Had to give up on a friendship with a Zionist.
I’m here to vent about losing a friend of almost ten years over Zionism. For a long time, he expressed pro-Israel views while also insisting that he supported a free Palestine. I chose to see him as misguided or heavily influenced by his upbringing, especially since he has family in Israel.
Earlier this year, he made a comment about ICE that I found deeply insensitive. I calmly explained why it bothered me, but he immediately became defensive and accused me of attacking him personally. Months later, we reconnected, and I tried again to explain my perspective. Instead of engaging with what I was saying, he dismissed me and accused me of misunderstanding his Jewish identity. He even claimed I had behaved microaggressively.
I explained my side in detail, and eventually he admitted that he had exaggerated those accusations because he was hurt and emotional. He said he had “clarity” now. At that point, I genuinely asked him how I could better support his Jewish identity, because from my perspective, I already had. We celebrated Jewish holidays together, I supported his personal artwork about his Jewish childhood, and I regularly checked in about his family living in Israel. At this point, in the conversation I realized I had been gaslit.
Then he told me a story that completely changed how I saw him. He had recently started dating a Lebanese man, and after they slept together for the first time, the topic of Israel and Palestine came up. My friend openly described himself as a Zionist, which deeply disturbed the other guy, who said he had never met someone willing to identify that way so casually. After that, the man ghosted him. My ex-friend ignored my question altogether.
Hearing that story honestly shook me. It forced me to confront the fact that my friend’s views were not just vague political confusion or inherited bias — this was something he actively identified with. I quickly made an excuse to end the conversation because I suddenly felt like I no longer recognized someone I had known for nearly a decade.
*also something to note, a problem in the friendship overall was a lack of respect and boundaries and this disagreement just highlighted that. Knowing my political views, he tagged me on a project we worked on together that was selected by the Tel Aviv film festival. He never told me he would enter the project in the festival and never asked me if he could tag me in a post with any sort of affiliation with Israel. We worked on this project well before October 7.