Pro-Palestinian protest with placards demanding the US to stop funding of "Israeli apartheid" in Washington, DC, 2017
Anti-Zionism is opposition toZionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of theState of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereignJewish state in theregion of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblicalLand of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.[1]
BeforeWorld War II, opposition to Zionism was common amongJewish communities. Secular critics viewed Zionism as a form of nationalism inconsistent withEnlightenment universalism, while someOrthodox groups opposed it on theological grounds, regarding the establishment of a Jewish state as contingent upon thearrival of the Messiah.[a] Support for Zionism increased during the 1930s as conditions for Jewsdeteriorated radically in Europe, and began to prevail over opposition to it in theJewish diaspora. With the Second World War, the sheer scale ofthe Holocaust was felt and support for Zionism increased dramatically.[2] After 1948, anti-Zionism shifted from opposition to the creation of a Jewish state to rejection of the existence of Israel itself, with many postwar movements advocating its replacement by an alternative political entity.[1] Most Jewish anti-Zionist movements subsequently disintegrated or transformed into pro-Zionist organizations, although a minority, including theAmerican Council for Judaism, continued to oppose the ideology.[3] Outside the Jewish community, opposition to Zionism developed primarily among Arab populations, particularly amongPalestinians, who associated it with theNakba.[4][5][6][page needed][7]
Anti-Zionism comes in various forms. Some anti-Zionists seek to replace Israel andits occupied territories witha single state that would putatively give Jews and Palestinians equal rights.[8] These anti-Zionists have argued that a binational state would still realize Jewish self-determination,[9] as self-determination need not imply a separate state.[10] Some challenge thelegitimacy of the state of Israel. Some are anti-Zionist for religious reasons, such asHaredi Jews, and others seek instead the oppression or ethnic cleansing ofIsraeli Jews, although this position was historically rare in Western countries.[8] The relationship between anti-Zionism andantisemitism is debated, with some academics and organizations rejecting the linkage as unfounded and a form ofweaponization of antisemitism used to stiflecriticism of Israel and its policies, including theIsraeli occupation of the West Bank andblockade of the Gaza Strip, while others, particularly supporters of Zionism, argue that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic ornew antisemitism.
The August 1917 memorandum byEdwin Montagu, the only Jew then in a senior British government position,[11] stating his opposition to the pro-ZionistBalfour Declaration, which he described as "antisemitic in result"[12]
In Europe
From the beginning, there was resistance to Zionism andTheodor Herzl's call for the establishment of a Jewish state inPalestine.[13] Opposition came from diverse sources: manyOrthodox rabbis held that a Jewish state before themessiah was against divine will;[b] assimilationist Jewish liberals feared Zionism threatened efforts at integration and citizenship in European states;[14] and variousleft-wing Jewish movements, such as theBund andAutonomists, promoted alternative forms of Jewish identity.[15] In Western Europe, established Jewish communities often preferred loyalty to their nation-states over Jewish particularism.[16] Some Reform rabbis removed references toZion from liturgy, while others criticized Zionism as unrealistic.[17] By contrast,the Mizrachi movement represented religious Zionist support, though more traditionalist groups likeAgudat Yisrael opposed cooperation with secular Zionists.[18][19] In the Soviet Union, theYevsektsiya curtailed Zionist activity as part of its campaign against "Jewish bourgeois nationalism".[c][15]
Outside Europe
In regions outside Europe and North America, Zionism was often met with disinterest and regarded as a foreign ideology.
In Morocco, for example, it was introduced by Europeans in port cities[d] and met with skepticism by the localSephardic populations, who regarded it as irreligious and not concerned with their interests.[22][23] It was later actively promoted by envoys from the Zionist fundraising organizationsJewish National Fund andKeren Hayesod.[23] Urban, eliteMoroccan Jews were divided on the question of Zionism: some supported modern secular Zionism, but some who were invested in the project of Westernization saw Zionism as an obstacle to achieving assimilation and integration with the Europeans;[23] others saw Zionism as an obstacle to a favored Jewish-Muslim alliance and coexistence in Morocco.[24]L'Union Marocaine, a francophone Jewish newspaper, spoke for thealliancistes associated with theAlliance Israélite Universelle, who saw Zionism as an obstacle to assimilation with the Europeans, and challengedL'Avenir Illustré, which published Zionist propaganda.[23][25] Rural Moroccan Jews lived in relative isolation in their villages and were not very involved with Zionism until theJewish Agency andMossad LeAliya actively recruited them for migration by in the 1950s and 60s.[26][27] There was no significantmigration of Moroccan Jews to Palestine before the1948 war and theestablishment of the State of Israel.[24]
In Egypt, Zionist activity began at the start of the 20th century, but there was limited engagement with it amongEgyptian Jews until 1942–43, with the arrival of Zionist emissaries from Palestine and Zionist activists among theAllied forces in Egypt.[21] According toJoel Beinin, "because most Egyptian Jews were relatively secure and comfortable during the 1930s, few saw the point of risking their position by ostentatious support for Zionism", and those who did express support for Zionism rarely migrated to Palestine themselves.[21] In 1946, Jewish members ofIskra, an underground communist movement, founded theJewish Anti-Zionist League.[28]
Zionism in Iraq started to spread in the early 20th century. AlthoughIraqi Jews started to learn about theZionist Organization (known after 1960 as the World Zionist Organization) through newspapers and periodicals published in Hebrew in Europe and Palestine in the 19th century, Iraqi Jews only made contact with the ZO in 1913.[29]
Early non-Jewish Arab anti-Zionism
Arab mayor of JerusalemYousef al-Khalidi who in 1899 wrote a letter to Theodor Herzl arguing against Zionism. "... in the name of God," he wrote, "let Palestine be left alone."
Arabs began paying attention to Zionism in the lateOttoman period.[30] In 1899, compelled by a "holy duty of conscience",Yousef al-Khalidi,mayor of Jerusalem and a member of theOttoman Parliament, wrote a letter toZadok Kahn, thechief rabbi of France to voice his concerns that Zionism, which he called a "natural, beautiful and just" idea, would jeopardize the friendly associations among Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. He wrote: "Who can deny the rights of the Jews to Palestine? My God, historically it is your country!" But Khalidi suggested that "geographically, [it had] no hope of realisation"; since Palestine was already inhabited, the Zionists should find another place for the implementation of their political goals: "in the name of God", he wrote, "let Palestine be left alone."[e][32]
According toRashid Khalidi, Alexander Scholch andDominique Perrin, Yousef Khalidi was prescient in predicting that, regardless of Jewish historic rights, given the geopolitical context, Zionism could stir an awakening of Arab nationalism uniting Christians and Muslims.[33][f] Kahn showed the letter to Theodor Herzl, who on 19 March 1899 replied to Khalidi in French arguing that both the Ottoman Empire and the non-Jewish population of Palestine would benefit from Jewish immigration.[g] As to Khalidi's concerns about the non-Jewish majority population of Palestine, Herzl replied rhetorically: "who would think of sending them away?" Rashid Khalidi notes that this was penned four years after Herzl had confided to his diary the idea of spiriting the Arab population away to make way for Jews.
TheMaronite ChristianNaguib Azoury, in his 1905The Awakening of the Arab Nation, warned that the "Jewish people" were engaged in a concerted drive to establish a country in the area they believed was their homeland.[30] Subsequently, thePalestinian Christian-owned and highly influential newspaperFalastin was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city ofJaffa and soon became the area's fiercest and most consistent critic of Zionism. It helped shapePalestinian identity andnationalism.[35]
The vignette in theFalastin newspaper suggests Zionist insincerity is protected by British complicity, with Zionism as a crocodile under the protection of a British officer telling Palestinian Arabs: "don't be afraid!!! I will swallow you peacefully...".[36]
Palestinian and broader Arab anti-Zionism took a decisive turn, and became a serious force, with the November 1917 publication of theBalfour Declaration – which arguably emerged from an antisemitic milieu[h] – in the face of strenuous resistance from two anti-Zionists,Lord Curzon andEdwin Montagu, then the (Jewish)Secretary of State for India. Other than assuring civil equality for all future Palestinians regardless of creed, it promised diaspora Jews territorial rights to Palestine, where, according to the 1914 Ottoman census of its citizens, 83% were Muslim, 11.2% Christian, and 5% Jewish. The majority Muslim and Christian population constituting 94% of the citizenry[i] only had their "religious rights" recognized.[38]
Given that Arab notables were almost unanimous in repudiating Zionism, and incidents such as theSurafend massacre (perpetrated byAustralian andNew Zealand troops serving alongside the British) stirred deep resentment against Britain throughout the area,[j] the British soon came to the conclusion, which they confided to the Americans during theKing–Crane Commission, that the provisions for Zionism could only be implemented by military force.[39] To this end, theBritish Army calculated that a garrison of at least 50,000 troops would be required to implement the Zionist project on Palestinian soil. According toHenry Laurens, uneasiness among British troops stationed in the region over the task of ostensibly supporting Zionism, something that clashed with their customary paternalistic treatment of colonial populations, accounted for much of the anti-Zionist sentiment that UK military personnel based in Palestine expressed.[40][clarification needed]
Once theOccupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) began to implement the Declaration, both sides had reason to accuse the authorities of bias. Several contemporary sources credit the notion that English administrators were sympathetic to Arabs[k] and diffident about Jews.[l] One Zionist complaint was that several of the British Mandatory administration's higher functionaries tolerated anti-Zionist and even antisemitic policies.[m][48] Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionist figures such asJacob Israël de Haan told the Mandate authorities that Zionists did not represent the entire Jewish community.[49]
The British press was often critical: theNorthcliffe Press was openly anti-Zionist,[50]Lord Beaverbrook opposed the Mandate, and complaints were made about the heavy burden of governing land with competing national interests. British anti-Zionism and antisemitism[51] was also tinged withanti-Bolshevism,[52] as Jews were accused of having played a major role in theRussian Revolution.[n] Palestinians sought to discredit Zionism by associating it with communist infiltration, which the British took seriously.[53] The 1920Palin Commission investigation into theanti-Zionist riots at Nebi Musa found that there was a widespread perception among Arabs, reflected among British residents and officials, that Zionists are "arrogant, insolent and provocative".[o]
The Marxist wing of the Zionist movement,Poale Zion, fractured in the 1920s when some members came to believe that Zionism would be discriminatory to Palestine's Arab majority.[55] Some factions of Poale Zion gravitated toward communism.[56] In 1924, the Comintern recognized thePalestine Communist Party (PCP), which retained some Zionist traces, and Palestinian Arabs joined the party.[57] TheGeneral Jewish Labor Union of Eastern Europe promoteddoykayt (hereness),[58] and dismissed Zionism as "separatist, chauvinist, clerical and conservative".[59] TheCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) called Zionism "a colonial project".[60] Many Jewish communal organizations in Germany[61] and Italy[62] advanced assimilationist anti-Zionism, emphasizing loyalty to their states.
Religious anti-Zionism
Some leaders withinOrthodox Judaism outside of the United States expressed opposition topolitical Zionism because the Zionist movement espoused nationalism in a secular fashion and used "Zion", "Jerusalem", "Land of Israel", "redemption", and "ingathering of exiles" as literal rather than sacred terms, endeavoring to achieve them in this world.[63] According to Menachem Keren-Kratz, the situation in theUnited States differed, with "mostReform rabbis andlaypeople repudiat[ing]" Zionism while most of the Orthodox supported it.[64] Elaborating on the work ofDavid N. Myers, Jewish historianJonathan Judaken wrote in 2013 that "numerous Jewish traditions have insisted that preservation of what is most precious about Judaism and Jewishness 'demands' a principled anti-Zionism or post-Zionism." This tradition dwindled in theaftermath of the Holocaust and theestablishment of the State of Israel, but Judaken saw it as still alive in religious groups such asNeturei Karta and among many intellectuals of Jewish background in Israel and the diaspora, such asGeorge Steiner,Tony Judt, andBaruch Kimmerling.[65]
Anti-Zionism after World War II and the creation of Israel
There was a shift in the meaning of anti-Zionism after the events of the 1940s. Whereas pre-1948 anti-Zionism was against the hypothetical establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, post-1948 anti-Zionism had to contend with the existence of the State of Israel. This often meant taking a retaliatory position to the new reality of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. The overriding impulse of post-1948 anti-Zionism is to dismantle the current State of Israel and replace it with something else.[1]
1947–1948
On the eve of the foundation of Israel in 1948,Judah Magnes, president of Jerusalem'sHebrew University, opposed the imminent establishment of a Jewish state, and advocatedbinationalism. According toCharles Glass, his opposition was grounded on a view, anticipated in the 1930s byArthur Ruppin, that such a state would automatically entail a situation of continuous warfare with the Arab world, an inference Glass saysMoshe Dayan later endorsed.[66]
By 1948, when the Soviet Union recognized Israel, Jewish institutional life within its borders had been effectively dismantled.[p] The Soviet Union nonetheless played a leading role in recognizing the state of Israel, was harshly critical ofArab states opposing it and enabled Israel to procure substantial armaments in 1948–1949. But at roughly the same time, in early 1948,Ilya Ehrenburg had been co-opted to write an article forPravda that set forth what later became the authoritative rationale for Soviet hostility to Zionism, as aspiring to create a dwarfish state of capitalism.[67] Virulent antisemitism, particularly after the fabricatedDoctors' plot affair in 1953, and with clear parallels to the content ofThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion, came to the fore, conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism despite the conceptual distinction between the two.[q] A deep-seated antisemitic strain within Russian culture influencing the Soviet state's approach to events in the Middle Easts emerged to intensify the Soviet leadership's anti-Zionist hostility to Israel as a major threat to the communist world,[68][r] especially in the aftermath of theSix-Day War, when official documents and party connivance resuscitated antisemitic imagery related to Zionism.[s][69] According to historian Åsmund Borgen Gjerde:
Within higher Soviet echelons, a particular logic existed that fostered a view of "Zionism" as an immense, conspiratorial threat to the Soviet Union. In one sense, this logic grew out of a more general tendency to view nonconformity as conspiracy: the Soviets had established extremely narrow boundaries for what constituted acceptable Jewish identity; and, when some Soviet Jews began to voice nationalist sentiments after the Six-Day War, Soviet leaders saw this expression of nonconformity as essentially a hostile act, warranting severe counter-measures.[70]
East Germany's government was passionately anti-Zionist. From the 1950s through the 1970s, East Germany supplied Israel's neighboring Arab states with weapons. Immediately after the Six-Day War in 1967,East German Communist Party chairmanWalter Ulbricht claimed that Israel had not been threatened by its neighboring Arab states before the war. He continuallycompared Israel to Nazi Germany.[78]
In 1967-68,Poland's Stalinist ruling party, thePolish United Workers' Party, launched an "anti-Zionist campaign", purging Jews from public life on the grounds that they were "Zionists".[79][80][81] At least 13,000 Poles of Jewish origin emigrated in 1968–1972 after being fired from their positions and various other forms of harassment.[82] The armed forces were alsopurged in the name of "anti-Zionism".
Two waves of mass Russian-Jewish immigration to Israel, theSoviet Union aliyah and1990s post-Soviet aliyah, took place from the 1970s onward. As late as 1983, anAnti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public was launched in the USSR to combat Zionist propaganda. According toAnthony Julius, writing in 1989, "Soviet anti-Zionism was credibly considered the greatest threat to Israel and Jews generally... This 'anti-Zionism' survived the collapse of the Soviet system."[83] In the 21st century, according toIzabella Tabarovsky, factions within American academia have supportedboycotts of Israel using language that is Soviet in origin.[84]
Arab and Palestinian anti-Zionism
Arab women protestors holding pro-Palestinian signs in front of the Israeli embassy inAmman, 2021
In a retrospective analysis of Arab anti-Zionism in 1978,Yehoshafat Harkabi argued, in a view reflected in the works of the anti-Zionist Russian-JewishorientalistMaxime Rodinson,[t] that Arab hostility to Zionism arose as a rational response in historical context to a genuine threat, and, with the establishment of Israel, their anti-Zionism was shaped as much by Israeli policies and actions as by traditional antisemitic stereotypes, and only later degenerated into an irrational attitude.[u] Anthropologist of conflict Anne de Jong asserts that direct resistance to Zionism from the inhabitants of historical Palestine "focused less on religious arguments and was instead centered on countering the experience ofcolonial dispossession and opposing the Zionist enforcement ofethnic division of the indigenous population."[86]
Until 1948, according toDerek Penslar, antisemitism in Palestine "grew directly out of the conflict with the Zionist movement and its gradual yet purposeful settlement of the country", rather than the European model vision of Jews as the cause of all the ills of mankind.[87] According toAnthony Julius, anti-Zionism, a highly heterogeneous phenomenon, andPalestinian nationalism, are separate ideologies; one need not have an opinion on theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict to be an anti-Zionist.[88]
One Arab criticism of Zionism is thatIslamic–Jewish relations were entirely peaceful until Zionism conquered Arab lands. Arab delegates to the United Nations also claimed that Zionists had unethically enticedArab Jews to come to Israel. According toGil Troy, neither claim is historically accurate, as Jews did not have the same rights as Muslims in these lands and had periodically experienced violent riots.[89]
This culminated in November 1975 in theUnited Nations General Assembly's passage ofResolution 3379 by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), which declared, "Zionism is a form of racism, and racial discrimination".[90] The passage evoked, in the words of American U.N. AmbassadorDaniel Patrick Moynihan, "a long mocking applause."[91] U.N. representatives from Libya, Syria, and the PLO made speeches claiming that this resolution negated previous resolutions calling forland-for-peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.[92] Israel's U.N. representative,Chaim Herzog, interpreted the resolution as an attack on Israel's legitimacy. African U.N. delegates from non-Arab countries also resented the resolution as a distraction from the fight against racism in places likeSouth Africa andRhodesia.[93]
The decision was revoked on 16 December 1991, when the General Assembly passedResolution 4686, repealing resolution 3379, by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions and 17 delegations absent. Thirteen of the 19 Arab countries, including those engaged in negotiations with Israel, voted against the repeal, and another six were absent. All the ex-communist countries and most of the African countries who had supported Resolution 3379 voted to repeal it.[94]
Strands of anti-Zionist thought developed through a transnational process: European intellectuals formulated ideas, Jewish and Christian intellectuals transmitted and translated them, and Muslim intellectuals incorporated them into regional political discourse.[95] Some Muslims view the State of Israel as an intrusion into whatsharia defines asDar al-Islam, a domain they believe should be ruled by Muslims, reflecting its historical conquest in the name of Islam.[96][97] Some Muslims believe jihad against Israel is justified due to the1948 Palestinian expulsions.[98][99][100][101][102]ISIS believes that we are living in theIslamic End Times and that Jews in Israel are allies of theDajjal, the Muslim counterpart to theAntichrist. In their view, Muslims must take over historic Palestine before the Dajjal can be defeated.[103]
In his 1980 bookIslam and the Problem of Israel, Palestinian-American philosopherIsmail al-Faruqi argues that from an Islamic perspective Zionism is incompatible with Judaism and has failed to provide security or dignity for Jews.[104] He contends that life in Israel is defined by conflict, militarization, and dependence on international powers, making the state the "greatest failure" of Zionism.[105] Al-Faruqi calls for dismantling Zionism, suggesting that Israeli Jews who renounce it could live as an "ummatic community" within the Muslim world, following Jewish law under rabbinic courts within an Islamic framework.[105]
Left-wing politics
According to New York University social and cultural theoristSusie Linfield, one of the most pressing questions facing theNew Left after World War II was "How can we maintain our traditional universalist values in light of the nationalist movements sweeping the formerly colonized world?"[106] During the late 1960s, anti-Zionism became part of a collection of sentiments withinfar-left politics, includinganti-colonialism,anti-capitalism, andanti-Americanism.[107][v] In this environment, Zionism became a representation of Western power.[108] PhilosopherJean Améry argued that this "Zionism" was merely astraw man redefinition of the term, used to meanworld Jewry.[109] The far-left Israeli politicianSimha Flapan lamented in 1968, "The socialist world approved the 'Holy War' of the Arabs against Israel in the disguise of a struggle against imperialism. ... Having agreed to the devaluation of its own ideals, [it] was ready to enter an alliance with reactionary and chauvinist appeals to genocide."[110]
In 1969, West German left-wing anti-Zionists placed a bomb in aJewish Community Center.[78] A series of anti-Zionist aircraft hijackings took place in the 1970s with left-wing groups' support. The most famous of these was the1976 Air France hijacking perpetrated by thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in coordination with theRevolutionary Cells. The hijackers released all the non-Jewish hostages without Israeli citizenship, but kept all the Israeli citizens (including those with dual citizenship) and Jewish people for ransom.[111] The separation of Jewish non-Israelis and Israelis from non-Israelis—which, in essence, meant separating out the Jewish passengers generally[112]—shocked many on the German left. ToJoschka Fischer, the way the hijackers treated Jews opened his eyes to the violent, Nazi-like implications of anti-Zionism.[113] A few years later, the Revolutionary Cells and another anti-Zionist group attempted to firebomb two German movie theaters that were showing a movie based on the hijacking.[114][115]
Pro-Palestinian protest with placards demanding the US to stop funding of "Israeli apartheid" inWashington, DC, 2017
Some secular Jews, particularly socialists andMarxists,[citation needed] continue to oppose the State of Israel on anti-imperialist and human rights grounds. Left-wing Jewish organizations that have opposed Zionism includeNION in Canada andJews Against Zionism in the UK.[116][117][non-primary source needed] Some oppose it as a form of nationalism, which they argue is a product of capitalism.[citation needed] The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering in the US in 2010 and theInternational Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) see anti-Zionism as an integral part of theiranti-imperialism.[118][119][non-primary source needed] IJAN describes itself as a socialist, antiwar, anti-imperialist organization, and calls for "the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine".[120][non-primary source needed]
Members ofNeturei Karta holding Palestinian flags and placards saying that "Judaism condemns the state of Israel and its atrocities" inLondon, 2022
Most Orthodox religious groups have accepted and actively support the State of Israel, even if they have not adopted "Zionist" ideology. Most religious Zionists hold pro-Israel views from a right-wing viewpoint. The main exceptions are Hasidic groups such asSatmar Hasidim and smaller Hasidic groups.[130] ManyHasidic rabbis oppose the creation of a Jewish state. In 1959, the Satmar Hasidic group's leader, RabbiJoel Teitelbaum, published the bookVaYoel Moshe, which expounds an Orthodox position for anti-Zionism based on a derivation ofhalacha from anaggadic passage in theBabylonian Talmud'stractate Ketubot 111a.[x][131]
