"Antizionism gives antisemitism the inch that the whole mile will invariably have to follow."
HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR AND WRITER JEAN AMÉRY
WHAT IS ZIONISM?
Zionism is the Jewish movement for self-determination in the Land of Israel. It can also be described as Jewish nationalism. Self-determination, it’s worth noting, is a basic tenet of international law. In practical terms, Zionism translates to the support for the establishment and continued existence of a sovereign Jewish state in Eretz Israel.
"Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law."
RESOLUTION AT FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS, 1897
WHAT IS ANTI-ZIONISM?
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism, as in opposition to Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel, or, in more practical terms, opposition to the establishment and continued existence of the State of Israel.
Anti-Zionism is not a critique of Israeli policy.
"The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals."
French revolutionary Count Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre, 1789
In most cases, anti-Zionism, at least today, is inherently antisemitic. The reason is simple. Self-determination is a universal right, and anti-Zionism denies it only to the Jewish people.
IS ANTI-ZIONISM ANTISEMITISM?
Most people are not anarchists. Some are and oppose the existence of all nation states entirely. In that context, is anti-Zionism actually antisemitic? Theoretically, no — but in practice, the relentless hyperfixation on eliminating the world’s only Jewish state is likely rooted in an antisemitic double standard. After all, if you believe no states should exist at all, why do you think the world’s only Jewish state is the one that should go first?
It seems nefarious, at best, to concentrate all your efforts on dismantling the Jewish state when Jews are not only the longest persecuted minority in history, but we’ve been expelled from hundreds of countries around the world. Palestinian nationalists openly tell us that once Palestine is “free,” we will be expelled. Where do you think we should go?
If you want to dismantle all nation states, why are you going after one of the historically most vulnerable minorities first?
WHAT IS ANTIZIONISM (NO HYPHEN)?
Antizionism is not opposition to Zionism, just as antisemitism is not opposition to “Semitism” or to “Semites.” Antizionism, in fact, has nothing to do with what Zionism is or isn’t. Rather, antizionism is a projection of age-old malevolent antisemitic conspiracies onto the Jewish movement for national self-determination and onto the world’s only Jewish state.
Antizionists don’t oppose Zionism because of what Zionists actually believe, but instead, they oppose Zionism because of what they think Zionists believe.
THE SOVIET CONNECTION
The gruesome images that emerged from the Nazi death camps in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust shocked the world. Open antisemitism, which had once been a point of pride, became associated with the evils of Nazism. So the Soviet Union, which had long expressed antisemitic views, switched strategies, launching a relentless antizionist propaganda campaign that forever changed the trajectory of antisemitism.
This propaganda campaign traveled far past the borders of the Soviet state. To strengthen their sphere of influence over Arab and African nations, the Soviets launched a covert operation against Israel, named Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, meaning “Zionist Governments.”
"We had only to keep repeating our themes—that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews."
YURI ANDROPOV, KGB CHAIRMAN 1967-1982
The Soviets were never particularly covert about the fact that their antizionism was actually just antisemitism. Soviet propaganda in the 1960s made blatantly antisemitic claims such as:
- “The character of the Jewish religion serves the political aims of the Zionists”
- “Zionism is inextricable from Judaism, rooted in the idea of the exclusiveness of the Jewish People”
- Claims that Zionism was merely a means to an end to the Jewish plot for world domination, echoing what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf decades earlier
As the Soviets gained increasing influence over the Palestinian cause in the 1960s, the Palestinian leadership, too, shifted from the overt expressions of Nazi-esque antisemitism of the 1940s to the language of antizionism.
ANTIZIONISM RELIES ON...
Antizionism is not a reflection on what Zionism is or isn’t. Instead, the movement relies on:
- The reinvention of age-old antisemitic conspiracies, from deicide to blood libel
- Historical revisionism and historical oversimplification and demonization regarding the history of the Zionist movement, the State of Israel, and Israel’s establishment
- The delegitimization of Jewish peoplehood, Jewish culture, and Jewish history
- A conspiratorial pattern of thinking about the world’s only Jewish state
"The [Egyptian] authorities didn't differentiate between teaching Judaism and Zionist activity. In reality though, part of teaching Torah is about Israel."
EGYPTIAN JEWISH PROFESSOR CHACHAM CHOUREKA, WHO WAS ARRESTED BY THE EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES IN THE 1950s
ANTI-ZIONISM VS. ANTIZIONISM: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Pre-1948 anti-Zionism and post-1948 antizionism have virtually nothing to do with each other. It’s one thing to debate the possibility of establishing a Jewish state; it’s quite another to call for the destruction of an already-existing state, 10 million citizens and all. Furthermore, religious anti-Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with either anti-Zionism or antizionism. Instead, religious anti-Zionists oppose the establishment of a Jewish state prior to the coming of the messiah (in other words: no Zionism now, but Zionism later).
Pre-1948, within the context of Jewish intracommunity debate, the pushback to Zionism was of the anti-Zionist variety. That said, the conspiratorial strain of antizionism that we see today can be traced back to the very first non-Jewish antizionists, from Wilhelm Marr, who called Zionism “a foul Jewish swindle,” to Adolf Hitler, who wrote in Mein Kampf that Jews wished to establish a state in Palestine to serve as a “central organization for their international world swindle.”
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT
Whether anti-Zionism or antizionism are antisemitism in theory is irrelevant when, in practice, the demonization of Zionism has always translated into violence against all Jews, whether Zionist or not.
For example:
- Zionism became a capital crime in Iraq in 1948. A Jew only had to be denounced by two or more Muslims to be convicted, and there was no system of appeal. Jews were accused of “treason” and dismissed from their jobs. They were arrested on trumped up charges, tortured, executed, and their assets were seized, an estimated 80 million dollars worth. In one case, a man was sentenced to 5 years of forced labor for having a Biblical Hebrew inscription, which the accusers claimed was a “coded Zionist message.”
"All Jews are potential Zionists [and] ...anyhow all Zionists are Communists."
EGYPTIAN PRIME MINISTER MAHMOUD EL NOKRASHY PASHA, 1947
- In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the Soviet Union disseminated a massive antizionist propaganda campaign shrouded in antisemitic conspiracies. This campaign culminated in the Doctors’ Plot, when Jewish doctors were arrested, tortured, and executed on false charges. The Soviets proceeded to suppress Jewish religious and cultural practices, such as the use of the Hebrew language, and imposed a long list of restrictions on Jews, from university quotas to job dismissals.
- In 1968, a series of student-led protests broke out against the Communist government of Poland. The Polish government responded to the instability by scapegoating their now tiny post-Holocaust Jewish community. They enacted a massive antizionist propaganda campaign, spreading conspiracies that Zionists were plotting to take over Poland. Poles were forced to denounce Zionism and Jews were purged from their positions in the government and other sectors, accused of holding dual loyalties to Israel. Many were arrested, beaten, and tortured. The government compiled lists of Jews, and 75% of Polish Jews were denaturalized.
THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
Anti-Zionism and antizionism make some flavors of antisemitism acceptable, which means that, ultimately, all flavors of antisemitism become acceptable.
