There is no ‘liberal’ Zionism: Polanski criticised over fluffed LBC interview

Green leader Zack Polanski is being heavily criticised over an interview with LBC’s Iain Dale. Polanski was asked if Zionism – the explicitly colonialist ideology of the settler-state of Israel – was racist. He insisted that at its origin, it was not racist. Rather, he argued, it was Benjamin Netanyahu’s version of Zionism which was.

This is flat wrong. But it’s also a teachable moment. Polanski’s critics were very frank about why. As Saul Staniforth pointed out:

It {Zionism] was always racist:

Polanski faces opposition

He wasn’t alone in saying Polanski was incorrect. As author Shanice McBean argued, Zionism is “inherently racist” and a form of ethnic supremacy:

McBean said:

We also need to get better at separating the idea of a practice, or an ideology, or a structure being racist from the deliberately individualising, personalising, and moralising accusation of being “a racist”.

Adding:

It doesn’t follow that everyone who participates in a racist structure, or society, or ideology is “a racist”. We are all part of a racist global political economy, for example, where Black and brown people are hyper exploited. Doesn’t make every Westerner “a racist”.

Your Party MP Zarah Sultana also commented on Zionism, thought she did not directly address Polanski. Sultana, never one to mince words about imperialism, urged people to “speak plainly”:

Zionism is racism, and it has been since its foundation.

She called for a single democratic Palestinian state:

There is no ‘liberal’ Zionism

Lawyer Francis Awaritefe weighed in too. He urged Polanski to read more deeply about the founding principles of the Zionist movement:

Rashid Khalidi’s seminal The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine is available free here, for anyone – including Polanski – who may wish to brush up.

And another X user said the idea that Zionism only became racist recently – under Netanyahu – missed basic but very important facts about the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land over long decades:

Zionism has always been an ethno-supremacist ideology

His comments have left people asking serious questions. Polanski is a left-wing party leader in a time of genocide. On many occasions, he has moved people with the vision he’s offering. And on the whole he has appeared reasonably solid on Palestine.

But his comments on LBC let him down and they need to be clarified. Liberal Zionism – which is the position he appeared to be expressing on LBC – is still Zionism. And it’s a misnomer. One cannot be a ‘liberal’ ethno-nationalist. It may be that Polanski is trying to keep both the old centrist base of the Green Party and its newer socialist members on side.

But this is a point of principle.

The core problem of Zionism is not that it has somehow lately been captured by Israeli fascists. The problem is not Netanyahu or any other individual. The problem is that from its very inception Zionism was a racist and settler colonial program. The natural end point of such a project is genocide. As we are seeing before our eyes.

We must have the courage and knowledge to confront that truth head-on. And we expect anybody who wants to be a leader on the left to do the same.

Featured image via X