Of. course I’ll get raked for putting up this post, but I’m frankly sick of people denigrating others as “Zionists”, which in most cases is simply a euphemism for “people who are pro-Israel” or even “Jews”, so that “anti-Zionist” becomes a euphemism for “anti-Israel” or “antisemitic”. My contention, echoed by Natasha Hausdorff and Douglas Murray in a fairly recent Munk debate, is that, at present, “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”.
Why do I say this? Well, look at the definitions of “Zionism” and “anti-Zionism” in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), my touchstone for language.
Here’s anti-Zionism in the OED:
So you have to look up “Zionism,” and when you do, you get this:
Note that “anti-Zionism” does not mean “opposition to some of Israel’s policies” or “opposition to Netanyahu”. Rather, it means “opposition to the sovereignty of Israel and the right of the state to exist and defend itself against attacks.” (You might add “the right of the state to exist as, in part, a place for Judaism to thrive”,: but then all the Muslim nations of the Middle East are also places for Islam to thrive. In fact, Christianity and Judaism are not tolerated in most Muslim states, which, unlike Israel, criminalize the practice of other faiths. Note too the existence of official names like “The Islamic Republic of Iran” and “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan”.) There are a gazillion states in the Middle East where Islam is the official religion and other religions aren’t tolerated.
But I digress. Israel was established as a sovereign state by the United Nations in 1948. Before that, Palestinians were offered their own state but rejected it, and have rejected it nearly a half-dozen times since. As Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf argue in a 2020 book, The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace, the Palestinians don’t want a two-state solution. Rather, they want a one-state solution: a single state in which all descendants of Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 would be allowed to return to the present country of Israel, which would then become a Palestinian state. (The “right of return,” which is unique to Palestinians among all who fled their land in the past, is their key demand that they know, if exercised, would lead to the disappearance of Israel. Read the book, a meticulous and scholarly history of this neglected concept.)
A “Zionist,” then, is someone who believes that Israel, now established, should be allowed to remain a sovereign state on territory considered the Jewish homeland but also the homeland of the Arabs who are Israeli citizens. As Natasha Hausdorff argues below, the state of Israel is a fait accompli. To argue against its existence now is to argue that its Jews should either be expelled or—more likely if the “right of return is exercised”—killed.
Since other groups have sovereign states, too, so singling out the Jewish people as the only group undeserving of an established sovereign state in their ancestral land is anti-Semitic because it’s discriminatory. Remember that Israel is to a large extent a secular state in which there is freedom of religion: about 20% of its inhabitants are Arab Muslims, who have full rights as citizens.
If Netanyahu disappears as Israel’s Prime Minister, as I hope he will, it’s certain that anti-Zionism will remain, for it is really opposition to Israel, not Israel’s politics.
The video below eloquently expresses the equivalence of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. In this Munk debate, the claim that they are equivalent did indeed “win”, changing the minds of the audience more towards equivalence than to non-equivalence. Have a listen to Hausdorff’s short but telling argument:
See also the discussion of this issue by the World Jewish Congress.
I have lost friends, and will probably lose more, for being sympathetic to Israel and its right to exist. (Only a handful of American Jews—around 7%—say they are “anti-Zionist”, though there is disagreement about the term’s meaning.). One friend, an excellent scientist with whom I had a good relationship, told me he wanted to unsubscribe to this website because of my views on Israel. (I don’t have the ability to unsubscribe people.) Another, an old paramour whom I still care about, told me she doubted we could get along because of “the Israel thing.” And of course Maarten Boudry and I were disinvited to a biology discussion at the University of Amsterdam because of “our views on Israel,” which are simply that it has a right to exist and defend itself when attacked.
I’m not beefing here, as I regret nothing I’ve said. I just want to reiterate the point once again that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, for it is the view that Israel should not exist and should be eliminated. The sentiment will persist regardless of what Israel does or who is Prime Minister.
