Examining the Contradiction: Can a Political Movement Be Both Leftist and Zionist?

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin listens with other delegates at a Labor party convention in Tel Aviv on February 23, 1977. Ahead of Israel’s October 27 elections, Israel’s Young Democrats, the youth wing of the newly formed Democrats party, are seeking foreign allies. They recently announced a joint campaign with the Young Greens of Austria to support progressive voices on the ground and work towards a sustainable peace.

Meanwhile, another youth group described as leftist, Hamahanot Haolim, is exploring plans to build a new kibbutz in the occupied West Bank, near Jericho. When questioned about the impact on the Palestinian population, the group’s director, Ilan Gazit, explained that since Israeli settlements are being built regardless, the left should make sure it is Israeli leftists, not far-right settlers, who populate them.

These two youth movements and their foreign sympathisers appear to treat leftist Zionism as a coherent political identity. But can a party, a movement, or an individual be both leftist and Zionist? The short answer, from a Palestinian and anti-colonial perspective, is no. So why is it touted in Israel and beyond as a legitimate ideological belief? Because it is a political technology designed to shield Zionism from any critique while preserving the structures of oppression.

The question about the viability of leftist Zionism is not new. Zionism emerged as an organised Jewish nationalist movement in Europe in the 19th century, with the core aim of establishing a Jewish national home, an idea shaped by European nationalism, European anti-Semitism, and colonial expansion.

Its early political architects advanced two connected projects: redefining Judaism as a national identity and colonising Palestine. Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jewish journalist who is seen as the founder of Zionism, was motivated by the growing anti-Semitism in Europe. After Herzl’s death in 1904, leftist ideas entered the movement as various socialist factions rose to dominance within the World Zionist Organization and in early settler communities in Palestine itself.

However, these leftist elements used a socialist vocabulary to justify a settler-colonial nation-building project carried out through kibbutzim, labour unions, and diplomacy. Ultimately, the state of Israel produced by the movement was in direct contradiction with the anti-colonial, anti-racist politics the left was supposed to stand for. In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly acknowledged this by adopting Resolution 3379, declaring that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination, though the resolution was revoked in 1991.

For decades, Israel was governed by parties that self-described as leftist. Mapai was established as a Labour Zionist party in 1930, led by David Ben-Gurion, and became a dominant force within early Zionist politics, including the Haganah, which carried out various attacks and massacres against Palestinians. Mapai governed Israel well into the 1960s, giving way to the Labour Party, which dominated Israeli politics until the 1990s.

The Histadrut, Israel’s dominant trade-union confederation, was founded in 1920 as an instrument of the Zionist conquest of labour, designed to build Jewish settlements by systematically displacing Palestinian workers from the economy. The school system, kibbutz, and moshav movements were also central to the project of land theft and displacement.

Despite this historical record, many leftists in the West continue to fall for the leftist label within Israeli politics, blaming what is happening solely on Israel’s right-wing political forces led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Campaigns like that of the Young Greens of Austria and Israel’s Young Democrats reinforce this misguided belief, letting Israel’s underlying structure of settler colonialism off the hook.

Any leftist party in Europe or beyond that wants to remain aligned with its own values has one path: to listen to Palestinians, follow and support forces like the Green Party of England and Wales, and name Zionism for what it is—a racist, settler-colonial ideology to be abolished rather than a policy to be reformed.