"Zionism" is a red herring

The left has stepped into a pointless rhetorical trap. It's time to step away.

States do not have a right to popular support. They are artificial institutions that humans build to make our world a better place, and when they do not serve us we should oppose them. This is certainly the standard left position on states, but only in the same sense that “it is delicious” is the standard left position on chocolate ice cream. Of course we should only support social organizations insofar as they are beneficial rather than harmful.

So it should not be particularly difficult for the international left to insist that we must oppose the state of Israel. It is a historically, structurally, and operationally ruinous institution that is visiting absolutely unacceptable levels of chaos, misery, and death upon this world. I do not know if it would be plausible to impose some kind of radical transformation upon Israel comparable to the measures imposed upon Axis powers in the wake of World War II or if the entire project of Israel must be ended and replaced with something better; this just seems like a practical question to me. But Israel, as it stands, must be opposed.