Zionism Didn't Go Wrong, It Was Always Built This Way -- Gideon Levy in Haaretz
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Sid Shniad
May 8, 2026, 9:02:33 PM (2 days ago) May 8
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Haaretz May 06 2026
Zionism Didn't Go Wrong, It Was Always Built This Way
Omer Bartov at the launch of his new book, "Israel: What Went Wrong?"
Haaretz May 06 2026
Zionism Didn't Go Wrong, It Was Always Built This Way
Omer Bartov at the launch of his new book, "Israel: What Went Wrong?"
on April 21 near Boston. Credit: Arthur Mansavage
Zionism, at its base, is the belief in Jewish supremacy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and just like any other ideology that subscribes to racial, national or religious supremacy, it is illegitimate
Gideon Levy
It's not easy being Israeli and anti-Zionist. It's almost impossible. That combination is perceived in Israel as treason, heresy, lacking any legitimacy. This has been the case since the good, old Mapai-era Israel, long before the dark days of Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Not since the Soviet Union has there been another state with such an exclusionary and rapacious ideology, an ideology that prohibited any doubts or denial, like the Zionist State of Israel. Even being an anti-Zionist exile is not easy, especially for a prince of the Zionist aristocracy.
Omer Bartov is a renowned Israeli American historian, a genocide researcher and an expert on the Holocaust who teaches at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island. After deliberating for two years, Bartov reached the conclusion that Israel did in fact perpetrate a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
He published two op-eds that reflected the process he went through regarding the label of genocide in The New York Times, evoking reactions across the globe. One of the books written by his author and journalist father, Hanoch Bartov, is called "Ligdol Ulikhtov Be'Eretz Yisrael" ("To grow up in and to write in the Land of Israel"). Omer Bartov's most recent book is "Israel: What Went Wrong?" – the entire journey, in a nutshell.
On the occasion of the book's release, Bartov gave an interview to Haaretz in which he hastened to declare that he is not anti-Zionist, so painful and difficult is such an admission. "I grew up in a Zionist home. It was self-evident to me that Israel was my place," he said, by way of explaining why he is not "anti." But he left this home decades ago, and his statements make one wonder about his concerns, or perhaps his shame, over admitting that he is anti-Zionist, which ostensibly still lacks legitimacy.
Mother of a 15-year-old Palestinian who was killed by Israeli security forces
Bartov says that Zionism is bound to disappear, that Israel cannot exist as a normal state under this ideology and that if Zionism could lead to genocide in Gaza, it can no longer hold as an ideology. It is difficult to come up with any assertions that are more courageous and correct – or more anti-Zionist – than these.
If so, why is Bartov reluctant to call himself anti-Zionist? There is no better evidence than this for the indoctrination embedded deep in the hearts of every Jew that has grown up here. An expatriate Israeli intellectual, a critical and sharp one, does not dare define himself as anti-Zionist even though his arguments attest that he is one.
It's imperative to break this prohibition. An Israeli, even an Israeli exile, is permitted to be anti-Zionist and still be legitimate. Zionism is an ideology that can be questioned, like any other ideology. At its base is the belief in Jewish supremacy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and just like any other ideology that subscribes to racial, national or religious supremacy, it is illegitimate.
Bartov's approach is different than the anti-Zionist trends now flourishing around the world. He is convinced that something went wrong in the pure and innocent country that used to be his, and that something got twisted in its pure Zionist ideology. There was an ideology that led to the establishment of a highly moral state, and suddenly, something went wrong. This statement may perhaps ease the agonies of Bartov's painful farewell to Zionism, but it's doubtful that it is the truth.
Bartov says he's not a believer in the kind of history where, in the end, you say, "We always knew it would turn out this way." But it began this way, after all. The continuation was not inevitable, but for it to be different, there had to be a correction, and that never happened.
Zionism turned its back on the indigenous population that lived in Palestine from its early days – ever since the days of "the conquest of labor," calling for Jews to work in agriculture and industry – the first Zionist dispossession. Long before the Arab riots of 1929 and the Holocaust, the movement sought to dispossess and expel the local population.
