Open Source with Christopher Lydon
![Cover art of Open Source with Christopher Lydon Open Source with Christopher Lydon](https://assets.blubrry.com/coverart/300/24439.jpg)
The Zionism Riddle
Zionism has been the question that keeps changing. Once it was: “How to build a safe home for the Jews of the world?” Today it’s more nearly: “How to build a safe neighborhood around the mighty militarized state of Israel?” Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli philosopher-historian, put the question bluntly in the Washington Post this spring: “Will Zionism survive the Gaza War?” There’s the riddle.
![](https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Ibish-6.jpg)
![](https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Mishy-Herman.jpg)
![](https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ShaulMagid.jpg)
Hussein Ibish, Mishy Harman, and Shaul Magid.
Depending on who’s speaking and who’s listening, Zionism can stand for refuge, or for settler statehood, or for religious ethno-nationalism. Early liberal Zionists like Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt thought we would have figured out by now how a religious nation could also be open, inclusive, democratic, and peaceful. Were they asking too much?