Remarking on the attenuated connection of many American Jews to Judaism and the Jewish people, and the difficulties of maintaining a sense of Jewish vibrancy for any but the devout, Gil Troy argues that Zionism itself can be an invigorating and unifying force for American Jewry. Israel’s need for allies in the diaspora, Troy writes, “continues to offer nonreligious American Jews a passionate Jewish cause, a defining Jewish mission in their lives.” Indeed, Zionism can imbue them with feelings of nationalism of the beneficial kind:

Last Friday, the Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz announced the designation of six Palestinian organizations as terrorist groups due to their deep entanglements with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been committing murderous attacks since 1968. Both the EU and several European states have provided funds to the recently proscribed organizations. A decade ago, pro-Israel activists even supplied the European Union with information, for a long time ignored, about the links between these groups and the PFLP. Members of one group—the Union of Agricultural Work Committees—murdered the seventeen-year-old Rina Shnerb in 2019. Jonathan Tobin writes: