Why Is Flat Earth Theory the Same as Zionism?
A Thought Experiment on Myth, Power, and the Suspension of Reason
Why Is Flat Earth Theory the Same as Zionism? — A Thought Experiment on Myth, Power, and the Suspension of Reason
"Mark my words - Israel will cause WW3" — Charles Valladares c1955
I want to begin with something that might seem provocative—but stay with me. This isn’t a rant. It’s not a manifesto. It’s a thought experiment. One that might help remove some of the fog, misinformation, and myth that often obscures honest conversations about Zionism.
What if I told you that Zionism shares more in common with Flat Earth Theory than most people would dare admit? I’m not talking about scale or violence. I’m talking about structure—how belief systems demand our loyalty even when the facts don’t support them. How they survive, even thrive, by making themselves immune to critique.
Both Zionism and Flat Earth Theory rely on belief that resists evidence. Both override reality with mythology. Both use narrative to justify exceptionalism. One is a fringe fantasy. Frighteningly, the other is global policy. But what binds them is their dependence on untouchable truth claims that unravel the moment you shine light on them.
So, let me be clear from the start. This is not an attack on Judaism. It’s not a denial of Jewish suffering or diaspora. And it’s certainly not an endorsement of antisemitism. This is a challenge to an ideology—Zionism—that claims to represent an entire people, even as it commits acts that many Jews and non-Jews alike find morally indefensible.
Flat Earth Theory insists the Earth is flat. Zionism insists the Jewish people have an exclusive right to historic Palestine. One is based on pseudoscience and viral nonsense. The other on a cocktail of biblical myth, historic trauma, and colonial logic. Both recoil from open scrutiny. Both elevate belief above universal principles.
Let me take you a step further. Judaism is not Zionism. And Zionism is not Judaism. One is a rich spiritual and cultural tradition thousands of years old. The other is a modern political movement, born in the ashes of European nationalism. It was not conceived in synagogues but in salons and congress halls, in response to antisemitic violence and the rise of nation-states.
Figures like Theodor Herzl were not rabbis—they were secular ideologues. And many deeply religious Jews have always rejected Zionism. Groups like Neturei Karta and the Satmar Hasidim argue that Israel is a heretical project—an act of hubris that violates Jewish law and divine will.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss said it plainly: “Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. Zionism is nationalism; Judaism is religion. They are as different as day and night.”
This isn’t fringe. This is a deep, spiritual rejection of the idea that Jewish safety must come at the cost of Palestinian existence.
Now let’s talk about Zionism’s greatest shield: the Holocaust. No one with a conscience denies the horrors of the Shoah. No one denies the centuries of brutalisation Jewish people have endured. The Jews are not alone in this regard. But when that trauma is used to silence critique, to justify ethnic cleansing, to cover for apartheid—it becomes not a shield, but a weapon.
The memory of Auschwitz cannot be allowed to legitimise the siege of Gaza. Yet too often, that’s exactly what happens. Zionism frames occupation as defence. It frames settlement as return. It frames critique as hatred. It builds an ideology that sees disagreement not as dissent—but as betrayal.
Ask yourself: what other modern state uses its trauma to claim permanent immunity from accountability?
In 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled in what is now known as the Nakba. Homes bulldozed. Villages erased. Families scattered. That was not an unfortunate side effect of war. It was foundational and a dastardly act which is woven into the fabric of geo politics challenges. It was the birth act of the state of Israel.
Today, this unholy occupation continues. Settlements expand. Gaza is under siege. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both called it what it is: apartheid. Israel is not just violating international law—it is defying the very concept of equality under it.
When I look at this, I don’t see the product of a religion. I see a political machine—a nationalist one—that uses religion as camouflage. Just as Flat Earth Theory asks you to reject gravity and photos from space, Zionism asks you to reject legal rulings, demographic data, and ethical common sense.
And when you speak out? You’re branded antisemitic. The word has been twisted into a silencing tactic. Entire institutions have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which turns political critique into moral heresy.
But the truth is, being against Zionism is not being against Jews. Just as being against the Inquisition didn’t make you anti-Christian.
This thought experiment is about clarity. About seeing through the fog. About reclaiming the right to ask uncomfortable questions.
Because when belief becomes law, and myth becomes state policy, dissent becomes the only moral response.
Zionism, as it stands today, is not a movement for safety. It is not a sanctuary. It is a settler-colonial project justified by theology and trauma, maintained by violence, and immunised against critique by confusion.
It does not reflect Judaism. It utterly distorts it. It does not protect Jewish life. It gravely endangers it—by tying Jewish identity to militarism, supremacy, and global backlash.
If you’ve made it this far, I invite you to keep pulling the thread.
Read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé. Engage with The Question of Palestine by Edward Said. Explore Judith Butler’s dismantling of the Zionism-antisemitism conflation. Listen to Norman Finkelstein. Read Rashid Khalidi’s Hundred Years' War on Palestine.
These aren’t fringe radicals. These are people trying to tell the truth before the truth becomes illegal.
The Earth is not flat. And Zionism is not sacred.
What matters is truth. What matters is justice.
And no nation, no god, and no trauma can justify the permanent subjugation of another people.
About me:
I write about collapsing orthodoxies, global power structures, and the myths we inherit without question. My focus is on exposing the machinery behind ideology—whether economic, religious, or geopolitical—and imagining what comes next when we stop pretending the old systems work. This piece is part of an ongoing effort to challenge belief-based authority and restore the primacy of human dignity. If you're reading this, you're already part of that conversation.