Zionism, gender identity and the politics of emotions

If you live in a 21st century Western culture, you probably know what 'gender identity' is. It's what you perceive to be your gender. 

That's right. The 21st century is a New World. Nothing is as you thought it was. 

Your gender has nothing to do with what's in your underpants. Your gender is what you emotionally feel it is.

 Feel like a woman? You have the absolute right to go to the Ladies Bathroom. Feel like a man? Ditto for the Mens Room.

Zionism today seems to work the same way.  Zionism is no longer about settling and developing the Jewish homeland, Israel. It's no longer about 'Jewish'. 

It's about you. It's about what you feel, emotionally. It's about creating a new Israel based upon your own, self-defined emotional imperatives.

For example, if you feel that the "Palestinian Cause' (Jews have stolen 'Palestinian' land) is true, you still have every right to call yourself a 'Zionist'. If you feel that some 500,000 Jews absolutely must leave 'the West Bank' because the land upon which these Jews live is 'Palestinian' land, you can still call yourself a 'Zionist'.

Why not? That's how you feel, isn't it?  Why can't you turn on Zionism and still call yourself 'Zionist'?

It's like gender identity. You can call yourself anything you want, as long as that's how you feel. You can behave any way you want, as long as that's how you feel. Your emotions control your destiny, right?

Therefore, you can identify as an anti-Israel Zionist. You can call yourself a Leftist Zionist. You can even call yourself a 'pro-Palestinian' Zionist even though each of these identifications is a contradiction-in-terms.

But there's a real problem with claiming to be an anti-Israel Zionist. You can't be a 'Zionist' (Israel is the Jewish land) and believe that Jews must leave this Jewish land because someone else says so.  Zionism and 'Palestinianism' don't go together. These two concepts (this-land-is-Jewish-by-G-d vs this-land-is-not-yours-because-Muslims-say-so) cannot occupy the same mental space at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. 

You simply cannot be Zionist and pro-Palestinian at the same time--unless you accept the proposition that Zionism, like gender identity, has everything to do with how you feel and nothing to do with history, political/biological DNA, hate or religion. 

The operative idea here is simple. Israel needs a new paradigm. The old ways don't work. Once your emotions engage in these discussions of whose-land-this-is, something magical is supposed to happen: the knowledge that enslaves you--history, religion, politics--all fall away, and anything is possible. 

There can be peace. There can be freedom. There can be justice.

The problem here, of course, is that emotion-driven thinking cannot grapple with hate, fact and consequences--the guiding realities of living in a less-than-utopian-world. Feelings don't help you understand the rule of law. They don't help you establish consistent law that keeps everyone equal under the law.  Emotions don't help you sort right from wrong. They encourage you to 'grab the moment'.

Grabbing the moment, however, is impulsive. It doesn't factor in risk or consequence. 

That's why we see teen pregnancy. It's why we see more, not less, war. 

Emotion-driven decision-making is not a prescription for peace or freedom. It certainly isn't a prescription for survival. It's the fast-track to fascism, anarchy and war.

Think about people you know who have spent their entire adult lives driven by emotions. They're not at peace. They can't be. 

The sad truth is, if you run your life (or your political beliefs) by emotions alone, you end up with nothing--no commitments, no values, no consistency, no long-term relationships and no order in your life. Naturally, if you also have a hate-filled enemy who wants to conquer you, then his commitments, values and sense of urgency will always trump your grab-the-moment mentality.

You'll end up a slave. You'll end up exactly where 21st century ideologues appear eager to take you--if only you, too, commit to the New World ideology of feelings.