Is It Okay To Ditch Your Zionist Friends? Harvard’s Student ‘Ethicist’ Says Yes

Students at Harvard University questioning whether they’re justified in dumping their “Zionist” friends can rest easy — the school’s student “ethicist” is giving them the green light. Harvard junior Andrés Muedano, an opinion writer at the Crimson and author of the paper’s “Amateur Ethicist” column, reaches this conclusion while responding to an unnamed “Jewish and anti-Zionist” student who asks whether they should sever friendships with peers who support the Jewish right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.“I am still friends with a few Zionist students, but have become increasingly unsure about how to navigate my relationships with them. My friends are good people, I want to believe, but their Zionism taints my certainty of that — especially after two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the student writes. “Should I let go of my Zionist friends in the same way that many of them have already let go of me?”The Crimson’s resident ethical adviser begins not by defining “Zionism” — the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland — but by addressing the “wide range of beliefs” that “Zionism encompasses.”“For some, it might involve continued support for a two-state solution that enables the self-determination of both Jews and Palestinians,” Mr. Muedano writes. “For others, it might imply a more stringent support for Israel alongside the belief that — despite overwhelming expert evidence — Israel’s military conduct in Gaza is justified and not genocidal.”Mr. Muedano hyperlinked as evidence a New York Times article about two fringe Israeli groups that accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Their report has been condemned for distorting the legal definition of genocide.Regardless of where the student’s friends stand, though, Mr. Muedano acknowledges that the student “might find some visions of Zionism more morally objectionable than others” and thus “might feel wary of staying friends with Zionists.”As such, the matter of whether the student is “justified” in “letting go” of Zionist friends is straightforward, Mr. Muedano assures. “The matter is simple,” he writes. “The answer is yes.”Mr. Muedano doesn’t stop at whether the student is justified in excising Zionists from their circle of friends, however. He goes on to explore whether there may even be an obligation to do so.Citing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he summarizes the philosopher’s position that “we do have an obligation to unfriend morally condemnable people” because their perverse views may corrupt “our own moral ideas.” Mr. Muedano, however, expresses disagreement with Aristotle’s conclusion, arguing that “our moral and political beliefs can and should be strong enough to withstand disagreement, even within our closest relationships.”This brings Mr. Muedano to his ultimate conclusion: “We are always entitled to dissolve our friendships,” but we are also entitled to “have faith in their decency” even when we “find the morals of our friends to be misguided, condemnable, and maybe even despicable.”The column was remarked on by Rabbi David Wolpe, an influential American Jewish leader and former visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School, who expressed little surprise at the article’s conclusion. Rabbi Wolpe, who resigned from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee after the disastrous congressional testimony of Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, wrote on X that the article put “the quality of undergrad ratiocination on dispiriting display.”Harvard Chabad offered a similarly biting assessment. “Would the Crimson publish: ‘Should I let go of my Muslim friends?’ or, ‘Should I let go of my gay friends?'” the Jewish religious and cultural center asked on X.“If they would, read the published response to letting go of Zionist friends, and replace Zionism and Zionist with Islam and Muslim, ask yourself if the ‘Amateur Ethicist’ would respond this way if it was about letting go of Muslim or gay friends.”

Is It Okay To Ditch Your Zionist Friends? Harvard’s Student ‘Ethicist’ Says Yes

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