How to Argue With a Zionist
Arguing with a Zionist is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. But there is a way to win the debate. Here’s how.
Over the past 15 months I have engaged with some pretty radical, persistent and terminally annoying Zionists in arguments that have, over time, become tediously predictable and inane.
I have developed a little playbook to counter what are inavriably the same tired and bankrupt “arguments’` that Zionists raise in defense of the indefensible.
I want to share these “tips and tricks” with you.
Part 1: The framing of the narrative
First, let’s look at the overall position from which Zionists operate. This is, of course, one of VICTIMHOOD. The Jews are the perpetual victims, oppressed, persecuted and murdered all down through the ages.
I do not deny that there have been countless pogroms, expulsions, and even genocides perpetrated against the Jews over the centuries, however I do maintain that this history has little bearing on the position that Jews occupy in the global power structure today.
The Jews, in fact, should be commended and respected for the tremendous power that they wield — despite being only a small minority of the population.
Jews “punch above their weight” in terms of power and influence
In my own country, the United States, Jews comprise slightly over 2% of the population, yet they occupy a majority of the most powerful positions in our government. In fact, Jews (all of whom are Zionists) hold every major position in the Biden cabinet except that of Secretary of Defense.
And where Zionists do not directly occupy governmental positions of power, they control other positions through a network of political donor organisations who can literally “make or break” any political candidate in the US.
Groups such as the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the United Democracy Project (UDP) are just a few of the pro-Israel groups lobbying politicians and other influential organisations to promote the Zionist agenda.
AIPAC, for example, spent over $100 million to influence elections in the US in 2024.
The much touted “Israel Lobby” is hard at work outside the US as well. In the United Kingdom and European Union, for example, similar groups are also spending lavishly to elect and then influence politicians to pass laws favourable to Israel, and to approve arms shipments to Israel.
From “milk and honey” to “arms and money”
In Exodus 3:8, God says to Moses, “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…”
Modern day Israel, however, is a land “flowing with arms and money”. Israel collects billions of dollars in “aid” from the United States and other Western nations, and it boasts the latest and greatest war technology, from brand new F-35s to Apache gunships — not to mention the “bunker buster” bombs and missiles it is using on refugee tents in Gaza.
In all, the United States has given Israel more than $260 billion in combined military and economic aid since World War II, plus about $10 billion more in contributions for missile defense systems like the Iron Dome.
Israel’s nuclear weapons
Israel’s nuclear arsenal is the biggest “open secret” in the world. Everyone knows they have them, but officially they do not exist. This is because Israel does not want their nukes — and the nuclear facility at Dimona that makes them — to be subject to IAEA inspection.
Nonetheless, it is widely known that Israel possesses nukes, and for the past 40 years, estimates of the arsenal range from between 100 to 200 nuclear weapons, which can be deployed if Israel feels “existentially” threatened. Israel‘s so-called “Samson Option” is their policy of turning the entire Middle East into a radioactive wasteland rather than let their enemies win. Although not officially acknowledged, the Samson Option exists, and is even studied at West Point.
So do not let any Zionist claim to be a victim. Israel is secure, with one of the largest militaries in the world, lavishly funded and armed by the US, guarded by the Iron Dome missile shield and secured by a strategic nuclear deterrent.
Part 2: Common lines of attack
This is where I will address the all-too-predictable Zionist attack vectors and how to defeat them.
First, however, you need to gird yourself for battle.
Don’t get shocked by the vulgar rhetoric
If you engage with Zionists, be prepared for the most disgusting, shocking and “colourful” personal insults and ad hominem attacks. Zionists like to use the most shocking language possible in order to upset their opponent, distract them and possibly cause them to say insulting things in return — insults that they can then complain about.
This is because shocking, lurid and disgusting language is actually an important part of the Zionist playbook.
You probably know about how the Israeli “authorities” — IDF, police, first responders and NGOs — described in shocking detail the most abjectly barbaric scenes from October 7:
Burned babies; beheaded babies; babies hung from clotheslines; babies cut out of their mothers’ wombs;
Dismembered children; children killed in front of their parents;
Women whose breasts were cut off and tossed around like footballs; women who were genitally mutilated
Women who were raped, gang-raped and stabbed — even while being raped
Of course, NONE OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED. Indeed, as I have documented in my article, “Can No One Tell Me the Name of an Israeli Woman Who Was Raped by Hamas on 10/7?”, not one woman was raped by Hamas on October 7.
