Zionism's Biggest MISTAKE In 300 Years. End Of Project. | Profs. J. Sachs & Y. Rabkin

## Central Claim: A Project Misunderstood and Now Unraveling What emerges from this wide-ranging conversation is a single, unsettling thesis: Zionism is not simply a modern nationalist response to Jewish suffering but a complex political project with settler-colonial roots, intertwined religious strands, and consequences that have reached a tipping point. The discussion contends that for decades popular narratives treated the creation and preservation of a Jewish state as an unqualified refuge born from the Holocaust. But read against the primary sources and political history, the conversation argues, Zionism also carried ambitions of territorial control, demographic transformation, and regional dominance—ambitions that have increasingly collided with modern norms of statehood, rights, and international law. The result, the exchange insists, is not merely contested policy but a crisis of legitimacy that now threatens the future of the project itself. ## Two Distinct Strands: Nationalism and Biblical Promise A central analytic frame from the discussion is the bifurcation of Zionism into two partly overlapping strands. One is the classic late-19th-century nationalist model: a secular aspiration for a state as the political protection and expression of a people. This strand shared features with contemporaneous European national movements—language, culture, and statehood as answers to anti‑minority vulnerability. The other strand is religious and doctrinal: a biblical and often explicitly Christian reading of the land as God‑granted, where resettlement is not merely political but teleological. Participants stressed that these currents have long coexisted and sometimes vied for primacy, producing a hybrid movement that can be secular in rhetoric and quasi‑sacral in practice. The conversation highlights that the original proponents of Jewish political nationalism were often secular and even opposed by many mainstream rabbinic authorities who, historically, counselled patience and spiritual endurance rather than political return. By contrast, some Christian theological currents embraced the idea of a restored Israel for reasons tied to eschatology—beliefs about the end times—which injected a different kind of urgency and entitlement into the political field. Over time, these historically distinct impulses became fused in ways that complicate both the internal politics of the Jewish community and the external alliances that sustain state power. ## Settler-Colonial Logic: Language, Institutions, and Intent A striking motif in the exchange is the characterization of Zionism as settler-colonial. This is not merely an attack line but an argument grounded in archival and rhetorical evidence: institutions explicitly named and designed to facilitate settlement; patterns of land acquisition and demographic engineering; and strategies that mirror other settler-colonial enterprises. The conversation urges observers to look beyond sanitized narratives and consider the movement’s own words and deeds, which sometimes showcased an intention to reshuffle populations and assert political hierarchies in a contested territory. That reading reframes key historical episodes—not as necessary responses to persecution alone, but as choices among competing political strategies. When viewed through the lens of settler colonialism, policies of land purchase, immigration incentives, and legal categorizations take on a different valence: tools of a long-term project to establish a dominant polity, not simply the construction of a defensive refuge. The exchange insists that acknowledging this dimension is essential to understanding contemporary dynamics of occupation, dispossession, and the continuing marginalization of indigenous populations. ## Christian Zionism, Geopolitical Power, and the American Connection Perhaps the most consequential contemporary development highlighted in the discussion is the rise of an influential Christian Zionist constituency, particularly within the United States. The conversation paints this phenomenon as a strategic multiplier: a large, mobilized religious movement that lends enthusiastic political, financial, and cultural support to maximalist territorial claims. The rhetorical fusion of biblical promise with contemporary policy preferences, participants argued, has infused certain strands of US policy with a theological fervor that transcends conventional diplomatic interest. This infusion matters because it alters the calculus of external backers. When territorial claims are framed as divine mandates rather than negotiable political compromises, the space for diplomacy shrinks. Further, the conversation warns of the implications for military policy: when members of the armed forces and political leaders are influenced by apocalyptic or dispensationalist doctrines, force can be rationalized as part of a providential narrative. The practical outcome is a more aggressive