that there are some Zionists that work for justice. But it will always come with the rhetoric of “Israel has a right to defend itself” or “Hamas is the problem in Gaza”. (They never talk about West Bank, because they know they have no moral leg to stand on in view of the world). Inside their rhetoric, its all about Israel. We can see a perfect example from confessed Zionist, British Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband’s recent comments on Israel’s massacre in 2014 and Geraldo Rivera on Fox News recently.

What remains to be the case, is that their moral political view only differs with the right-wing Zionists in that, all of Israel’s mass murdering, destroying of infrastructure and other inhuman acts will harm Israel’s reputation. That and apart from how domestic Israel should be governed. Israel, the occupier and coloniser is in no way to the root of the problem. They do not really care for the Palestinians.

As Zionists, their first priority is the preservation of the state of Israel. As a result, they will never speak up against the dismantling of the “Jewish State” or even a 1 state solution, whereby Arabs & Jews and their respective 3 religions can co-exist peacefully, as it was before Zionism. The left-wing ideals come second and as they advocate, feed into the benefit of Israel’s future.

As you dig deeper, you come across two camps. Some leftest Zionists call for the complete dismantling of the illegal colonies in the West Bank and consolidating what Israel already has. The other camp supports the illegal colonisation, its just they do not want the killing of innocents or the current aggressive Israeli “defensive” onslaught we see in Gaza and West Bank.

At the very most you hear them talk about establishing the 2-state solution, making peace with the Palestinians and dismantling of colonies in the West Bank. They are genuine in their call for the respect of human rights, ending of Israeli aggression and respecting International Law. They are willing to protest, lobby and get arrested for that cause, but only to an extent and that extent depends on which camp you belong in.

It seems the left-wing Zionist don’t want to see the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza but are happy with, at least the Palestinian’s denial of their right to return and at most the increasing illegal land-grabbing of Palestinian land. They don’t want see conflict in the holy land, but are willing to support the root cause of that conflict. Its not quite the leftest ideals that the Fathers of Socialism had in mind is it?

This inherent double-standard only reinforces the narrative of the special superiority of Israel. And this core belief is also what drives right-wing Zionism’s growth in Israel.

From the western political spectrum, leftist Zionism is not only hypocritical, but it is also morally paradoxical. Its an oxymoron. So how can such opposing ideological identities reconcile eachother? They can’t.

Its perhaps the reason why many left-wing Zionists cannot strike a happy medium to this moral dilemma. They either have to commit to Zionism more or leave it all together. This is also another reason why we have seen more open right-wing and even fascist views has Israel matures. Its also the very much the reason why we see ex-Zionists, like Wayne Myers leave the Zionist cause all together. The two simply cannot co-exist without moral discord.

This kind of national socialism is toxic and only creates more conflict in the world. Not more peace. Left wing Zionism is the mobilising of a people to service their own collective interest even if its at the sheer expensive of another. Ultimately, it is the mobilisation of the Jewish working class to struggle for imperialistic and self-supremacist aims. This is the heart of Zionism that cannot be morally reconciled.