#Criticism of Left Ideology: Anti-Zionism Delimitation: While the historical connection of the Jews to, and their settlement in, Eretz Yisrael is important, I am limiting my focus to one aspect on which the Left bases its arguments, namely Enlightenment values. If one accepts the principle of the Classical Enlightenment that an oppressed group has the right to emancipate itself and to politically protect itself, then one should be able to understand Zionism as a Jewish emancipation effort. The Nazi persecution and the Holocaust radically demonstrated and intensified the need for a Jewish political refuge and gave Zionism enormous historical significance as an effort of Jewish rescue and self-defence. Therefore, left-wing anti-Zionism is a sign that the Left remains below the level of Classical Enlightenment - which is intellectually embarrassing and evidence of moral incapacity. The underlying argument in a nutshell: Enlightenment → universal emancipation → Jews are entitled to emancipation, too, including the right to collective self-defence → Zionism is Jewish emancipation/self-defense → therefore, rejecting Zionism categorically contradicts the emancipatory principles the Left claims to uphold.* History shows that Jewish emancipation cannot depend entirely - or at all - on the goodwill of non-Jewish societies. Israel is the institutionalisation of Jewish political self-determination and the capacity to defend Jewish life - inside and outside Israel - by force if necessary. The Enlightenment's universal language of emancipation offers the conceptual resources for understanding why, after centuries of persecution, Jews require collective political power - but many on the contemporary Left have abandoned even that much recognition of Jewish collective emancipation. We have to hold the Left accountable for its betrayal of the Enlightenment and freedom, and for its abandonment of humanistic ideals in favour of cultural relativism and antisemitism. As Armin mentioned recently, if arguments don’t get through, we have to make it embarrassing for people to associate themselves with groups that actively seek to undermine and destroy the only Jewish state and the only Western civilisation there is.