Well stated, Dr. Coyne. As a goy who has always supported Israel, I confess that I was blindsided by the antisemitic reactions to Oct 7, 2023. Prior to that awful day, I was aware of some anti-Zionist rhetoric that sounded antisemitic to me, but I was foolishly thinking those were the views of a few on the periphery. Now I know how wrong I was.
It’s not the Jews I have a problem with, it’s the Zionists. And, it’s not Israel I have a problem with, it’s Netanyahu. That’s the playbook. Because they are separable in theory, there’s plausible deniability. But in practice, in today’s discourse, not so much.
Here’s another piece equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism: https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/stop-making-excuses-for-anti-zionism.
Just curious, what is Zionism for you? Broadly, for me, it is a nation where Jewish people (genetically), culturally, and religiously can live out their lives in peace. Now, Judaism, like all other religions, has components that are absolutely bonkers. Ideally, these should be kept under control, but political expedience does not always allow it.
The millennia that Jewish people have had to put up with other people’s sh!te, I don’t have a problem with Zionism. So in that sense I am a Zionist. So do you have a problem with me? If so, we can meet behind the bicycle sheds … 😉
I suspect Norman was summarizing the argument of antisemites from the left, where they try to argue that there is a difference between antizionism and antisemitism.
Zionism: The right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Also, the political and social movement of the same name. I am a Zionist.
As Mark Sturtevant said, I was summarizing the sleights of hand that antisemites use to disguise their antisemitism.
I have yet to grasp how the antisemitics on the far left can blindly ignore what will happen if their Vacuous and Full of Sun-shiny Fluff Demand for a right to return is ever made real. I can only interpret that this is the position they choose because it makes them look virtuous, while having a huge blind spot for what will happen the day after.
what a sad world we are living in
From Martin Gilbert’s Atlas, with the liberation by France and England of ten million Arabs from under the Turkish Ottoman thumb, 1.2 million sq miles of land became independent Arab land. Less than 1%, 11,000 sq miles was set aside as a Jewish homeland. In partition proposals to assure a Palestinian Arab state in addition to the 1.2 million sq miles of Arab state which I guess was not enough for some reason,the Jews’ homeland was usually reduced by another 50% in the various proposals…yet every time the Arab Council, led and sometimes simply intimidated by the Grand Mufti, said no. Einat Wilf calls it Palestinianism: the rejection of any equation of how much land the Arabs need to settle on peace in the land, but rather that NO Jewish presence can be accepted at all by the Palestinians. This is the total and utter rejection of Zionism…full stop as my UK friends say.
Maybe of interest:
John Judis: Redefining Zionism. May 7, 2026
How “anti-Zionism” became like “anti-Communism”
https://johnbjudis.substack.com/p/redefining-zionism
Excerpt:
In her analysis of the Jewish Federation poll, federation official Mimi Kravetz acknowledged that that the term “Zionism” has been subject to “definition creep.” When the respondents who said they were “anti-Zionist” or “non-Zionist” were asked what Zionist meant, they responded that it meant that “Israel has a right to the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” “supporting whatever action Israel takes,” and “believing Jews are superior to Palestinians.” In other words, it means what Israel has become.
This is not an unusual linguistic development. Consider what “communism” meant to Marx and Engels in the mid-19th century. It was the fulfillment of democracy, an end to “the exploitation of man by man.” The goal of Communists, Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto, was “to win the battle of democracy.” But a century later, in the wake of the Stalin’s Soviet Union, and the beginnings of the Cold War, communism became identified with Soviet totalitarianism and later with the Chinese variety. It was an anti-democratic faith. Something very similar is happening to Zionism, although it is in the early stages.