Allegations of antisemitism
A sign held at a protest inEdinburgh, Scotland on January 10, 2009
Anti-Zionism spans a range of political, social, and religious views. According toRony Brauman, a French physician, former president ofMédecins sans frontières (Doctors without Borders), and the director of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) at theUniversity of Manchester, there are three kinds of perspectives on Zionism, pro and contra: a non-antisemitic anti-Zionism, an antisemitic anti-Zionism, and anantisemitic Zionism.[132] Shany Mor writes that before 1948 anti-Zionism was not antisemitic, but since 1948 some amount of antisemitism has been at work.[1]
In the early 21st century, it was also claimed that a "new antisemitism" had emerged that was rooted in anti-Zionism.[133][134][135] Advocates of this notion argue that much of what purports to becriticism of Israel and Zionism is demonization, and has led to an international resurgence of attacks on Jews and Jewish symbols and an increased acceptance of antisemitic beliefs in public discourse.[136] Critics of the concept argue that equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is inaccurate, sometimes obscures valid criticism of Israel, and trivializes antisemitism.[137]
Jewish right to a state
Scholars such as Dina Porat andEmanuele Ottolenghi have said that anti-Zionism is antisemitic because it supposedly denies only Jews the right to self-determination that all other nations have.[138][139] By contrast,Peter Beinart argues that "barely anyone suggests that opposing a Kurdish or Catalan state makes you an anti-Kurdish or anti-Catalan bigot".[140] For example, the1970 UN Friendly Relations Declaration upheld all people's right to self-determination, but cautioned that did not necessarily imply the creation of independent states.[10]
Edward Said opposed Zionism and instead proposed that abinational Israeli-Palestinian state would grant Jews (as well as Palestinians) the right to self-determination.[9] Jewish philosophers such asMartin Buber andHannah Arendt conceived Jewish self-determination in the form of a binational state that would give Palestinians and Jews equal rights.[141][142] TheJerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, drafted in 2021 by more than 200 scholars of Jewish studies, says that supporting a one-state solution or denying Jews the right to a state is not inherently antisemitic: "It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants 'between the river and the sea,' whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form."[143][144]
TheAmerican Jewish Committee has said that denying Jews the right to a state is antisemitic, but also that it is not antisemitic for Palestinians to seek a single binational state.[145][146] Anti-Defamation League directorJonathan Greenblatt toldThe New Yorker that denying Jews a state is discriminatory and therefore antisemitic, but when asked whether it is antisemitic for Palestinians to want a one-state solution, he said he was "not talking about that".[147]
Equating and correlating anti-Zionism with antisemitism
As early as 1966,Webster's Third New International Dictionary cited anti-Zionism as one of the core meanings of antisemitism, and a year later,Martin Luther King Jr. was falsely cited as having made the same equation in a letter.[y] In 1972,Abba Eban said that the task of dialogue with gentiles is to prove that there is no distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.[z] In 1978,Fred Halliday, rebuffing the equation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, wrote that disavowals were constantly required given the frequency of the accusation.[aa] In the early 2000s, it became increasingly commonplace for defenders of Israel to regard criticism of Zionism and Israel as tantamount to, interchangeable with, or closely related to antisemitism. In 2007, Tony Judt considered the merging of the two categories in polemics relatively new.[148] A 2003–04European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia report aroused intense controversy over aspects of its provisory definition of antisemitism,[ab] which many regarded as ambiguous in blurring distinctions to the point that the two concepts became porous.[149]
Scholars who equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism includeRobert S. Wistrich, former head of theVidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at theHebrew University of Jerusalem, who argues that since 1948, anti-Zionism and antisemitism have merged and that much contemporary anti-Zionism, particularly forms that compare Zionism and Jews with Hitler andNazi Germany, has become a form of antisemitism.[133] In 2016, Indiana University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA) brought together 70 scholars from 16 countries to discuss the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism:
For instance, publicly voiced calls for the end of Israel are becoming more prevalent at a time when antisemitism is on the upsurge in Europe and elsewhere. How, if at all, are these phenomena related? What does Zionism signify to its present-day opponents? What motivates them to fixate, often passionately, on what they see as the singular "injustices" and even "evil" of Zionism and Israel? Of what irredeemable sin do they find Israel uniquely guilty? Why, alone among all the world's countries, is Israel judged to be unacceptable as a state and unworthy of a future? No other nation, after all, is targeted for elimination. Why is Israel?[150]
Jean Améry became convinced that anti-Zionism was an updated version of the antisemitism he experienced as a Holocaust survivor.[151] In a 1969 essay, he argues that the anti-Zionists of his time may not have ill intentions against all Jews, but their intentions are irrelevant. Their philosophy has a centuries-old pedigree beginning with thefalse charge of deicide and culminating inNazi propaganda. Améry did not expect anti-Zionists of his time to take an unbending pro-Israel stance in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; he merely beseeched them to think critically, use common sense, and judge Israel fairly.[152]
In 2016, theInternational Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted aWorking Definition of Antisemitism, one that was subsequently officially recognized by various governments, foremost among them the U.S. and France, which endorsed the equation of certain manifestations of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.[153] 127 Jewish intellectuals in the diaspora and Israel formally protested the French resolution equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, arguing that the definition was injurious to numerous anti-Zionist Jews.[ac]
Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to... Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
International Holocaust Remembrance Association
Kenneth L. Marcus, former staff director at theU.S. Commission on Civil Rights, identifies four main views on the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, at least in North America.[154](p. 845–846) Marcus also writes[155] that a 2006 study of 5,000 people in Europe concluded that antisemitic views correlate among respondents with hostility to Israel, a result that nevertheless does not mean one cannot be critical of Israeli policies without being antisemitic.[ad]
In 2010,Oxford University Press published Anthony Julius's bookTrials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England. In it, Julius claims that the borders between anti-Zionism and antisemitism are porous.[156] He concedes that it is possible to be in conflict with a Jewish ideology without discriminating against Jews, but argues that anti-Zionists cross the line so often as to make the distinction meaningless.[157]
ProfessorJeffrey Herf of theUniversity of Maryland, College Park wrote: "One distinctive feature of the secular leftist antagonism to Israel ... was its indignant assertion that it had absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism. Yet the eagerness with which Israel's enemies spread lies about Zionism's racist nature and were willing to compare the Jewish state to Nazi Germany suggested that an element of antisemitism was indeed at work in the international Left as it responded to Israel's victory in June 1967."[78] Anti-Zionists responded to the war's outcome by describing Israel in terms familiar from antisemitic stereotypes.[78]
In December 2023, theU.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution equating antisemitism with anti-Zionism.[158] Palestinian rights advocates called the resolution a "dangerous" move aimed at limiting freedom of expression and diverting attention from theGaza war.[159]
