a bad sign

I've just finished a book called "Red Thunder" by John Varley
Varley is one of my favorite writers and by his standards the book is a piece of crap .Either he lost it or he wanted some quick cash and didn't mind alienating his fans.
But that's not the problem
the thing is that somewhere towards the end of the book the word "zionists" is used as a possible group of baddies . It is put there to PC balance "palestinians" but still it scares me that someone would use it in that meaning so casually and without any obvious malice . For me that lack of malice means that he doesn't connect the word with any real people or if he does he sees them as no different from the arabs which means that moral equivalence has claimed another unsuspecting victim and one whose talent I admired.