posture on the ground and a hardened reluctance to entertain compromise—conditions that deepen conflict and erode international sympathy. ## Jewish Communities Divided: Identity, Allegiance, and Backlash A recurring theme is the fragmentation within Jewish communities worldwide. The discussion stresses that support for the political project commonly labeled “Israel” has never been monolithic. Many religious authorities historically opposed political return; contemporary Jewish populations are split between committed Zionists, critical reformers, and diaspora communities whose primary national identity is not Israel but their country of residence. The conversation underscores how actions by the state have generated not only international condemnation but also profound distress and dissent within Jewish communities themselves. Participants also pointed to a paradoxical effect: conflations of Jewish identity with unquestioning political support for Israeli policy make Jewish institutions vulnerable to backlash when state actions are deemed unjust. Displaying national symbols at synagogues or assuming automatic alignment with the state invites a politicized response from critics and can expose communities to hostility. The exchange cautions that equating religious identity with geopolitical loyalty is both historically inaccurate and politically perilous, exacerbating antisemitism in some quarters while eroding the moral authority of communal institutions in others. ## Money, Lobbies, and the Mechanics of Influence Another substantial thread analyzed in the conversation concerns how political influence is exercised in democratic polities—especially in systems where money and interest groups shape outcomes. The discussion outlines a multifaceted “lobby” not as a single monolith but as an ecosystem: diaspora fundraising networks, wealthy individual donors, strategic political contributions, and sympathetic religious movements. Each node operates with different motives—security concerns, ideological affinity, theological conviction—and the aggregate effect is disproportionately outsized influence on foreign policy. The exchange warns against simplifying this complex into ethnic or conspiratorial tropes. Instead, it calls for sober scrutiny of how legal frameworks for political giving, media influence, and informal networks produce policy capture. The practical upshot is a foreign policy that can appear insulated from normative critique because domestic political incentives reward robust support. This, the conversation implies, helps explain why policies that erode long-term stability nevertheless persist: they secure short-term political payoffs for powerful actors. ## Trajectories and a Possible Endgame Looking forward, the discussion offers a sobering scenario: the project that once promised refuge risks becoming unsustainable if its governing doctrines and policies remain unchanged. The speakers contemplate several possible trajectories—escalation toward greater territor

Zionism's Biggest MISTAKE In 300 Years. End Of Project. | Profs. J. Sachs & Y. Rabkin For decades Israel pretended to be an innocent country established after the horrors of the holocaust for the protection of the Jews. Turns out, it was all a lie. The zionist project is much older and has little to do with the wishes of the Jews when it was established. Inherently a christian doctrine, Zionism was always a plan to resettle the jews of Europe even against their will and to dominate West Asia in the process. Today, prof. Jeffrey Sachs and prof. Yakov Rabkin are discussing the past and the future of a racist settler-colonial political project that has become so violent in the past decade that the entire world now sees it for what it is. An irredeemable political sin. Support us on Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Our shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall. com #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and I'm joined today by my two wonderful colleagues, Jakob Rapkin and Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey, of course, is in the United States, and Jakob is in Canada—at the University of Montreal for Jakob, and Columbia University for Jeffrey. Both of you, welcome. Thank you. #Sachs Great to be together with both of you. #Pascal And we’re meeting today to discuss a topic of common concern, which is Zionism. Actually, Jakob’s book has already been published in English recently, titled *Zionism Decoded in 101 Quotes.