French PresidentEmmanuel Macron has said on multiple occasions that anti-Zionism is equivalent to antisemitism.[160][161] He has opposed unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and theBoycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign, while affirming France's responsibility for the Holocaust and commitment to combating antisemitism.[160] Several other world leaders, includingStephen Harper,Manuel Valls, andPope Francis, have described anti-Zionism in similar terms, framing it as an attack on Jews through the delegitimization of Israel.[150]
View that the two are not interlinked
Several comparative surveys in Europe and the U.S. have failed to find a statistical correlation between criticism of Israeli policies and antisemitism:
Political scientist Peter Beattie, in an analytical overview of the specialist literature that used polling data in several countries to test the purported link between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, found no necessary empirical correlation, cautioning that assertions of such an inherent connection are calumnious. He concludes, "Most of those critical of Israeli policies are not anti-Semites. Only a fraction of the US population harbours anti-Semitic views, and while logically this fraction would be overrepresented among critics of Israel, the present and prior research indicate that they comprise only a small part. Inaccurate charges of anti-Semitism are not merely calumny, but threaten to debase the term itself and weaken its connection to a very real, and very dangerous, form of prejudice."[162]
The German sociologistWerner Bergmann's analysis of empirical polling data from Germany concluded that whereas right-wing respondents critical of Israel tended to have views overlapping with classical antisemitism, left-wing interviewees' criticisms of Israel did not involve criticism of Jews.[ae]
The anti-Zionism equals antisemitism argument drains the word antisemitism of any useful meaning. For it means that to count as an antisemite, it is sufficient to hold any view ranging from criticism of the policies of the current Israeli government to denial that Israel has the right to exist as a state, without having to subscribe to any of those things which historians have traditionally regarded as making up an antisemitic worldview: hatred of Jews per se, belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, belief that Jews generated communism and control capitalism, belief that Jews are racially inferior and so on. Moreover, while theoretically allowing that criticism of Israeli governments is legitimate, in practice it virtually proscribes any such thing.[163]
Shifting positions on the Zionist / Anti-Zionist spectrum
Before World War II and the creation of the State of Israel, the debate between Zionists and anti-Zionists was largely an internal Jewish affair; the questions it sought to answer involved Jewish self-definition and the proper use of political power in theJewish diaspora. Once it became clear to most Jews that all of Zionism's alternatives failed to preventthe Holocaust, the debate largely subsided in the Jewish community. Most prewar Jewish anti-Zionists died in the Holocaust, emigrated to Israel, or became disillusioned by the Soviet Union.[1]
Nevertheless, individual Jews have changed their position on the spectrum of pro- and anti-Zionist views:
Jacob Israël de Haan madealiyah to Palestine in 1919 as a convincedreligious Zionist. Deeply troubled by Zionist attitudes toward Arabs, he began to champion Arab rights while also advocating on behalf of the Orthodox AshkenaziAgudat Israel /Haredim communities, which maintained excellent relations with Arabs, and with which he felt more spiritually comfortable. His effectiveness with the Mandatory authorities in protesting Zionist claims to represent all Jews while they ignored dissent from Jerusalem's anti-Zionist orthodox communities was resented. He was ridiculed by Zionists, who assassinated him in 1924.[164][165]
Isaac Deutscher decidedly opposed Zionism, then altered his judgment in the wake of the Holocaust, to support the foundation of Israel – the creation of a nation-state precisely when they were becoming anachronistic[166] – even at the Palestinians' expense,[af] then wavered at the end between contempt for Arab states' antisemitic demagoguery and odium for Israelis' fanatical triumphalism. In "Prussians of the Middle East", at the end of theSix-Day War, he prophesied that the victory would prove to be a disaster for Israel.[167]
Noam Chomsky is often said to be an anti-Zionist. He has said that the word "Zionism" has changed connotations since his youth, with the boundaries of what are considered Zionist and anti-Zionist views shifting. The Zionist groups he led as a youth would now be called anti-Zionist because they mostly opposed the idea of a Jewish state.[168] In 1947, in his youth, Chomsky's support for a socialistbinational state, in conjunction with his opposition to any semblance of a theocratic system of governance in Israel, was considered well within the mainstream of secular Zionism; by 1987, it put him solidly in the anti-Zionist camp.[ag]
Hannah Arendt lecturing in Germany, 1955
Zionists have on occasion interpreted criticism by pro-Zionists in the fold as evidence that the critics are anti-Zionist.[169] One could oppose Zionism's central goal, the formation of a Jewish national state, and yet not be anti-Zionist. This was the case with some pre-state groups, political heirs of thecultural Zionism tradition founded byAhad Ha'am, such asBrit Shalom and, later,Ihud.Hannah Arendt, who worked for the Jewish Agency for Palestine in the 1930s and was active in facilitating Jewish migration to Palestine from France, devoted much of her thinking in the 1940s to a critique of political Zionism. The Zionism she advocated had a broader definition: Jewish political agency anywhere. When partition was imminent, she came out strongly against the concept of a Jewish, as opposed to binational, state.[170] While writingEichmann in Jerusalem, she clarified her views: "I am not against Israel on principle, I am against certain important Israeli policies."[171] Arendt took Israel's side in the Arab–Israeli conflict and rejoiced at its victory in the Six-Day War.[172]
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion came to be exploited by Arab anti-Zionists, although some have tried to discourage its usage.[180][181]The Protocols itself makes no reference to Zionism, but after World War I, claims that the book is a record of theZionist Congress became routine. The first Arabic translation ofThe Protocols was published in 1925, contemporaneous witha major wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine.[87] A similar conspiracy theory is the belief in a powerful, well-financed "Zionist lobby" that clamps down on criticism of Israel and conceals its crimes.[ah][182] Zionists are able to do this in the United Kingdom, according toShelby Tucker and Tim Llewellyn, because they are in "control of our media"[183] and "suborned Britain's civil structures, including government, parliament, and the press."[ai]
Anti-Zionism is a major component ofHolocaust denial. According to one strain of Holocaust denial, Zionists cooperated with the Nazis and are guilty of the crimes committed during the Holocaust.[184] Deniers see Israel as having somehow benefited from what they call "the big lie" that is the Holocaust.[aj] Some Holocaust deniers claim that their ideology is motivated by concern for Palestinian rights.[ak]
As an alternative to outright denial of the Holocaust,Holocaust inversion acknowledges the Holocaust and uses it to discredit Israel. Following theOctober 7 attacks, many instances of Holocaust inversion were reported on social media, "with the memory of the Holocaust weaponized."[185] Kingston University genocide studies professor Philip Spencer argues that accusations of genocide against Israel draw on older antisemitic traditions, portraying Jews as both powerful and weak, and serve as a modern form of Holocaust inversion that shifts blame onto Jews and recasts them as responsible for past and present evils.[186]
^"Though a little religious support for Zionism existed, 'the majority of Orthodox leaders condemned Zionism from its very outset,' particularly the rabbis of Eastern Europe. Their concerns were twofold: they feared that Zionists were overidealistic and were misleading the Jewish people about what was possible; they were also concerned that the Zionist millennial vision was an attempt to preempt the Messiah." (Brasher 2006, p. 70)
^"in the language of the Hebrew prophets, the Return to the Land of the Fathers belonged to the end of history, toAharit hayamim, to the coming of the Messiah and the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of God," (Wistrich 1996, p. 98)
