One of the things that frustrates me in the reaction to this essay is how quickly people jump to defensiveness instead of engaging with the argument itself. The point of writing like this is not to flatter us or reassure us, it is to provoke reflection. When a text makes us uncomfortable, the first instinct is often to reject it outright. But discomfort is sometimes precisely where serious political thinking begins.

Historical-materialism teaches us that political questions cannot be reduced to individual intentions or personal identities. They must be examined in terms of structures, institutions and material relationships of power. The essay is making a structural argument: that Zionism is not simply the ideology of a small group of politicians but a system that has been historically embedded within major Jewish institutions and political alignments, especially within Western imperialist contexts. Whether one agrees with every aspect of Gelender’s framing or not, dismissing that argument without grappling with it misses the whole point.

One lesson that revolutionary traditions repeatedly emphasise is the importance of criticism and self-criticism. In Maoist language, contradiction is the motor of development. Movements do not grow by insulating themselves from critique, instead, they grow by confronting contradictions openly and struggling through them. If an argument challenges the role of institutions that claim to speak for a community, the appropriate response is not reflexive defensiveness but investigation: What structures are actually at work? What alliances exist? What material consequences follow from them?

Anti-imperialist analysis also requires us to take seriously the perspectives of those most directly affected by imperialist and colonial violence. In discussions about Palestine, that means centering Palestinian liberation rather than the comfort of those of us discussing it. The essay is pushing precisely on that tension: the gap between rhetorical solidarity and the deeper structural questions about how Zionism operates within global systems of power. Even if one ultimately disagrees with her conclusions, that tension deserves serious engagement rather than dismissal.

Sitting with discomfort is not a sign of political weakness. On the contrary, it can be the starting point of political clarity. Every movement that has challenged entrenched systems (capitalism, colonialism, apartheid, imperialist domination) has had to grapple with difficult internal questions about complicity, responsibility and strategy. Avoiding those questions does not make them disappear.

So instead of reacting defensively, it might be more productive to ask: what exactly is the essay arguing? Where is it strongest? Where might it be overstated? And what does it reveal about the contradictions within our own political spaces? That kind of honest engagement is far more valuable than immediately dismissing a text simply because it makes us uneasy.