From Socialist Roots to Scapegoat: The Tragic Irony of Zionism and the Western Left

The historical relationship between Zionism and the political Left is riddled with paradox, irony, and disturbing turns. What began as a deeply socialist, even utopian project eventually became one of the most vilified causes in modern left-wing discourse. This transformation is neither accidental nor rooted in simple political opposition; rather, it is the product of Cold War realpolitik, ideological manipulation, and a broader shift in Western political consciousness - especially concerning identity, power, and post-colonial justice.

The Zionist movement itself emerged in the late 19th century not as a right-wing colonial endeavor, but as a response to European antisemitism, pogroms, and statelessness. Many of its leading figures were Eastern European Jews steeped in Marxist and socialist thought. When Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine in the early 20th century, they didn’t set up capitalist enclaves; they built collective farms, labor unions, and a welfare-oriented civil society. The kibbutzim, the Histadrut labor federation, and institutions like the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra were all founded by socialist Jews who referred to themselves as “Palestinians” - a term that, before 1948, applied equally to Jews and Arabs living in British Mandate Palestine.

Indeed, the term “Palestinian” itself was civic and geographic rather than national in identity. Institutions such as the Palestine Post, Anglo-Palestine Bank, and Palestinian Symphony Orchestra were all Jewish-run. Arabs in the territory were typically referred to as Palestinian Arabs, while Jews were called Palestinian Jews. The strong national consciousness we now associate with Palestinians was, prior to 1948, not articulated as a coherent independence movement - especially not during the years when Gaza was under Egyptian control and the West Bank was annexed by Jordan. There was no significant push by Arab states or local Arabs to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in those territories. Instead, regional Arab regimes co-opted the Palestinian question to serve broader anti-Israel objectives. This context is crucial, as it reveals that the central issue for decades was not the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, but the very existence of Israel itself.

The Soviet Union initially supported Israel’s creation in 1947, largely because it saw in it a potential socialist ally that could break British imperial control over the Middle East. Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia even supplied arms to Jewish militias during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. However, this early support turned sharply into hostility by the early 1950s. As Israel gravitated toward the West and aligned with the United States, Stalin’s regime grew deeply suspicious of Zionism, which it began to portray as a bourgeois, nationalist, and ultimately imperialist movement. The "anti-cosmopolitan" campaign, targeting Jewish intellectuals and accusing them of Zionist disloyalty, morphed into outright antisemitic persecution. This culminated in purges, the infamous Doctors’ Plot, and a crackdown on Soviet Jewish culture, language, and religious expression.

The Soviet Union institutionalized anti-Zionism as a component of its foreign policy. This ideological stance extended far beyond its borders. Through media, education, and diplomatic channels, the USSR aggressively exported anti-Zionist propaganda to the Arab world, the Global South, and radical leftist movements in Europe and the Americas. The result was the recasting of Israel not as a small, embattled state built by Holocaust survivors and socialist pioneers, but as a colonial aggressor and symbol of Western imperialism. This shift culminated in the infamous 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which declared that “Zionism is racism” - a phrase whose rhetorical poison still lingers.

The Western Left, increasingly influenced by post-colonial theories, Marxist critiques of power, and the binary of oppressor and oppressed, absorbed this narrative. The Six-Day War in 1967 accelerated this trend, as Israel's military success and subsequent occupation of new territories made it appear powerful, expansionist, and aligned with American hegemony. Palestinians, in contrast, were recast as the quintessential victims of colonialism and displacement, evoking solidarity among leftist intellectuals, activists, and academics. Revolutionary language, once the hallmark of Zionist pioneers, was now employed by Palestinian movements such as the PLO and the PFLP, who cast themselves as Third World freedom fighters in the vein of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh.

This ideological reframing was reinforced by the growing dominance of identity politics in the West. As race, colonial history, and systemic inequality became the dominant lenses through which to view global issues, Israel came to be seen as a white, privileged state oppressing a brown, indigenous population. The fact that Israel’s population includes Jews of Middle Eastern, North African, and Ethiopian origin was conveniently ignored. So too was the fact that Jews had been indigenous to the region for millennia. The Left, once a natural ally of Jewish self-determination, began to treat Zionism as a reactionary ideology, ignoring its original progressive ideals and the existential threats that gave rise to it.

This transformation is deeply disturbing not only because of its historical inaccuracy, but because of its implications. The Soviet Union, long before 1967, planted the seeds of an ideological war that divorced Zionism from its historical roots and demonized Jewish national identity as inherently suspect. These ideas found fertile ground in Western discourse, where the memory of the Holocaust faded and simplistic narratives of colonial guilt and liberation began to dominate. The result is a tragic irony: the Left, which once saw Zionism as a liberation movement, now often treats it as a symbol of oppression - unaware, or perhaps unwilling to acknowledge, that such thinking owes much to Cold War propaganda and antisemitic distortions.

In the end, the story of Zionism and the Western Left is a cautionary tale about ideological amnesia and the dangers of absolutist moral binaries. It reveals how narratives can be weaponized, how victims can be recast as villains, and how complex histories can be reduced to propaganda slogans. It also reminds us that beneath the slogans and postures of political righteousness, there often lies a history that is far messier - and far more tragic - than we are willing to admit.