Leon Trotsky and his followers attempted to invoke the older meaning of communism to distinguish what they advocated from what the Soviet Union had become. They called the Soviet Union a “degenerated workers’ state.” But it was to no avail. The reality superseded the older ideal. Liberal Zionists find themselves in the same linguistic pickle. Jeremy Ben-Ami defines Zionism as “a commitment to a democratic national home for the Jewish people and to the equal right of the Palestinian people to their own state in that same land.” He acknowledges that Israel’s “current leadership is increasingly militaristic and undemocratic, pursuing policies and expressing views that violate core Jewish ethical values.” But he calls those policies a “distortion” of the “Zionist vision,” just as the communist dissidents called the Soviet Union a “betrayal of the revolution.”
Kravetz of the Jewish Federation takes comfort in the fact that a large majority of the respondents to their poll still back Israel’s existence.
Mysteriously, neither the kiddies in their university lawn protest camps, nor any of the DSA political candidates, have proclaimed their principled opposition to the existence of Pakistan.
You beat me to it. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was created around the same time as modern Israel, but the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan involved far more killings and displacement of populations; yet I’ve never heard any of the so-called “anti-Zionists” proclaim the illegitimacy of Pakistan. And if it is “Islamophobic” to object to the existence of dozens of Islamic states then surely it is antisemitic to object to the existence of just one Jewish state.
Thank you, Dr. Coyne. Your moral clarity and intellectual integrity are much appreciated…perhaps more than you know.
I am continually amazed by the amount of antisemitism displayed in today’s world, especially by Christians and Muslims; since Christianity and Islam are both nothing but heretical Jewish cults.
“I am continually amazed by the amount of antisemitism displayed in today’s world, especially by Christians and Muslims. . .”
James, are you in the United States? I am curious among which Christian groups you are witnessing contemporary antisemitism. As you know, there is a smorgasbord of options out there, and Christianity is hardly a monolith.
I live near Fort Worth, Texas. Anti-semitism is all over the news in the United States, especially involving the democrats in congress, or perhaps the far left side of the democratic party. Which particular form of christianity they believe in is not important. My point was more about christianity and islam both being heretical offshoots of Judaism. Muslims hate the jews, but they actually are jews themselves; since their religion grew out of Judaism, as did Christianity.
The fact that both islam and christianity are at heart both jewish cults has been my argument for a long time.
Thank you. I bet there are lots more of us.
Even just the fact that there’s a popular term called “Anti-Zionism” proves anti-Jewish bias. Anytime you ground your politics as being specifically against Jews, you are singling them out with discrimination and double standards, which has always been the root of Anti-Semitism. Also, there is no similar term for any other country. States created in the 20th century include Armenia, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc, but there is no global campaign to erase these nations or any other nation. Only one. Do people really believe that it’s just a coincidence that history’s pariah people are now the modern world’s pariah nation, that the long sad history of Jew hate has nothing at all to do with the campaign to erase the Jewish state?
Not to mention all the repackaged blood libels that come with the Anti-Zionist campaign: Jewish thirst for the blood of children, Jewish secret control of global institutions, Jewish cruelty and ethnocentric hatred of other groups.
I have never in my life seen any issue come close to this one in its combination of passion, certitude and ignorance. None of our liberal intelligentsia know that Anti-Zionism was a Soviet concoction meant to rebrand Jew hate after the Nazis befouled it, launched while they were purging their own Jews? That people have been charging Israel with “genocide” for decades? That Israel has offered multiple peace plans and compromises, all of which were rejected? That the Palestinian leaders have said clearly and repeatedly that they don’t want their own state, but want to destroy and supplant the Jewish state?
Jew hate has once again become a global mass mania and so far no liberal leaders or institutions have opposed it in the slightest. Mass outbreaks of hatred are always aided and abetted by mass outbreaks of cowardice, and this is sadly where we are.
It’s ironic that so many of the young people loudly agonizing over a people’s “right to return” to a country established in 1948 consider anything which happened before 2005 to be nostalgic ancient history disappearing into the soon-to-be-forgotten past. I mean, there weren’t even iPhones back then.
Stone knives and bearskins.