^'Qui peut contester les droits des Juifs sur la Palestine ? Mon Dieu, historiquement, c'est bien votre pays ! Et quel spectacle merveilleux ça serait si les Juifs, si doués, étaient de nouveau reconstitués en une nation indépendante, respectée, heureuse, pouvant rendre à la pauvre humanité des services dans le domaine comme autrefois! Malheureusement, les destinées des nations ne sont point gouvernées seulement par ces conceptions abstraites, si pures, si nobles qu'elles puissent être. Il faut compter avec la réalité, avec les faits acquis, avec la force brutale des circonstances. Or la réalité est que la Palestine fait maintenant partie intégrale de l'Empire Ottoman et, ce qui est plus grave, elle est habitée par d'autres que des Israélites. Cette réalité, ces faits acquis, cette force brutale des circonstances ne laissent au zionisme [sic], géographiquement aucun espoir de réalisation, et ce qui est surtout important, menacent d'un vrai danger la situation des Juifs en Turquie. Certes, les Turcs et les Arabes sont généralement bien disposés envers vos coreligionnaires. Cependant, il y a parmi eux aussi des fanatiques, eux aussi, comme toutes les autres nations même les plus civilisées, ne sont pas exempts des sentiments de haine de race. En outre, il y a en Palestine des chrétiens fanatiques, surtout parmi les orthodoxes et les catholiques qui, considérant la Palestine comme devant appartenir à eux seulement, sont très jaloux des progrès des Juifs dans le pays de leurs ancêtres et ne laissent passer aucune occasion pour exciter la haine des musulmans contre les Juifs. Il faut donc, pour la tranquillité des Juifs en Turquie, que le mouvement sioniste, dans le sens géographique du mot, cesse. Que l'on cherche un endroit quelque part pour la malheureuse nation juive, rien de plus juste et équitable. Mon Dieu, la terre est assez vaste, il y a encore des pays inhabités où l'on pourrait placer des millions d'israélites pauvres, qui y deviendront peut-être heureux et un jour constitueraient une nation. Ça serait peut-être la meilleure, la plus rationnelle solution de la question juive. Mais, au nom de Dieu, qu'on laisse tranquille la Palestine.'[31]
^'L'auteur de cette lettre admet qu'il peut exister un droit historique des Juifs à s'établir en Palestine. Mais il écarte immédiatement cette perspective au nom des réalités géographiques du moment. Et surtout il entrevoit que le sionisme peut contribuer à éveiller le nationalisme arabe local en réunissant dans une même opposition Chrétiens et Musulmans. La suite des événements confirme cette analyse.'[34]
^"Glossing over the fact that Zionism was ultimately meant to lead to Jewish domination of Palestine, Herzl employed a justification that has been a touchstone for colonialists at all times and in all places and that would become a staple argument of the Zionist movement: Jewish immigration would benefit the indigenous people of Palestine."(Khalidi 2020)
^It has been argued that the document itself emerged from a milieu where antisemitic views were commonplace. In 1914, Chaim Weizmann reportedly told Arthur Balfour, "we too are in agreement with the cultural anti-Semites, in so far as we believed that Germans of the Mosaic faith are an undesirable, demoralizing phenomenon."[37][needs context] Balfour had "introduced theAliens Bill ... aimed specifically at restricting admission of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He warned Parliament at the time that the Jews 'remained a people apart.'"[12]
^The Ottoman census of 1914 arrives as 722,000 resident citizens of Palestine: 83% Muslim (602,000), Christian 11.2 (81,000) and 5% Jewish (39,000) The British army's estimate for the last put the last figure at 65,000 by war's end (Krämer 2011, pp. 137–138).
^The massacre occurred on 10 December 1918 when Australian, New Zealand and Scottish soldiers attacked the village ofSarafand al-Amar, killing approximately 50 male villagers. It occurred in response to the murder of a New Zealand soldier by aBedouin thief, though ultimately resulting from longstanding tensions between occupying Allied troops and local residents.Edmund Allenby was infuriated by the massacre, publicly condemning its perpetrators, but his attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated by resistance from his staff and other officials. (Laurens 1999, p. 480)
^The British anti-Zionist[45]John Hope Simpson believed that the Arabs were "economically powerless against such a strong movement" and thus needed protection. Charles Anderson writes that Hope Simpson was also "wary of the gulf between Zionist rhetoric and practice, observing that 'The most lofty sentiments are ventilated in public meetings and Zionist propaganda' but that theJewish National Fund and other organs of the movement did not uphold or embody a vision of cooperation or mutual benefit with the Arabs."[46]
^Among the latter,Archer Cust,Stewart Perowne,Ernest Richmond and theHigh CommissionerSir John Chancellor are often mentioned. Many were uncomfortable at executing a mandate that would be detrimental and coercive for the Arab inhabitants. At the upper levels, many found Palestinian notables, with their francophile milieu, more urbane than tenseCentral-Europeann Zionists. But at the same time British sympathies for the former were condescending and, privately, Arabs were often thought of generally as untrustworthy and given to chicanery.[47]
^although a few senior British officials might well be considered anti-Zionist, pro-Arab, or even antisemitic, from the beginning of the British occupation until its bitter end in 1948, none of the top appointees of the mandatory administration outside the judiciary were Arabs (Khalidi 2006, p. 37).
^"the Bolshevik Revolution and the Balfour Declaration were not unrelated events. Exaggerated British perceptions of the Jewish role in Bolshevism played a not insignificant part in fostering official support for Zionism. A propaganda campaign was waged to counteract the supposed communist tendencies of world Jewry by means of an appeal to Jewish nationalism. In the words ofWinston Churchill,'Zionism versus Bolshevism: a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people." (Kadish 2013, p. 8)
^"Towards the Administration they adopted the attitude of 'We want the Jewish State and we won't wait', and they did not hesitate to avail themselves of every means open to them in this country and abroad to force; the hand of an Administration bound to respect the 'Status Quo' and to commit it, and thereby future Administrations, to a policy not contemplated in the Balfour Declaration.. It is not to be wondered at that the Arab population complained of bias on the part of the Administration in favour of the Jews. They see the Administration repeatedly overruled by the Zionist Commission; they see the Zionist Commission intermeddling in every department of Government, in Justice, Public Health, Legislation, Public Works, and forcing the Administration as in the case of the Wilhelma Concession to interfere in their favour, in a purely business transaction. They see Jews excluded from the operations of the Public Custodian with regard to enemy property: they have seen the introduction of the Hebrew language on an equality with Arabic and English: they have seen considerable immigration not effectively controlled: they see Zionist stamps on letters and Zionist young men drilling publicly in the open spaces of the town. Finally they have seen them proceeding to the election of a Constituent Assembly. What more natural than that they should fail to realise the immense difficulties the Administration was and is labouring under and come to the conclusion that the openly published demands of the Jews were to be granted and the guarantees in the Declaration were to become but a dead letter?." (Palin 1920, pp. 34–35;Laurens 1999, p. 479)
^"It would be a mistake to view the destruction of Jewish institutional life as a reflection of Soviet policy toward Israel. The contrary is true. Even as Soviet authorities were preparing the ground for liquidating Jewish communal structures, Moscow's relations with Israel were warm and cordial." (Korey 1972, p. 124)
^"there can be no question that, though antisemitism and anti-Zionism are most definitively conceptually distinct, the campaigns against Israel undertaken by the Soviet Union, particularly after 1967, regularly made use not only of anti-Zionist argumentation but also of clearly antisemitic sentiments." (Jacobs 2022, p. 349)
^Though the classical Marxist tradition berated antisemitism – inAugust Bebel's words "the socialism of fools" – treating it with dismissive contempt, a half-century after the Soviet Union had abolished the official antisemitism of the Tzarist empire, its political exploitation was avoided until theGreat Purges of 1937, one collateral effect of which was to eliminate the "old guard" where the number of Jews was proportionally much higher than inthe Party generally. After theNazi-Soviet pact, Stalin ordered quotas limiting Jews in prominent positions, and anti-Jewish stereotypes and discrimination flourished (Korey 1972, pp. 116–117, 125, 132–133).
