The murderous attack on a kosher grocery store in Paris, write the editors of Commentary, “was the culmination of a decade of crisis” for French Jewry. The prevalence of anti-Semitism on the French right and left as well as among its Muslim population, the increasing threats to the physical safety of French Jews, and the inability or unwillingness of the French government to do anything about these problems show that the need for a Jewish state is as great as ever. But the Jewish state is itself under constant attack, not only from its enemies but also from Diaspora Jews voicing disappointment with it and seeking to undermine Zionism from within:
Zionism was not a utopian vision. It was a program, and remains a program—the means by which Jewry can and will survive into its fourth millennium. It is about providing Jews with a safe haven in the world and allowing them to exercise rights they have been denied almost everywhere on earth where they have been governed by others—save the astonishing exception of the United States. It is about letting Jews be. . . .
And yet, to some of Israel’s professed supporters, this is controversial. . . . These are people who have replaced practical Zionism with what might be called “conditional Zionism.” For the conditional Zionists, Israel was once the port of call for Jews adrift. Now, they say, the storm is over and the threat to Jewry comes more from what they see as the calamity that the storm has wreaked on the port. . . .
In their own words and actions, conditional Zionists implicitly acknowledge that the end of the need for practical Zionism is a necessary prerequisite for their own brand of Zionism—one in which left-leaning American Jews can use the state of Israel as their moral playground.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-existential-necessity-of-zionism-after-paris-a-commentary-editorial/