There is a philosophical issue that you gloss over by this si.plification, using the exact language of a narrow dictionary entry.
First, a dictionary entry might appear to be a “definition” to Gen Z, but not to those who has read history. It is merely a description, and a dictionary definition often incomplete. [For example, look up the OED description of DNA for completeness]
Second, “Religious Zionism” (as opposed to the secular Zionism of its original founders) has almost since its inception a primary premise that those of the Jewish faith has a divine right to the land that was known as Palestine since the Roman times. Religious Zionism has held its primacy since 1948. Those who do not believe in religion of God do not accept any alleged divine right of any one, whether of Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Rastafarians, animists of all forms.
Therefore, the founding cry of Zionism as a divine right to the current state of Israel is indefensible unless you are a believer of supernatural deity. On the other hand, the spiritual desire of the persecuted Jewry to find a homeland in their ancestral land of Palestine is certainly defensible. That toehold was legal; some of the subsequent events were unfortunate, with violence perpetrated by both the immigrant Israelis and the resident Palestinians, with early Israeli policies, specifically Menachem Begin’s Herut party and the legacy of the Irgun, so nakedly anti-Arab that even Albert Einstein in 1948 equated them to the Nazis.
I do believe in the idea of Israel as a state and a homeland for the Jewish people given their long history persecution everywhere. But I do not believe in any divine right, and Zionism is difficult to separate from that faith-based assertion.
As far as I know, most Zionists do not accept the Divine Right construal of Zionism, and it is easy for them to separate from that faith-based assertion. Even in Israel I never met those people.
That is correct. In fact, in the nearly days of the State, Religious Zionism was a weak minority. Only after 1967 did it begin to grow into a significant movement, and most Israelis still reject Divine Right as the reason for the State.
Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism that the Irgun an Begin’s party gre out of, was not religious; he was a secular as anyone on these pages. And while he was insistent of Jewish sovereignty, he was just as insistent on Arab rights. All of this is easily verified by reading Jabotinsky’s writings.
The basic definition of Zionism is that Jews need a homeland controlled by Jews: that the diaspora is not safe. The Shoah proved the early Zionists correct, and the “antizionist”—excuse me, antisemites of today provide further proof.
The newborn secular state of Israel dealt rather severely with Jabotinsky and his “Union of Revisionist Zionists” party. Look it up. Territorial maximalists are not now and never have been a large fraction of Zionists. And there are violent enthusiasts in every religion, even Buddhism FFS.
David Deutsch often refers to this as The Pattern: a continual impulse throughout history to find ways to hurt Jews. The players change, but the pattern of justification for hostility remains essentially the same.
I often think about this. When I was a kid, I asked my dad what “restricted” meant because I saw it on a sign at a golf club. He explained it meant Jews were not allowed. Nowadays, instead of the old, rich right wingers excluding Jews, it’s the young (and sometimes old) leftists using words like Anti-Zionist to enact a similar prejudice. It saddens me, not only for the Jews affected by it, but also for the mindless but oh-so-smart rabble who are manipulated to buy into the hatred.
Be careful, Darryl. Your use of the word “rabble” might make some campus enthusiasts of globalized intifada feel unsafe.
Anti-Zionist is a cop out.
I’m a rare commenter but a regular reader. Jerry: I agree with and support what you say above. And I’m grateful for the clarity that you bring to so many issues.
Indeed, none of my Jewish friends both in the US or Israel hold that view. However, I don’t need to remind you of all people that incidental examples can be misleading. Roughly 57% to 65% of Jewish Israelis (representing about 42% to 48% of the total Israeli population) believe that Jews have a right to the Land of Israel by virtue of a divine promise or biblical grant. However, those who fit the active political-religious definition of “Religious Zionists” making up a dedicated ideological/messianic camp account for a smaller subset—roughly 12% to 20% of the Jewish population, who carry the extant policies of the state of Israel. (See: https://www.runi.ac.il/en/research-institutes/government/libres/research/public-opinion/young-israelis-are-strengthening-their-faith)
Therefore, some of my own very close Jewish friends have publicly expressed anti-Zionist statements, because identifying their Jewish cultural traditions has become difficult for them because of this political nature of religiously inspired form of Zionism–just like my own case in which I have great difficulty identifying with Hindu cultural tradition due to the current Fascistic policies of the politically powerful Indian Hindus. They are not identical but they have overlaps.