^A widely circulated document in August 1967 stated that "A wide network of Zionist organizations with a common center, a common program, and funds exceeding by far the funds of the Mafia 'Cosa Nostra' is active behind the scenes of the international theater." The image of Zionism as an octopus with tentacles all over the world also later and to disarm critical challenges, it was asserted that Zionism itself was the major purveyor of antisemitism. Trofim Kichko, the antisemitic Ukrainian bigot who pennedJudaism Without Embellishment, was rehabilitated, and allowed to write articles asserting Zionist bankers were using the Middle East as a "launching pad" to make strikes against socialism. Thereafter, the putative role of Zionist "saboteurs" was bruited about to "clarify" why, for example, theSoviet Union felt compelled to invade Czechoslovakia. Similar anti-Zionist tracts with antisemitic fantasies, such as lurii Ivanov'sОсторожно: сионизм! (Beware: Zionism!), appeared at the same time.Ivan Shevtsov's antisemitic novelЛюбовь и ненависть (Love and Hate), was published in 1970, with a large print run, bythe Soviet Ministry of Defence (Korey 1972, pp. 128–129, 131–132).
^"(he) asserted that antisemitism had not been a major problem in the Arabic-speaking lands before the creation of the State of Israel, and that it was precisely the establishment of the State that had led to a fanning of anti-Jewish attitudes among Arabs. From Rodinson's perspective, Israel was a colonial state." (Jacobs 2022, p. 351)
^Derek Penslar summarized Harkabi's argument in his 2020 essay on the overlap of antisemitism and anti-Zionism:
Arab attitudes towards Israel were shaped as much by specific Israeli policies and actions as by inherited, pervasive antisemitic stereotypes. For Harkabi, Arab anti-Zionism began as a rational response to a genuine threat but then mutated into irrational behaviour by governing elites. Or, to employ a medical metaphor – quite appropriate, since all forms of antisemitism are pathological-European antisemitism may be compared to a psychosomatic illness, whereas its Arab counterpart more closely resembles a toxic allergic reaction. The former originates in fantasy yet cripples the entire body politic; the latter is a debilitating, even fatal, response to a genuine substance.[85]
^"After the Six-Day War, the anti-Israel phenomenon became worldwide .... [T]he New Left immediately tagged Israel as an imperialist and ... fascist state. German New Left militants became enthusiastic proponents of—and, sometimes, participants in—Palestinian terror attacks. ... For much of the French New Left, Palestinians became the new Algerians." (Linfield 2019, p. 5)
^"Consider ... the character of the connection between Muslim anti-Zionism and that version of the new anti-Zionism associated with the Far Left. ... [The Socialist Workers Party opted] for an opportunistic merging with Islamist groups, the stifling of criticism of their leaders, and the exploitation of communist politics (all of which eventually produced tensions within the party). ... SWP and Respect leaders [met] with Hamas and Hezbolah leaders at 'anti-war' conferences in Cairo in 2003 and 2007. The 2nd Cairo Declaration of 2003 ... identified 'the Zionist plan' as the 'establishment of the greater State of Israel from the Nile to Euphrates'; it condemned pressure on Arab nations to 'acknowledge the legitimacy of the racist Zionist entity; ... it opposed all 'normalization with the Zionist entity." (Julius 2010, p. 573)
^"in order to protect traditional Judaism from the of his time, he, likeRabbi Schlesinger, relied on unconventional sources and elevated nonhalachic material to the status of halacha. Indeed, he based his entire anti-Zionist polemic on an aggadic passage in (of the Babylonian Talmud) that many earlier halachic authorities had neglected." (Kaplan 2004, p. 169)
^A later edition of the dictionary dropped this second sense from its definition of antisemitism. Both the Webster 1966 definition and the remark by King were repeatedly quoted by pro-Zionist Jews and Israeli political figures. The alleged letter by King has never been found, and the remark attributed to him comes from an edited transcription of an exchange between King and a student at Harvard (Porat 2022, p. 448).
^"It might be noted that the resort to charges of 'anti-Semitism' (or in the case of Jews, 'Jewish self-hatred') to silence critics of Israel has been quite a general and often effective device. Even Abba Eban, the highly-regarded Israeli diplomat of the Labor Party (considered a leading dove), is capable of writing that 'One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism [generally understood as criticism of policies of the Israeli state] is not a distinction at all.'" (Chomsky 2014, p. 17)
^"Elementary as this point may be, it is one that has to be re-established time and again" (Halliday 1978, pp. 166–167).
^"we would conclude on the basis of our definition of antisemitism, that anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist attitudes and expressions are antisemitic in those cases where Israel is seen as a representative of 'the Jew'." (Marcus 2015, p. 153)
^The second reason for their rejection was that the resolution falsely defiining Israel as "a collectivity composed of Jewish citizens' (une collectivité composée de citoyens juifs), a phrasing which explicitly denies the existence of 20% of the Israeli populations that is Christian or Palestinian." (Le Monde 2019)
^"From a large survey of 5,000 citizens of ten European countries, we showed that the prevalence of those harboring (self reported) anti-Semitic views consistently increases with respondents' degree of anti-Israel sentiment, even after controlling for other factors. It is noteworthy that fewer than one-quarter of those with anti-Israel index scores of only 1 or 2 harbor anti-Semitic views (as defined by anti-Semitic index scores exceeding 5), which supports the contention that one certainly can be critical of Israeli policies without being anti-Semitic. However, among those with the most extreme anti-Israel sentiments in our survey (anti-Israel index scores of 4), 56 percent report anti-Semitic leanings. Based on this analysis, when an individual's criticism of Israel becomes sufficiently severe, it does become." (Kaplan & Small 2006, p. 560)
^"Right-wing-oriented people are more likely to project a critical attitude towards Israel onto all Jews, and this view only reveals a significant correlation to classical anti-Semitic views here. It is interesting to note- unlike the sample as a whole and among right-wing respondents. that left-wing respondents do not show a significant correlation between criticism of Israel and the transfer of this critical view onto Jews in general, This suggests that such criticism, regardless of whether it is correct or not, is actually directed at the concrete policies of Israel and is not generalized or being used to coin form one's own antisemitism." (Bergmann 2010, pp. 110–111)
^He wrote in 1954, "People pursued by a monster and running to save their lives cannot help injuring those who are in their way and cannot help trampling over their property." (Caute 2013, p. 255)
^"I was interested in socialist, binationalist options for Palestine, and in the kibbutzim and the whole cooperative labor system that had developed in the Jewish settlement there (the Yishuv).... The vague ideas I had at the time [1947] were to go to Palestine, perhaps to a kibbutz, to try to become involved in efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework, opposed to the deeply antidemocratic concept of a Jewish state." (Chomsky 1987, p. 7)
^Michael Adams, Christopher Paget Mayhew, Publish it Not: The Middle East Cover-up, (1975) Signal Books (1975) 2006ISBN978 -1-904-95519-1 cited inJulius 2010, p. 489
^Richard Evans,Lying About Hitler 2001, p.135, cited inJulius 2010, p. 65
^"Some [Holocaust deniers] opportunistically propose that opposition to Zionism and a concern for Palestinian rights motivates their Holocaust denial." (Julius 2010, p. 65)
^ab"Congress Is Absolutely Wrong to Equate Anti-Zionism With Antisemitism".jacobin.com. Retrieved7 October 2024.Not all anti-Zionisms are the same. As we've seen, some religious groups like the Satmar oppose Zionism for theological reasons. There are also illiberal opponents of Zionism who dream of replacing the oppression and displacement of Palestinians with the oppression or displacement of Israeli Jews. But at least in the United States and other Western societies, these are relatively rare positions....I've long been sympathetic to the idea of a one-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Simply granting equality to everyone who lives within Israel's current borders and letting the refugees return home would mean a state with roughly equal numbers of Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
^Tsur, Yaron (1998). "The Religious Factor in the Encounter between Zionism and the Rural Atlas Jews". In Almog, S.; Reinharz, Jehuda; Shapira, Anita (eds.).Zionism and religion. The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series. Vol. 30. Hanover: University Press of New England.ISBN978-0-87451-882-5.
