Somewhere along the way, parts of the internet decided that being a liberal and supporting Israel’s right to exist are mutually exclusive positions. As if the moment a Jewish person believes in universal healthcare, labor rights, LGBTQ equality, reproductive freedom, or climate action, they are also supposed to immediately renounce the idea that the world’s only Jewish state should continue existing.

That is not only historically ignorant. It is intellectually lazy.

A lot of progressive spaces today treat “Zionist” like it is automatically synonymous with “far-right nationalist.” That framing completely erases the actual history of Zionism, which, ironically, included a huge number of socialists, labor activists, secular progressives, and left-wing Jews. Early Israeli politics were heavily shaped by labor movements, kibbutzim, trade unions, and democratic socialist ideals. You do not have to romanticize every part of Israeli history to acknowledge that reality.

More importantly, supporting Israel’s existence is not the same thing as supporting every policy of the........

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