In the aftermath of the Israeli elections, American-based Progressive Zionists need to do some deep soul-searching about the viability of their enterprise. Within Israel the left—with whom Progressive Zionists are aligned–is as far, if not farther, from political power as ever, with no real chance of obtaining it in anything like the foreseeable future. Only an existential threat to the state caused by right-wing Zionist overreach seems likely to change that, and perhaps even then only for as long as it takes for the crisis to resolve itself.

As a social movement, it also has reached a dead-end. Yes, we all read and appreciate the work ARZA does within the country and the gradual increase of Reform and Conservative congregations. But the Haredi numbers grow faster and the grip of Orthodoxy on marriage and divorce, among other areas, remains intact. And despite the hard work of Women of the Wall, women still have virtually no meaningful access to the Kotel. Just as there seems no hopeful future politically for Progressive Zionism, there does not seem any path to meaningful social change either.

The problem for Progressive Zionism isn’t just the failure of its political and social agenda on the ground in Israel. The problem goes much deeper. Zionism like any form of nationalism inevitably espouses a position of loyalty to the state—after all creating the Israeli state was THE historical goal of Zionists of all stripes and defending that state against its enemies remains a central aim of all Zionists; it could hardly be otherwise.

Like all nationalisms, however, this means that the moral/ethical status of Zionism depends on the nature of the state that it supports. It is one thing to be a nationalist supporter of a state that does not dominate others who are not part of its political community. It is another thing entirely to support unconditionally a state that maintains dominance over another community through military force, implicit or explicit. Inevitably; binding yourself to such a state means tolerating or even justifying acts that one would not otherwise justify. While this is not a problem at all unique to Zionism, the 50+ years of the occupation, a classic example of domination maintained through force, means that the problem is particularly acute for Zionism today.

So far mainstream Progressive Zionists, and here I have in mind Eric Yoffie in particular[1], have opted for unconditional support of the Israeli state, even as they oppose some of its policies. Aside from the inevitable political weakness of this stance—why should anyone listen to your criticism and advice if you won’t walk away from the state they control no matter what it does—it is ethically fraught. Yoffie does not seem to understand or recognize that unconditional support for the Israeli state in the end makes you complicit in its actions, good, bad and indifferent. In Israel’s current historical circumstance the odds do not favor the good outweighing the bad.

It also leads him to attack people who otherwise might be more properly and wisely seen as allies. We can see this in Yoffie’s lack of understanding and openness to the young people in IfNotNow and similar groups that challenge the status quo of Jewish opinion in the United States.

The crisis of Progressive Zionism is hardly unique. American history is rife with social and political movements that failed and then reinvented themselves, abolitionism being perhaps the best known. A crisis, in other words, does not mean simply the end of the road. It also means an opportunity to make new choices, to forge a new path. Movements that do this, as did the abolitionists in the 1830s, can go on to great success. Movements that do not do this tend to recede into impotence and irrelevance for decades as for example, the labor movement did from about the 1880s until the New Deal. At this critical moment, which path will Progressive Zionists choose?

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[1] The articles I am referring to here originally appeared in Haaretz online in March/April 2019. I do not have a subscription to the magazine and thus cannot provide the precise citations to the articles where he discusses his unconditional support for Israel or his attitude towards IfNotNow. But they should not be hard to find if one has subscribed.