^Beinin, Joel (1990).Was the red flag flying there? Marxist politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948 - 1965. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-07036-3.
^Blumenthal, Helaine. (2009).Communism on Trial: The Slansky Affair and Anti-Semitism in Post-WWII Europe. UC Berkeley: Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies. (Read online)
^Helfant, Audrey L. (1991).The Slánksý trial reconsidered. Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University.
^Ahlbäck, Anders, & Kasper Braskén (eds)Anti-fascism and ethnic minorities: history and memory in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge Studies in Fascism and the far right. London ; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024.
^Dariusz Stola, Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967 - 1968 [The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland 1967–1968], pp. 213, 414, published by Instytut Studiów PolitycznychPolskiej Akademii Nauk, Warsaw 2000,ISBN83-86759-91-7
^Sagi Polka (2019).Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi: Spiritual Mentor of Wasati Salafism. p. 173.
^Routledge Handbook of Political Islam.Taylor & Francis. 2012. p. 247.
^Rickenbacher, Daniel. "The Centrality of Antisemitism in the Islamic State's Ideology and its Connection to Anti-Shiism."The Return of Religious Antisemitism. Edited by Gunther Jikeli.Google Books. 13 August 2025.
^Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (1980).Islam and the Problem of Israel. Islamic Council of Europe.
^abAl-Faruqi, Isma'il R. (2003).Islam and the Problem of Israel. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press. pp. 103–104.
^Simcha Flapan,The Arab-Israeli War of 1967: A Reply to Isaac Deutscher (Tel Aviv: International Department of the United Workers Party—MAPAM, 1968), 15, Qtd. in Linfield, p. 184
^Martin, Michelle; Rantala, Hanna (22 February 2018)."Film on 1976 plane hijacking illuminates Israeli-Palestinian conflict: director".Reuters. Archived fromthe original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved5 January 2024.Separating out Jewish passengers, both Israeli citizens and non-Israelis, after removing all passengers and crew from the plane, the hijackers freed 148 non-Jews over the course of several days and kept about 100 Jewish passengers and crew members, threatening to kill them if their demands were not met.
^"Entebbe: A mother's week of 'indescribable fear'".BBC News. 27 June 2016. Archived fromthe original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved5 January 2024.On the third day, the hijackers began calling people's names and ordering them into a second, smaller, squalid room. It became clear they were separating the Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers from the rest, immediately evoking the horrors of the Nazi selections in World War Two when Jews were picked out to be sent to their deaths.
^Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Tobias. "The Missing Scene: Entebbe,Holocaust, and Echoes from the German Past." In"Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts."Google Books. 7 November 2022.
^Porat 2022, p. 448: "if every nation is entitled to a state, then opposing a national movement struggling for the rights of a nation to reach one is discrimination, which, in this case, originates in antisemitism."
^Ottolenghi 2003: "Zionism comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to self-determination as all other nations are."
^Marcus, Kenneth L. (2007). "Anti-Zionism as Racism: Campus Anti-Semitism and the Civil Rights Act of 1964".William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.15 (3):837–891.
^Freedland, Jonathan (9 September 2010)."The Living Lie".The New Republic.ISSN0028-6583. Archived fromthe original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved5 January 2024.For while anti-Zionism might not logically entail anti-Semitism, Julius sets out to show that all too often the one shades into the other, even if only as a factual matter, a matter of contingency. His method here is English—that is, empirical rather than theoretical. He shows in one case after another how the constant refrains of anti-Zionist discourse echo those of anti-Semitism's earlier incarnations.
Duke ... was quickly becoming a racist celebrity. He had become the self-styled grand wizard of not only the Ku Klux Klan, but of most racist-minded people. Through his personality he would elevate the discussion of racism and anti-Zionism from whispers in back rooms to the forefront of international news.
Cohen, Stuart A. (1987–1988). "Ideological components in Anglo-Jewish opposition to Zionism before and during the First World War: a restatement".Jewish Historical Studies.30:149–162.JSTOR29779843.
Endelman, Todd M. (1 January 2005)."Antisemitism in Western Europe Today". In Marrus, Michael Robert; Penslar, Derek Jonathan; Stein, Janice Gross (eds.).Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World. University of Toronto Press. pp. 65–79.ISBN978-0-8020-3931-6.
Giebels, Ludy (2014). "Jacob Israel de Haan in Mandate Palestine: was the victim of the first Zionist political assassination a "Jewish Lawrence of Arabia"?".Jewish Historical Studies.46:107–129.JSTOR43855720.
Laurens, Henry (1999).L'invention de la Terre sainte [The Invention of the Holy Land]. La Question de Palestine (in French). Vol. 1. Paris:Fayard.ISBN978-2-84406-388-5.
Mendes, Philip (2011). "American, Australian, and other Western Jewish Communists and Soviet Anti-Semitism: Responses to the Slansky Trial and the Doctors plot 1952–1953".American Communist History.10 (2):151–168.doi:10.1080/14743892.2011.597224.S2CID159939552.
Penkower, Monty Noam (Spring 1985). "American Jewry and the Holocaust: From Biltmore to the American Jewish Conference".Jewish Social Studies.47 (2):95–114.JSTOR4467289.
Piperno, Celeste Pavoncello (July–December 1982). ""La Nostra Bandiera": l'adesione agli "ideali" fascisti di un gruppo di ebrei italiani" ["La Nostra Bandiera": the adherence to the fascist "ideals" of a group of Italian Jews].La Rassegna Mensile di Israel (in Italian).48 (7/12):15–22.JSTOR41285264.
Wistrich, Robert S. (2012).From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel. Studies in Antisemitism. University of Nebraska Press.ISBN978-0-803240-834.
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