tonight, I can't get out of my head the idea that all Jews must be "indigenous" to Palestine; this ridiculous, nationalistic, racist, and violent co-opting of indigenous struggles the world over to somehow justify the displacement and oppression of Palestinians.

It's pathetic to see these arguments raise their ugly heads again on twitter. It reminds me of what I have struggled with as an anti-zionist Jew: zionism has created a world where it seeks to make itself the only option for jews. What does this mean?

Zionism wants to convince itself that its doing a service to jews. That all of our "old" nations were never our homes, that we have never had a true life in diaspora, that our history begins, ends, and is centered around Israel. That without Israel, we are not jews.

Effectively, zionism has defined the Jewish Diaspora as a Diaspora of longing, of loss, and crucially, imperfection, until it is linked back with a homeland. To be content with our histories outside of 'Israel', to practice doikayt, to not seek the displacement of others...

becomes perceived violence against jews. You are told that you are internally anti-semitic, that you want to see jewish children dead, that you somehow think Jews should have just submitted to institutionalized anti-semitism.

Then, to make matters worse, zionism has taken the family & jewish community, and fragmented it in a new way. To reject Zionism, then, becomes for many jews, a rejection of family, of community, of Jewish teaching. Interaction with Zionism becomes a requirement of Jewishness.

Jewish community centers, archives, libraries, histories, books, teachers, families, friends, you name it! To unilaterally reject all support of Zionism then becomes a complete shunning from any and all access to what constructs your Jewishness.

Even though you know it hasn't always been this way, that Jewishness isn't linked to Zionism, in the community sphere, more often than not, it *has* been. Then, to stand your ground morally, to lend your life and voice as an anti-Zionist, can feel like you roll towards loss.

In the Zionist worldview, particularly the Zionist worldview claiming "indigeneity" to Palestine, life in diaspora was a temporary stage of teleological return to land "owed to Jews", instead of a living, valid, and permanent stage of Jewish life.

So much is lost in this reduction. So much is being lost. I will never stop being an anti-zionist. But I am fine with admitting openly, because of how zionism has been institutionalized into jewish life, it can feel more than alienating. It can feel like grief.

This thread was not the most coherent thing in the world, but at the end of the day, I am just trying to explain how, for Zionism to truly end as a viable political ideology, it must be separated from jewishness. That requires more anti-zionist jewish voices.