Yair Lapid’s recent slip of the tongue on Nadav Perry’s podcast, when he said, “You know I’m a Zionist and a patriot, not a leftist,” reflects something deeper in Israeli public life: an almost Pavlovian demand from leftists to prove their Zionism, as if it were not self-evident. I believe that Lapid himself does not share this perception, and he clarified as much, but it is pervasive.

This burden of proof is not placed on right-wingers like Bezalel Smotrich, May Golan, or Itamar Ben Gvir, but all of us on the left are required or feel obligated to mention our military service and contribution to the state as a kind of “proof” of our Zionism.

I also sometimes get caught in this trap. In media interviews, I find myself mentioning that I was an officer, that I served in Lebanon, and that my son served there in the ongoing war. Such behavior is how the Israeli left has learned, over the years, that to be given a voice, you must first prove that you are a patriot, and only then might your views be heard.

This conditioned reflex is the result of many years of delegitimization of the Israeli left. Netanyahu’s governments, over the years, did not invent the method, but they refined it and turned it into an often used political tool. Leftists are portrayed as weak and disloyal, prioritizing the rest of the world over their state. Thus, a distorted situation was created where the camp that continues to fight........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)