The issue is whether Jews have a right to their historic homeland in a sovereign state, not by which premises that have a “right”. And why do your Jewish friends not align with the secular reasons to recognize the state, which is a minority of Jews in the world? They seem to be looking for a reason to be anti-Zionists.
Do not bother to answer; I don’t want to continue this discussion.
The first sentence in that post is one of the best descriptions of modern Zionism. I will be quoting it (and of course attributing that quote unless you object.)
Superb!!!!
Interesting, I never knew that! Thanks, I like reading the various points of views of commenters on WEIT.
The world is so fucked right now. Yes, times have been much worse, as anyone with a sense of history knows, and I agree with Pinker’s thesis. But…the world is so fucked right now. Rampant Jew hatred is one of the many symptoms. Large and unpredictable wars are another. The climate collapse exacerbates. Immense societal inner strife, much caused by mass immigration is happening. AI unpredictability/anxiety is in there as well. And never forget religious creed as an active instigator with an ends justify means mindset. Lastly, we have major players in the world stoking the discord in all the myriad ways the modern world can muster. And yes, I put Trump into the category of discord stoker.
Like Kurt wrote way up thread, I was “blindsided” by the Jew hatred that erupted after the 10/7 atrocities. I had no idea such bloodlust and banal hatred could spread so quickly and easily around the world. It was bad at Universities/Colleges, but it didn’t stay isolated to campuses. Either way, it wouldn’t have happened without social media. All these innocent humans were butchered like animals (worse in many cases) kidnapped by the hundreds, and within a few weeks, people started turning on Israel and Hamas freedom-fighter love began to flourish, along with Jew hate. This new wave of anti-Semitism is beyond unsettling. Some things I wish I didn’t have to learn firsthand.
I’m always on the fence of this topic because, often on this website, Jerry will reject all fault on the Arabs for not accepting the two-state proposal of 1947, but there still is much more to it than it appears. I’ve asked ChatGPT because at least, it would concatenate info better than I could. I though it was quite balanced on the history (sorry for the lack of formatting, I have no clue how to implment them) :
—– About the creation itself :
“From the Arab perspective:
“Why should an international organization give roughly half our country to a population that has become a large minority through recent immigration?”
That’s a perfectly comprehensible objection.
From the Jewish perspective:
“Why should we reject the only international proposal giving Jews a sovereign homeland after centuries of persecution and after the Holocaust?”
Also comprehensible.”
—– And then the settlements :
“And there’s an even bigger historical irony here.
In 1947, the international community proposed:
one Jewish state + one Arab state.
The Palestinians rejected that arrangement, Israel was subsequently created, and the Palestinians didn’t get their state.
Then in 1967, Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza.
For decades afterward, the international diplomatic framework became:
Israel + Palestinian state in the territories occupied in 1967.
But as Israeli settlements expanded, the territory intended for that Palestinian state became increasingly fragmented.
So you can reasonably look at the history and say:
“Whatever I think about the legitimacy of Israel’s creation in 1948, surely Israel doesn’t acquire an unlimited right to keep expanding afterward.”
That is very close to the mainstream international-law position.”
–––––––––
I do personally believe that one can still get behind an Israeli nation, and firmly oppose what can still be considered unlawful acts from said nation. Israel might be in danger, but they’re not scott-free from being part of the “fueling” problem.