Then, as now; Yigal Allon, as Bezalel Smotrich. That was the beginning, and it was tainted. Bartov, Zionism did not become something else; it was always like that. I wish it had become something different. Perhaps it is not yet too late.
Zionism, at its base, is the belief in Jewish supremacy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and just like any other ideology that subscribes to racial, national or religious supremacy, it is illegitimate
Gideon Levy
It's not easy being Israeli and anti-Zionist. It's almost impossible. That combination is perceived in Israel as treason, heresy, lacking any legitimacy. This has been the case since the good, old Mapai-era Israel, long before the dark days of Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Not since the Soviet Union has there been another state with such an exclusionary and rapacious ideology, an ideology that prohibited any doubts or denial, like the Zionist State of Israel. Even being an anti-Zionist exile is not easy, especially for a prince of the Zionist aristocracy.
Omer Bartov is a renowned Israeli American historian, a genocide researcher and an expert on the Holocaust who teaches at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island. After deliberating for two years, Bartov reached the conclusion that Israel did in fact perpetrate a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
He published two op-eds that reflected the process he went through regarding the label of genocide in The New York Times, evoking reactions across the globe. One of the books written by his author and journalist father, Hanoch Bartov, is called "Ligdol Ulikhtov Be'Eretz Yisrael" ("To grow up in and to write in the Land of Israel"). Omer Bartov's most recent book is "Israel: What Went Wrong?" – the entire journey, in a nutshell.
On the occasion of the book's release, Bartov gave an interview to Haaretz in which he hastened to declare that he is not anti-Zionist, so painful and difficult is such an admission. "I grew up in a Zionist home. It was self-evident to me that Israel was my place," he said, by way of explaining why he is not "anti." But he left this home decades ago, and his statements make one wonder about his concerns, or perhaps his shame, over admitting that he is anti-Zionist, which ostensibly still lacks legitimacy.
Mother of a 15-year-old Palestinian who was killed by Israeli security forces
during a military raid carries her son's body during his funeral, in the
al-Dheisheh refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem,
in March. Credit: AFP/HAZEM BADER
Bartov says that Zionism is bound to disappear, that Israel cannot exist as a normal state under this ideology and that if Zionism could lead to genocide in Gaza, it can no longer hold as an ideology. It is difficult to come up with any assertions that are more courageous and correct – or more anti-Zionist – than these.
If so, why is Bartov reluctant to call himself anti-Zionist? There is no better evidence than this for the indoctrination embedded deep in the hearts of every Jew that has grown up here. An expatriate Israeli intellectual, a critical and sharp one, does not dare define himself as anti-Zionist even though his arguments attest that he is one.
It's imperative to break this prohibition. An Israeli, even an Israeli exile, is permitted to be anti-Zionist and still be legitimate. Zionism is an ideology that can be questioned, like any other ideology. At its base is the belief in Jewish supremacy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and just like any other ideology that subscribes to racial, national or religious supremacy, it is illegitimate.
Bartov's approach is different than the anti-Zionist trends now flourishing around the world. He is convinced that something went wrong in the pure and innocent country that used to be his, and that something got twisted in its pure Zionist ideology. There was an ideology that led to the establishment of a highly moral state, and suddenly, something went wrong. This statement may perhaps ease the agonies of Bartov's painful farewell to Zionism, but it's doubtful that it is the truth.
Bartov says he's not a believer in the kind of history where, in the end, you say, "We always knew it would turn out this way." But it began this way, after all. The continuation was not inevitable, but for it to be different, there had to be a correction, and that never happened.
Zionism turned its back on the indigenous population that lived in Palestine from its early days – ever since the days of "the conquest of labor," calling for Jews to work in agriculture and industry – the first Zionist dispossession. Long before the Arab riots of 1929 and the Holocaust, the movement sought to dispossess and expel the local population.
Then, as now; Yigal Allon, as Bezalel Smotrich. That was the beginning, and it was tainted. Bartov, Zionism did not become something else; it was always like that. I wish it had become something different. Perhaps it is not yet too late.
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