Now, some Zionists may respond and name Israeli women such as Amit Soussana, who claim to have been sexually attacked while they were in captivity, but that is quite a different matter.
No Zionist will want to get into a discussion about raping prisoners, because Israel will look very bad in such a discussion - since they have now legalised the raping of non-Jewish prisoners in Israeli detention.
The fact is: the Israeli police and civil authorities have done exhaustive research, and they have found NO EVIDENCE of a single woman being raped, molested, or mutilated by Hamas or any of the other Palestinian factions during the attacks of October 7, 2023.
But that was not the point. The purpose of relating the most disgusting, blood-curdling and barbaric stories to the Western media was to SHOCK and DISMAY. The many people who related their “eyewitness” accounts never bothered to file a report or talk to police. It was all just a show, designed to further the purpose of hasbara — Israeli propaganda.
That propaganda was designed to portray Hamas as barbarians, so as to justify the genocidal onslaught that Israel unleashed on the civilian population of Gaza.
So — when you engage with a Zionist, be prepared to have them inject all sorts of lurid asides into the dialogue: claiming your mother and/or grandmother was a whore, that you yourself are a moron, a bastard (or worse); that your family are mongoloids or cockroaches (or worse), and so on.
You get the idea.
Here is an example of perverted vulgarity from an anonymous Zionist who was arguing with me on Substack:
“Then there is you. Lecturing about who belongs where using rules you don’t apply to yourself. Remember, it was your grandmother who gave blowjobs and spread her legs for strangers in an alley in her native shithole village hoping to make enough money to book passage on a ship to America. your whore grammy gives you the right to call yourself a Yankee and lecture others? Hilarious.”
Don’t fall for the bait. Keep the dialogue civil on your end. Refer to them by name, or if you do not know their name, call them “Mr./Ms. Zionist”. Do not descend to their level: remember, these are people who consider it a “hallowed tradition” to spit on priests and nuns.
And don’t be surprised or put off if your Zionist opponent introduces the subject of rape — and probably in the most inappropriate way. We all know how the Israelis are obsessed and fixated with rape.
So let us now address some of the more common Zionist talking points. Here are seven of them:
1: “There is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians”
This is a common attack line used by Zionists to delegitimise the cause of the Palestinians. Zionists hate to acknowledge that there is such a thing as Palestine, or a people called Palestinians, because that would mean (1) acknowledging that they stole the land from the Palestinians, and (2) lending legitimacy to the struggle for a Palestinian state.
The origin of this argument dates back to none other than Golda Mabovitch, a Ukrainian Jew from Kiev who came to Israel, changed her name to “Golda Meir”, and eventually served as Israel’s fourth Prime Minister. She famously told The Sunday Times in an interview:
“There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state?”
Many Zionists even use Mabovitch’s exact words. Of course, there are several ways to dismiss this argument.
First, there is the “every accusation is a confession” argument. Zionists always accuse others of being that which they are themselves. The Irish writer Philip Ó Ceallaigh gave a succinctly potent couterargument to point this out:
“Of course, 100 years ago there was no such thing as an Israeli either. The “Israeli” and “Palestinian” nations have come into being simultaneously, and in conflict. The assertion of one is often formulated as the denial of the other.”
Another way to argue is to shoot back:
Would you say that there was no Ukraine and no Ukrainians prior to 1991? Or that there was no Ireland and no Irish people prior to 1921?
Was there no India, no Pakistan, no Indians, no Pakistanis prior to 1947?
No Bangladesh or Bangladeshis prior to 1971?
And so on …
2. “Hamas are terrorists”
This Zionist trope often relies on the “mass rape” and “baby beheading” fantasies that I described above. If a Zionist tries to use these narratives, feel free to reference my article pointing out that no rape happened on October 7, and the only baby who died was one 10 month old who was accidentally shot through a door.
The fact is that Hamas is NOT a terrorist organisation, They are a liberation movement for Palestine. The name “Hamas” is actually an Arabic acronym that stands for “Islamic Resistance Movement”. Zionists hate for anyone to know this, though, because the very name prompts the question: what are they resisting?
