The Successes and Failures of Zionism
JVL Introduction
This essay poses Zionism as a failed attempt to solve the existential crisis of Judaism. It explores works of two Zionist Israeli scholars. The first by Adin Steinsaltz was written in 1959; the second by Yeshayahu Leibowitz was started before the 1967 six-day war and finished after it.
Both essays are inward looking towards problems for Jews and the ‘Arab question’, not addressed by Steinsaltz, is only addressed by Leibowitz as a problem for Jews and not for Palestinians. However the inherent problems posed by Zionism as a state-building enterprise for Judaism as a religion cannot be avoided. Judaism is invoked to justify the Zionist project rather than Zionism being a resolution of Jewish problems of existence.
This implies that Israel’s descent into no more than an authoritarian and racist fascist which we see currently is no accident, it is inherent in the paradox of Zionism.
Leibowitz states it as, “The essence of religion [is] to be in opposition to the State, in opposition to any State; religion is the eternal criticism of the State, of nationalism, of sovereignty, of rulers….”
This article was originally published by Shaul's Substack on Wed 12 Aug 2026. Read the original here.
The Successes and Failures of Zionism: Adin Steinsaltz and Yeshayahu Leibowitzַ (for JD and IK)
“I do not worship the sacred cow of ‘national unity’. I know nothing of value that was achieved by unity.” Yeshayahu Leibowitz
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The problem with Shaul Magid is that he doesn’t understand Zionism and therefore his critiques of Steinsaltz and Leibowitz are flawed from the start.
Zionism is what Israel has become, in all its ugliness and hideous barbarities. Both writers fail to understand that the Jewish State project would also change Judaism, That is critical to any analysis of the relationship between Judaism and Zionism. It is no accident that the most genocidal and racist rhetoric come from the religious today.
Steinsaltz is simply wrong when he say that Zionism is fundamentally a secular movement that placed Jewish nationalism on a secular foundation, a nationalism just like other nations.
The whole claim to Palestine was based on god’s promise, how can that be secular? Jewish nationalism wasn’t like any nationalism for the simple reason that there was no Jewish nation. Hence Zionism could not help but be racist and ethno-nationalist in its project. To therefore call it ‘anti-Judaism’ is simply absurd.
Leibowitz was a brilliant fellow but he was also wrong and when he said ‘The danger will increase if after a generation the twelve percent [of Arabs] becomes twenty percent, and in two generations a third of the population, if not more.’ he was being racist.
Of course he foresaw what would happen with the occupation and called it out but he didn’t question the very basis of the ‘Jewish’ state.
Leibowitz understood that the desire for more and more land was a form of idolatory and spoke up against it. He was Zionist who didn’t understand the settler colonial nature of Israel.
Magid on the other hand posits a Zionism which has not and will not exist. Hence his talk about Zionism’s ‘misuse, its misappropriation, its abuse, and its misdirected goals.’
The goals of the Zionist settlers were clear from the beginning – a land without a people for a people without a land. All else flowed from that. Magid plays with words without ever once understanding the substance of what Zionism is.
Is religion in opposition to the state? I think not. It is part of state and national identity by the administration of its ideology.
I think zionism ideology under the guise of judaism was the goal to establish the state. Many working class jews from Europe bought into that ideology. Part based on fear and the interpretation of jewish holy text and yet the ideology of ‘building’ a dream state persecution free.
I think what has been proven is an ultra fascist national states can be possible under the guise of religious interpretation and /or historical abuses of one group against another.
In so doing this it needs to cleanse the indigenous population and zionism does this well by using 3 strong components in its armoury –
1. religious text
2. holocaust
It also enables a nationalism built on whatever ‘new history’ it chooses and is fed into its education system as ‘true history’.
These enable the atrocities we see today against indigenous Palestinians.