One of the most common accusations leveled against anti-Zionist Jews is that they are “self-hating Jews.” The phrase is provocative. It is also odd and unhelpful. After all, many anti-Zionist Jews sincerely care about justice, human rights, and the future of both Israelis and Palestinians. They would vehemently deny harboring any hatred toward Jews or Judaism.

So why does the accusation persist?

Let’s be objective and honest. If Zionism is merely a political movement, then opposing it should be no different than opposing any other political ideology. One can oppose socialism without hating workers. One can oppose capitalism without hating business owners. Why can’t someone oppose Zionism without hating Jews?

The answer lies in a deeper question: What exactly are Jews?

Most anti-Zionist arguments rest upon a particular understanding of Jewish identity. Jews, we are told, are simply adherents of a religion. Judaism is a faith like Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. It is a collection of beliefs and practices. It is not a people, nation, tribe or extended family.

From that premise, opposition to Zionism follows naturally. If Jews are merely a religious group, then they have no more claim to national self-determination than Methodists or Buddhists. There is no Jewish peoplehood, no shared ancestry, no collective national identity, and therefore, no basis for a Jewish state.

The problem is that this definition of Jewish identity does not merely undermine Zionism. It undermines millions of Jews.

Consider the reality of contemporary Jewish life in America. Most Jews are not Orthodox. Most are not Conservative. Most are not Reform. The fastest-growing category is the unaffiliated. Millions of Jews rarely attend synagogue. They do not observe Shabbat. They do not keep kosher. Some identify as agnostic; others openly identify as atheists. Yet they still consider themselves Jewish.

Why? Because Jewish identity has never been exclusively about religious belief. A Jew may reject every theological proposition in the Torah and still feel deeply connected to Jewish history, Jewish culture, Jewish ancestry, Jewish memory and the Jewish people.

The descendants of Holocaust survivors remain Jewish whether they pray or not. Soviet Jews who risked everything to preserve their identity under communism did not do so because they were meticulous practitioners of Jewish law. Countless Jews throughout history maintained their Jewish identity through family, memory, kinship and shared destiny long after religious observance had faded.

In other words, Jewish peoplehood is what allows secular Jewish identity to exist. Remove Jewish peoplehood and what remains? If Judaism is merely a religion, then an atheist Jew is not really Jewish. A secular Jew is not really Jewish. A culturally affiliated Jew is not really Jewish. Millions of American Jews suddenly become people with Jewish grandparents, rather than Jews themselves.

That is why anti-Zionist rhetoric is self-destructive. The issue is not that anti-Zionist Jews oppose a particular Israeli government or military policy. Israelis themselves debate those issues every day. The issue is that many anti-Zionist arguments depend upon denying the very concept that allows non-observant Jews to define themselves as Jews in the first place.

And so, the ones who should feel most threatened are not the religiously active Jews but the marginally affiliated ones: the Jew who eats matzah at the Passover seder and then bread the next night. The Jew who lights Chanukah candles next to the Christmas tree. For these Jews, peoplehood is often the primary pillar of identity.

And yet many anti-Zionist Jewish activists come from precisely this demographic. They are often secular Jews who reject religious definitions of identity in their own lives. Yet when arguing against Zionism, they frequently adopt a framework that defines Jewishness almost exclusively in religious terms. In attempting to delegitimize Jewish peoplehood, they are undermining the very basis upon which they themselves continue to claim a Jewish identity.

That’s why many Jews are bewildered when they see keffiyeh-clad Jewish activists. Not because they assume every anti-Zionist Jew secretly hates Jews. But because these people believe that they are speaking against a state, when in reality, they are speaking against the concept that explains why they themselves are still Jewish.

Tragically, more than anyone, they are harming themselves.