The answer is that they are resisting the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, which is their right under the Geneva Convention of 1949. Indeed, the goals of Hamas are very specific, and laid out in their 2017 Charter, which specifies that it is not at war with the Jewish people, but rather only with the ~”Zionist entity” called Israel.
Zionists will try to paint Hamas with the broad brush of terrorism, but the organisation is much more comprehensive. There is a Hamas political organisation, under which is an armed wing called the al-Qassam Brigades. It is al-Qassam who organised and executed the attacks on October 7, and some believe that the political leadership of Hamas may not have even known of the planned operation.
In 1997, political scientists Ilana Kass and Bard O’Neill described Hamas’s relationship with the al-Qassam Brigades as “reminiscent of Sinn Féin’s relationship to the IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army)”.
Most countries recognise this split, and therefore do not designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation, as the United States and Israel do. Other countries, like Australia, the European Union, Egypt , New Zealand and the UK have designated only the al-Qassam Brigades as a terrorist organisation.
A report (PDF) prepared for the Australian Parliament explains the distinction:
“Hamas as an organisation has distinct political and military wings. The military wing is also known as the Executive Force. The Brigades are an armed element of the military wing and operate independently of the other sections of Hamas. They are divided into a number of independent and specialised cells. While the Brigades are an integral part of Hamas, they also operate independently and at times at odds with Hamas’ stated aims.”
Keep in mind that it is critical for Zionists to condemn all of Hamas as a terrorist group. This is so the Israelis cannot be expected to negotiate any sort of peace treaty or an eventual two state solution with Hamas, like Sinn Féin negotiated the peace treaty in Northern Ireland.
This is also so that the Zionists can depict Hamas as an “international” terror group like Al Qaeda or ISIS, one which threatens not just Israel but the West in general. This is a completely false narrative, however it serves two hasbara purposes:
(1) it supports Israel’s assertion that they are “defending Western civilisation” against a barbaric horde of international terrorists, and
(2) it obfuscates the reality that Hamas are a “resistance movement” whose soul purpose is to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation.
I have also written an informative article about this subject, entitled, “Why I Refuse to Condemn Hamas”.
3. “Gazans hate living under Hamas”
This is a tricky argument in which the Zionist may even appear to be sympathetic towards the Palestinians. This line of reasoning is similar to that of the abusive spouse who tells his victim, “look what you made me do”. It pretends that the goal of the current conflict is NOT genocide or ethnic cleansing, but merely to “free the Palestinian people from Hamas”.
The Zionist will even argue that they want the best for the Palestinians, Israel is doing the Palestinians a favour by “eliminating Hamas”.
This is 100% pure poppycock. Hamas is revered and respected among Palestinians, and their popularity is growing by leaps and bounds in spite of — or perhaps even because of — the genocidal onslaught.
Indeed, as an Associated Press report showed in December: “Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign”.
A more recent survey from the summer showed continuing strong support for Hamas, which is still twice as popular as Fatah, the next ranked party.
The reasons are clear: as NPR reported:
“Two-thirds of respondents said they continue to support the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel…and 80% believe it put the Palestinian issue at the center of global attention.”
Moreover, according to the summer survey, “Support for Hamas over the preceding three months increased by 6%.”
4. “Hamas drove all the Christians out of Gaza”
This is one of the more cynical arguments that Zionists make. They all struggle to frame the conflict in religious terms, i.e., Muslims versus Jews, so they can frame the conflict as one that has been going on “for thousands of years” — another standard Zionist hasbara narrative which is 100% false.
Israel has gone to great lengths to completely ignore the Christians in Palestine, and even greater lengths to promulgate a false narrative that maintains that “there are no churches in Gaza” and “no Christians in Gaza”. In fact, Israelis falsely claim that Hamas “drove out” all the Christians in Gaza.
The truth is that, under the British Mandate, about 11% of Palestinians were Christians. But “the vast majority” of these Christians fled or were expelled by Zionist militias from the Jewish-controlled areas of Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, according to Wikipedia.
Fast forward to today: Under Netanyahu’s Likudnik regime, Christians are constantly under attack in Israel-Palestine, especially from Zionist settlers, while Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has refused to condemn the attacks.
The genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza is also targeting Christians. The Palestinian Christian population in Gaza is made up of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants — all of whom are now targeted for death by Israel.