* Jakob, you did a marvelous job showing how Zionism has been a long-term project and how the Zionists and their different groups have been anything but secretive about it. Let’s maybe start with you— these quotes, what do you think they tell us about Zionism? And then we’ll ask Jeff to react to that. #Rabkin Well, I tried to show, in the words of the founders and the precursors of Zionism, what that movement has been. And many people, I think particularly in North America, sound disappointed with Israel—like, “Well, it was such a wonderful socialist enterprise, about equality, and all of a -- 1 of 10 -- sudden it became right-wing and fascist. How could that happen? It must be Bibi Netanyahu, it must be him.” Well, my book shows that, in fact, the roots of this right-wing turn in Israeli political life have been clear practically throughout the whole history of Zionism. Because Zionism is a settler-colonialist project. And again, it was very open about that. The first financial institution of the Zionist movement was called the Jewish Colonial Trust. You couldn’t be more open about it. But a lot of people didn’t want to see it. See, the problem with Israel is that the facts are all on the ground—you can see them—but people didn’t want to see them because of all kinds of, I would say, very positive, pious tendencies. “Well, Jews have suffered so much, they deserve a state.” You know, all these things that, I think, prevented a more objective look at what Zionism is. #Pascal Jeff, what do you think is important for understanding the Zionist project as a long-term, ongoing thing that keeps creating a lot of problems for many people? #Sachs Well, first, let me say that Yaakov Rabkin is the leading and absolutely brilliant expositor and historian of this subject. So, everyone listening—you must read Yaakov’s work. The new book, but also a number of other books, explain absolutely clearly, and I would say uniquely clearly, the background of Zionism: how it emerged, what its ideological tendencies are, and why it has created such disasters in the present day. And as we speak, one of those disasters is Israel’s invasion of Lebanon again, and its destruction of Beirut in these very hours we’re talking. I think one of the most interesting points about Zionism is that it seems to have two kinds of strands. One is that it’s, in a way, a typical late 19th-century nationalist movement. Europe became aflame with nationalism at the end of the 19th century. Every linguistic group, every ethnic group, had to have its own nation. This ended up tearing apart Europe, destroying multiethnic, multinational, multilingual empires across the continent—especially in World War I and World War II. So that’s one of the roots. And the other roots are biblical, and there the biblical roots are Christian Zionism, which was the precursor of Jewish Zionism, as, again, Yaakov has explained. But it’s extremely important because a major theme of Western history—one that extends across centuries of settler colonialism—is the idea of the new Israel, the new Jerusalem. And America was founded on that principle. The United States, before it was the United States, was made up of British Puritan settlers who saw themselves as the new Israel. The idea of conquering a new land in the name of God is a Western idea. Of course, it has parallels in other regions of the world, but it’s a Christian Western idea. And Zionism is essentially a Christian Western idea as well—it’s both nationalist and biblical. -- 2 of 10 -- The Jews who started Zionism, as Yaakov explains, at the end of the 19th century were not reading the Bible in the same way. They weren’t even necessarily reading the Bible at all. They were nationalists, looking to overcome the absence of a physical state and to overcome anti-Semitism in Central Europe or in the Russian Empire. But it was the Christian Zionists who said there needs to be a nation because God promised that nation. And in a very—well, I won’t use the term I was going to use—in a very particular strand of ideas from the 19th century, called dispensationalism, or premillennial dispensationalism, a construct arises—again, I won’t use language that could be misconstrued as harmful or pejorative—but it’s a very particular set of ideas that entail the Jews returning to rebuild the land so that the end times can come, and so that the Second Coming of Christ can appear at Armageddon, based on a reading of the Book of Revelation and a new theology that emerged in Britain and the United States in the 19th century. Well, the only reason I mention that—and then I’ll turn it back over to you—is that we have these two Zionisms today. We have a Jewish Zionism, and we have a Christian Zionism, and they’re partners. You don’t even know who’s in the lead. The United States’ partnership with Israel is led right now by a group infused with extreme Christian Zionism. The American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who is a Southern Baptist and, by all evidence, a premillennial dispensationalist, said a few weeks ago—just before the current war of aggression by Israel and the U.S.