What you did not bring up, and what the pro-Arab side never mentions, is that of the original Mandate for Palestine territory destined by San Remo and Sykes-Picot to be the new Homeland nation of the Jews, 78% was lopped off exclusively for Levantine Arabs, ie, Palestinians, by the British months after the British Mandate for Palestine was established.
This was based on an agreement between the leader of the Arabs and a British commander where the Arabs promised to end all efforts to acquire territory west of the Jordan River. They argued that Jews should not have any rights in this eastern territory (Trans-Jordan) because Jewish Palestine would be exclusively for Jews. This, of course, was false – the Mandate for Palestine protected the civil and religious rights of all peoples in Palestine, while, incredibly, Jews were given no rights whatsoever in Trans-Jordan, and were promptly ethnically-cleansed.
The British had to ask permission of the Mandate for Palestine Committee for this perfidy as it was blatantly contradictory to the mission of the Mandate itself (deemed “illegal” by at least one member). Nevertheless they got what they wanted (They had made promises to supportive Arabs during WWI) and parlayed that into trading privileges with Iraq and the Saudis. This was the beginning of British Petroleum).
So, the Palestinian Arabs already had their own Judenrein state in Palestine itself in 1922, on the vast majority of the land originally promised to the Jews, and had promised to end conquest of territory west of the Jordan. At that point, the British installed the Nazi-collaborating Haj Amin Al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and all hell broke loose.
You also skipped a step here, when you said:
“The Palestinians rejected that arrangement, Israel was subsequently created, and the Palestinians didn’t get their state.”
When Israel was created on March 14th, 1948 it automatically inherited territorial sovereignty within the totality of the borders of the previous administrative district (under the principle of International law known as Uti Possidetis Juris), which was Mandatory Palestine. Those borders included East Jerusalem, the so-called “West Bank”, and Gaza. This is not controversial – they were on display from 1922 until 1948.
So, your framing of the issue as ” surely Israel doesn’t acquire an unlimited right to keep expanding afterward” is contrary to established International law and how it is applied everywhere else in the world. That the UN and its organs interpret International law one way for Israel, and another way for all other countries in the world is an indictment of the clear bias of the UN, not a valid charge that Israel is expansionist.
Well, I didn’t frame anything, I just pasted what answer I got. I’d be glad to admit correction on any interpretation.
What other cases of Uti Possidetis Juris do we have that UN interpret “normally” as opposed to “the Israel way” ?
You can read about the topic and get many examples here: https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/58-3/58arizlrev633.pdf
Thanks. Long document, I’ll get through it eventually.
The training of LLMs is by no means unbiased in this regard. Lots of Saudi money was involved in making sure the models are biased against Israel. It’s relatively easy to check how ChatGPT answers certain innocent questions.
True, though I think it still was relatively balanced as long as I asked for historical context rather than current political turmoil.
Zionism, as originally conceived in the late 19th century, has attained its ends. With the 1948 stamp of approval by the UN, it is a done deal. With that in mind, I cannot see today’s ‘anti-Zionism’ as an attempt to re-legislate history: it is simply a new name for anti-semitism, and those who believe it justified should be honest enough to say so. If they are going to be *ssholes, they may as well be complete *ssholes.
I question why we still use the term antisemitism as an umbrella term for bigotry towards Jews, especially when you look at its origin. The term was coined by Wilhelm Marr, who founded the League of Antisemites in 1879, the first political organization in Germany created specifically to combat the alleged threat posed by Jews to German society. It’s like if the official term for hatred against Black people were a word invented by the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s time to stop using antisemitism as an umbrella term and focus on exposing and fighting antizionism, which is now the more dominant mutation of bigotry towards Jews: https://www.stopaz.org/
Antisemitism is broader than anti-Zionism, but the latter, given the definitions of Zionism Jerry provided, is the most extreme form of antisemitism.
I wish people would check the meaning of words before using them. They would then avoid confusing sex with gender, and anti-Zionism with criticism of Israel.