Right View: A Response to Zionist Buddhists

Breaking down the profound harm caused by justifying Israeli violence with dharma

“Roshi” is not just a ceremonial title. In Zen Buddhism, it means "venerable teacher," someone who has undergone rigorous training, received Dharma transmission, and carries the weight of lineage. It is a title meant to signal trust: that this person sees clearly, speaks honestly, and serves the liberation of all beings. So we do not use it lightly when we say that the author of the post we are responding to is a roshi. And we do not respond lightly either.

When we first read the post we felt anger. Anger that a roshi, entrusted with the Dharma, could speak from such a clouded place, draped in delusion. But beneath that anger was something else: a deep and painful compassion. Even a roshi can cling to self. Even a roshi can be caught in the net of identity and story.

In this case, the self being defended is shaped not only by Zionism but by the profound psychic wound of the Shoah. The Holocaust carved a deep groove of terror and vigilance into the Jewish collective nervous system. One that taught them that the world will not protect them, that annihilation is always just one regime away. That wound is real. And so is the way it has been channeled into a narrative of redemptive violence, of safety through domination, of never-again-ness that justifies displacement and occupation. To be asked to see through that story, to see themselves not only as survivors, but also as participants in a catastrophe, a Nakba, must be excruciating. And we honor that pain.

But compassion does not mean silence. And the Dharma does not end with empathy. It demands insight. This is not simply one practitioner wrestling with a personal crisis. This is a roshi, speaking publicly, using the Dharma to justify clinging and obscuring violence. That is not neutral. That is harmful. And the Dharma does not teach neutrality in the face of dukkha (Pāli: suffering), especially when that suffering is systemic, racialized, and ongoing.

The First Noble Truth is not a polite suggestion. It is a call to see clearly. But clear seeing (vipassanā) is not the same as spiritualized confirmation bias. It is not folding fear into wisdom robes and mistaking it for discernment. What the post names as "grief" and "complexity" must be seen for what they often are in practice: defense mechanisms against the unbearable truth that deeply cherished narratives of safety and survival have been built on the suffering of others. And this is the very moment the Dharma is meant for.

To truly see clearly in the Buddhist sense is to relinquish the illusion of a solid, permanent, innocent self. That is the terrifying edge that many practitioners shaped by Zionist ideologies now face. To acknowledge that they are not only the descendants of survivors, but also occupiers and perpetrators, is to allow the self that has protected them to begin dissolving. And that dissolution, what the Dharma calls anattā (no-self), is often experienced as annihilation. But it is also the doorway to liberation.

This moment, then, is not only political. It is existential. For those raised in Zionist mythologies, it requires nothing less than a home-leaving in the truest Buddhist sense: a conscious renunciation of the constructed identity, the national allegiance, the ethnocentric ideology that claims to offer protection. To conflate Jewishness with Israel, to cling to the ethnostate as a moral and spiritual compass, is to remain inside the burning house.

We say this not with condemnation, but with urgency. Because the Dharma teaches interdependence. Liberation is not an individual escape. It is collective and reciprocal. And solidarity, the real kind, not the symbolic kind, requires letting go of any system that asserts some lives matter more than others. Ethno states, any ethnostates, are incompatible with the Dharma. They are founded on delusion: on purity, separation, and fear. To cling to them is to turn away from the truth of interbeing.

And this is where the deepest heartbreak lies. Because the author is not simply a practitioner doing her best to navigate a complex and painful history. She is a roshi, an entrusted Dharma teacher, someone we look to for clarity in the face of confusion, for courage in the face of fear. With that title should come the support of a strong, seasoned practice, the kind of practice that allows us to turn directly toward the most painful truths, to transmute trauma into insight, and to meet even unbearable grief with the wisdom of anattā (non-self), dukkha (suffering), and moha (delusion).

But instead of bringing the teachings to bear on these difficult experiences, she uses the difficulty to justify her clinging. Instead of cutting through delusion, she reinforces it. And from a teacher, that does not just obstruct her own liberation. It actively misguides others. The harm is not just personal. It is pedagogical, communal, and karmic. And that is why, with compassion and deep concern, we cannot stay silent.

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Below, we offer a point-by-point response to the author’s more egregious claims and statements.

Our response to: The author will not say the word "genocide."

Dharma lens: Right speech (sammā-vācā) demands clarity and truth, not euphemism.

Supporting Points: The United Nations defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Human Rights Watch has reported that Israeli authorities are responsible for acts of genocide in Gaza, citing patterns of conduct and statements suggesting intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

Our response to: The author denies Israel is an apartheid state.

Dharma lens: Denial of structural harm is a form of moha (delusion), one of the three poisons the Buddha warned against.

Supporting Points: The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines apartheid as "inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups." Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem have all reported that Israel's policies and practices constitute apartheid against Palestinians.

Our response to: The author argues Israel is not a racist state.

Dharma lens: Clear seeing (vipassanā) includes seeing all forms of harm, even when they come from within.

Supporting Points: The author conflates racism with colorism. Racism in Israel functions not only through skin color but through entrenched systems of ethnic, religious, and national exclusion. The state discriminates structurally against non-Jewish Arabs, while also perpetuating colorism and intra-Jewish racism toward Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ethiopian Jews. These intersecting oppressions uphold a racial hierarchy that privileges white Ashkenazi Jews and marginalizes both Palestinians and Jews of color. In denying this, the author avoids confronting both their own white privilege and the white supremacy embedded in the Israeli state.