—that Israel owns all the land, has the right to all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, based on, I think, a theologically dubious reading of Genesis chapter 15. And based on that, there’s a sense that in our world today, Israel has the right to all of this land. Israel’s acting on that, because part of the Israeli government is Jewish biblical Zionism now, which was not the Zionism of a hundred years ago. All in all, read Yaakov—he knows all of this better than I do. So I’ll turn it back over to you. #Rabkin Yeah, I’d like to add to what Jeff just said—that American troops engaged in the war against Iran are being exposed to the same idea, the idea that they’re bringing about the end times, that Trump was anointed by Christ to gather all the exiles, all that rhetoric. And this isn’t just rhetoric; people genuinely believe it. I saw the interview with the official American ambassador in Jerusalem—though I have my doubts about which country he really represents, Israel or the United States. He said very clearly that, for him, there’s a right—a biblical, God-given right—to occupy all the land. I think it’s very dangerous that, despite the separation between church and state in the United States, federal troops are being indoctrinated in this way. But again, that’s part of the general trend, as far as I can tell, in American society these days. #Pascal And, you know, very important American commentators have been talking about this. Just today, there was an email sent out by the Prime Group Foundation in the U.S., which monitors these -- 3 of 10 -- religious strains inside the army. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is a board member of that foundation, and he wrote an email warning everyone how dangerous this is. Because it’s not only the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, who represents the Christian Zionist strain—it goes all the way into the ranks of the army, and that’s highly dangerous. Pascal Lottaz, since you’ve looked at Zionism for so long— these two strains, Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism—which one of the two is actually bigger? And why is it that the Christian version is now so deeply entrenched in different branches of the U.S. government? #Rabkin Well, I’ll quote Pastor Hagee, who is one of the leaders of the Christian Zionists in the United States. A few years ago, he said there are 50 million Christian Zionists in the U.S. There are 15 million Jews worldwide, including babies and old people like myself. So you can see which group is bigger. And the United States is not the only place where you find them—Christian Zionism is also very well represented in Brazil, Guatemala, parts of Africa, and South Korea. So it’s a very important religious movement, whereas Jewish Zionism is dividing Jews. And as you know, the most recent example is the election of the new mayor of New York, who is openly anti-Zionist and very critical of Israel. About one-third of the votes came from Jews. So you could see that some people said, well, in spite of that—no, I wouldn’t say it’s in spite of that. It’s because of that that he got those Jewish votes. So Jewish communities are very much divided. And the more violence continues in West Asia, with Israel as the perpetrator and initiator of it—today, you can’t really deny it, even if you want to—Israel is losing Jewish support and, to a certain degree, Christian Zionist support. And that may explain why Netanyahu was in such a rush to start a war. #Sachs Please, please. Yeah, I was going to add—again, based on Jakob’s teaching to us on the origins of Jewish Zionism, which go back to the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century—the main religious movements of Judaism in the United States and in Europe were generally against the Zionist idea. The Zionist leaders, most famously Herzl, were nationalist and secular, and at that stage they were promoting not a biblical cause but a nationalist one: that each nation, to protect itself, had to have its own nation-state. That was the idea of nationalism—not that you were a nation living in, say, the Habsburg Empire or the Romanov Empire with all its multi-ethnicity, but that you needed your own state. And that was true whether you were Serbs or Croats or Czechs or Bulgarians or Slovaks, and so forth. And that was the secular Jewish Zionist strain. The rabbis said no. And I think it’s absolutely fascinating for me—you know, I grew up as a secular American Jew, but definitely in the rabbinic style of Judaism. Yeah, because basically, you know, with my bar mitzvah and so forth, this was in the standard rabbinic tradition, though not in my own case, in my community, in a very religious sense. But in the rabbinic teachings, the idea of Judaism for roughly, uh, almost two thousand -- 4 of 10 -- years—or nineteen hundred years—is: live where you are, obey God’s commandments, behave, uh, don’t make too much mess. Uh, and, um, you don't go back to the Holy Land or the Promised Land—that’s for the Messiah to determine. That’s something you can remember in your prayers or your festivals during the year, but not something that was an actionable political agenda. And in the United States, we had several religious movements: the so‑called Reform movement, the least religious, to Orthodox Judaism, and something in between—the way I was raised, in Conservative Judaism. But all of these strains, at on