On October 19, 2023, Israel bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the Gaza Strip’s oldest, killing at least 18 people. The Catholic Holy Family Church and the Gaza Baptist Church have also been attacked.
5. “Arab Israelis have a good life with full equality”
This is a common line of argument. Zionists will posit that the Palestinians actually have a great life, and that the Arab Israelis have the best life of any Arab population in the region. To support this claim they will point to the fact that Arab Israelis have longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than other Arab populations in the Middle East.
While that may be true, the infant mortality and life expectancy rates for Arab Israelis are significantly lower than those of the Jewish Israeli population.
The simple fact is that Arab Israelis are second class citizens, and as such they have lesser access to health care and other services, lower rates of policing, and generally inferior living conditions across the board.
In fact, Israel practices Apartheid, according to the World Court, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international human rights groups.
Indeed, even the famous Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, recognises Israel as an Apartheid state:
“Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations. B’Tselem strives to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”
6. “There is no genocide, there are still plenty of Palestinians”
This argument will usually start with an assertion that if Israel REALLY wanted to commit genocide, there would not be a single Palestinian alive in Gaza.
This is ridiculous. Short of resorting to nuclear or biological weapons, the Israelis simply cannot kill that fast.But they are making a concerted effort to wipe out the Palestinians and their society, by destroying not just the people, but their institutions, their schools, their historical and demographic records, and so on.
The vast majority of people in the world realise that Israel is committing a genocide that is killing around 200,000 Palestinians, according to the British medical journal, The Lancet.
Moreover, the Lancet and the WHO report that the death toll from starvation and disease will eclipse the numbers who die directly from bombs and bullets.
The daily slaughter in Gaza — and now increasingly also in the West Bank — is bound to have an effect on the statistics of the Palestinian population, from population to life expectancy and even infant mortality, as all of Gaza’s hospitals have now been destroyed either partially or entirely, and needed medical equipment and supplies are no longer available.
Indeed, Israel is systematically targeting the health care system in both Gaza and the West Bank, according to the UN.
No way to count the dead:
Israel is being sinister in its approach: by destroying the infrastructure that receives and catalogs the dead, and by murdering the people who collect and log the dead, the numbers of deaths in Gaza are becoming drastically underreported.
Moreover the overwhelming force of destruction means that a large number of the dead are blown literally to bits, so that the number of dead has to be estimated by collecting body parts into plastic bags and weighing them.
The Lancet study reported that:
Collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure…Consequently, the Gaza Health Ministry now reports separately the number of unidentified bodies among the total death toll. As of May 10, 2024, 30% of the 35 091 deaths were unidentified.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the definition of genocide, according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, does not include a requirement for total extermination. In fact, the convention is very clear that a genocide can happen even if it hasppens just to a portion of the targeted population:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Thus, by killing what amounts to 10% of the population in Gaza (according to the Lancet study), the Israelis are definitely committing genocide.
7. “You are an anti-Semite and/or Jew hater”
The last resort of any Zionist who is losing an argument is to fall back on “the old reliable” argument of anti-Semitism.
I refuse to let them get away with it. I make a counterargument along these lines:
“I am an anti-Zionist, not an anti-Semite. Throughout my life I have had close family and friends who are Jewish, however NONE of them believe that they are inherently superior or better than other human beings simply because they were born Jewish.
Zionists, however, DO believe that, and THAT is what I oppose.”
There are many more common arguments, but I will leave it here for now. If you have encountered a particularly vexing argument from a Zionist, please note it in the comments and I will address it if you want. The odds are I have encountered the same argument.
#End
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All the anti-Zionist arguments, for our convenience all in one post. This must have taken a lot of work, and I for one greatly appreciate you for doing this.
I have only one small quibble, and it's about the future more than the past or present. Israel is nothing without American support, and that support is now destined to disappear because of Israel's actions. I can't say when it will, but I can say it is now as inevitable as the sunrise.
Starbucks and McDonalds are already reporting serious losses due to BDS. The Port of Eilat is empty, and that of Haifa nearly so. The Israeli economy is lurching to the brink of collapse, and that's with a pro-Zionist American government still propping it up.
Every post like this is another dagger thrust into the abomination of Zionism, and brings it one step closer to the dustbin of history.
Thanks very much for this clear and helpful guide.
That picture of the Biden cabinet is particularly striking...