Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Rightists Award Student Who Persecuted 'Left-Wing' Teacher [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)So sorry for the late reply.
If I may I think perhaps you're the one being a little confused. I understand that a person can hold to liberal ideals in general, but still also be a Zionist. Humans are complicated critters, and pretty much one of us could pass an ideological purity test 100% - Christopher Hitchens for example, all round liberal guy... except for when it came to blowing up Muslims, then he was all for the crazy batshit stuff.
So, no, I totally get that someone like say, our buddy David there can have some liberal ideas (I have yet to figure out what his are, but for an example.) and still thump on about being a Zionist. That's clear, no confusion on my part (though I of course suspect some on theirs.)
My argument is that Zionism itself is an inherently illiberal ideology. At least, Zionism as is meaningful to any of the discussion we have here - political Zionism as shown by the state of Israel and its supporters. I'm fully aware that there are many other "varieties" out there but they are, for the most part irrelevant to the current discourse.
So when I ask someone who proclaims themselves to be a "liberal Zionists" what the difference is, I'm not asking about their position on marriage equality, drug legalization, the death penalty, etc. I'm asking them what makes their Zionism different from the Zionism on "the right"? How is the ideology itself different? I frankly couldn't give a shit less if