Our response to: The author says Ashkenazi Jews have a "right" to the land.

Dharma lens: Attachment to self and identity (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) as justification for domination is antithetical to liberation.

Supporting Points: Genetic studies have shown that a significant portion of Ashkenazi Jews have European ancestry. Israeli Historian Shlomo Sand argues that the concept of a direct, uninterrupted lineage from ancient Israelites to modern Jews is a constructed narrative.

Our response to: The author denies Israel is a settler colonial state.

Dharma lens: Theft—of land, identity, and memory—is a form of harm. Precepts call us not to steal.

Supporting Points: Settler colonialism is a distinct form of colonialism in which settlers come not just to exploit resources, but to replace the Indigenous population and permanently inhabit the land. It is not an event but an ongoing structure.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, actively sought support from imperial powers to establish a Jewish homeland, even proposing Uganda and Argentina as possible sites for Jewish settlement before Palestine became the focus.

One infamous slogan in early Zionist discourse was "a land without a people for a people without a land," which falsely portrayed Palestine as empty despite the presence of 1.4 million Palestinians living there. As scholar Nur Masalha notes in Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, this narrative functioned as a colonial myth used to justify Zionist colonization.

Zionist leaders, themselves, spoke openly about this logic. Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote, "Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed forces." David Ben-Gurion said, "We must expel Arabs and take their places."

Our response to: The author ignores the history leading up to October 7.

Dharma lens: Mindfulness (sati) requires us to see the whole picture, not just what feels comfortable.

Supporting Points: Gaza was already an epicenter of trauma long before October 7. Often referred to as the world's largest open-air prison, it has been under an Israeli-imposed blockade since 2007, with borders tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt. Nearly 80 percent of its population relies on humanitarian aid, and over half are children living with daily food insecurity, water shortages, and electricity outages that can last up to 20 hours a day. Israel controls not only movement and goods but also access to medical care, education, and construction materials, leaving Gaza in a constant state of siege and immiseration.

This framing also ignores the brutal, ongoing military occupation of Gaza by sea, air, and land borders. It erases the severe humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s illegal siege and the repeated bombing campaigns that escalated in the months and years leading up to October 7.

The psychological toll is staggering, as well. According to the UN and multiple human rights organizations, rates of PTSD, depression, and anxiety in Gaza—especially among children—are among the highest in the world. Over half the population has experienced the death of a family member, the destruction of their home, or both. Repeated military assaults, such as those in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, and 2021, have left deep intergenerational scars. These are not background conditions—they are central to understanding the conditions under which Palestinians in Gaza live and resist.

To speak of Gaza only in terms of what happened on October 7 is to erase this decades-long context of occupation, siege, and systemic violence. That erasure is a form of delusion, and in Dharma terms, it prevents any possibility of clear seeing, healing, or liberation.

Our response to: The author suggests peace was attempted in good faith.

Dharma lens: Oslo was not an expression of right intention (sammā-saṅkappa), but a political illusion masking structural violence.

Supporting Points: The Oslo Accords never outlined a path to Palestinian statehood—in fact, they never named it at all. Rather than offering a framework for liberation, Oslo enshrined and legalized the Israeli military occupation. It legitimized Israeli control, fragmented the West Bank into administrative zones under permanent surveillance, and indefinitely deferred all core issues: borders, refugees, settlements, and Jerusalem. As Edward Said warned, “What we have now is a Palestinian Bantustan... the dismemberment of the Palestinian body politic,” and he made clear that Oslo “enshrined Israeli power and Palestinian powerlessness.” Far from a peace process, it was a process of containment.

“The Oslo Accords, which were signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and brokered by the United States, have been a disaster for Palestinians and a boon to those who wish to maintain Israel’s nearly half-century-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza,” said Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi. 

Our response to: The author claims silence comes from pain and shame.

Dharma lens: Right action (sammā-kammanta) includes using our voice to reduce suffering.

Supporting Points: While the pain and shame that the author names are real, Buddhist practice teaches us to work with them skillfully—not use them as shields. Shame, as trauma theorists like Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk explain, often leads to dissociation or defensiveness—not to accountability. 

In Dharma terms, unexamined shame becomes a form of clinging: to identity, to story, to avoidance. It obscures right view and prevents compassionate action. When invoked without reflection, pain and shame become convenient cop-outs, a way to deflect from responsibility. 

But they are not the only forces behind the confounding silence from so many Jewish Buddhist teachers and practitioners. Silence can also be driven by apathy, fear of social or professional retribution, or simple unwillingness to disrupt one’s position within systems of privilege. None of these are aligned with the path. Silence in the face of injustice is not ethical restraint. It is complicity.

Our response to: The author’s deep attachment to victimhood.

Dharma lens: The most dangerous delusions are the ones that feel the most righteous.

Supporting Points: This is sakkāya-diṭṭhi—clinging to a fixed identity, whether personal, national, or moral. Liberation requires seeing through the false solidity of the self. As Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches, "The self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no such thing as an individual separate self." To hold tightly to identity—especially one forged in trauma and defended through domination—is to miss the interbeing at the heart of the Dharma. Zen practice is about piercing illusions, not reinforcing them. And the illusion of righteous separateness is among the hardest to abandon.