Antisemitism & Anti-Zionism — A Breakdown
By Benji Meppen
Whether it is on a nearby college campus, in a grocery store, a gas station, the halls of Congress, or outside a synagogue, Antisemitism is on the rise. Somehow, every couple of months without rhyme or reason, Orthodox Jews get chased down in Brooklyn, and ‘Free Palestine’ gets spray painted on the gates of a Synagogue. Why?
Antisemitism is an age-old practice and is one of the most ancient forms of hatred. Jew-hatred has been present all the way back in antiquity, when people reportedly chased down and killed Jewish people in connection to Christ-killing mythology. Safe to say they got that one wrong. The spouts of Antisemitism that seem to pop into our news feeds and Twitter timelines every so often are never really met with a comprehensive solution or call to action. Instead, social media is rife with an outpouring of support for “our Jewish friends” or that the world of Instagram “stands with the Jewish community in this trying time.” The reality of the situation is this: please spare the Tweets and Instagram stories and call out anti-Zionism as Antisemitism when you see it in your day-to-day life. I promise it would be far more influential and important than any TikTok you may post about the beaches in Tel Aviv or falafel in Tzfat.
The real point here is there has never been a solution for Antisemitism and it continues to rise and rise. One reason for its growth in recent years may be the rise in anti-Zionism or the opposition to the State of Israel and its supporters. For context, Antisemitism, as defined by the United States Department of State, is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” Anti-Zionism, as defined by the Anti-Defamation League, is the “opposition to Zionism, the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. Anti-Zionism is often expressed, explicitly or implicitly, in the rejection of Jewish nationhood and the right to self-determination.”
Let’s pick through the discrepancies in the definitions and see if we can find a correlation between the rise in anti-Zionism and Antisemitism. The ADL’s definition of anti-Zionism states that it is the opposition to the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people. It should be said that within the Jewish community, there is a broad base of support for Israel from a large number of Jews in both the United States and Israel, and it is also essential to remember that the Jewish community at large is not a monolith. However, continuing to dissect the ADL’s definition, it is clear that those who oppose Zionism and the existence of the Jewish state are not exactly seen as friends of the Jewish community.
Anti-Zionism is the clear opposition to the Jewish homeland, meaning that if you oppose the safety, prosperity, or flat-out existence of a people’s home, you are against them. Anti-Zionism, even when it is not targeted at Jewish people specifically, has had an indelible effect on the well-being of the Jewish community in Israel, America, and around the world. If the Jewish people did not have a safe and robust homeland, they would be under even heavier prosecution and scrutiny than they are now — even with the existence of Israel! There are clear ties between anti-Zionism and Antisemitism, as the outright advocacy for the elimination of the Jewish homeland is at odds with the success of the Jewish people
It is hard to have full-fledged support for a people and their success while simultaneously stating that you fundamentally oppose their having a safe and prosperous place to live and thrive. Again, I want to reiterate that not all American Jews and Israeli Jews approve of the state of Israel and their government; however, it is essential to look at the correlation between the support of a people and the support of them having a homeland to live in.
In making the point that anti-Zionism is strongly related to Antisemitism, I must clear up that criticism of Israel and its government is not Antisemitism, nor is it anti-Zionism. The line at which criticism of Israel crosses into anti-Zionism is when there is a clear opposition to the existence of Israel as the Jewish homeland, thereby the only safe haven for the oft-persecuted Jewish people.
In a report from the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Campus Affairs division, AJC states that “when Jews are verbally or physically harassed, or Jewish institutions and houses of worship are vandalized in response to actions of the State of Israel, it is antisemitism.” This report reaffirms the point that Jewish people, especially here in the United States, oftentimes take the blame for the actions of Israel and its government and that often critiques or opposition to the Jewish state result in Antisemitic attacks. For some blatant examples, consider the outpour of Antisemitism that occurred when actress Emma Watson posted about her “solidarity with the people of Palestine.” Or even during a flare-up between Israel and the PLO in May of 2021, the number of Antisemitic incidents in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and all over the world spiked as a result of Israel being put on the world stage.
It would be short-sighted to look at the countless attacks on Hillels on college campuses and Synagogues nationwide and ignore the apparent correlation between Antisemitism and anti-Zionism. At its core, the opposition to Zionism and the Jewish state is a clear threat to the survival and prosperity of Jews. In straightforward terms, support for the existence of the State of Israel equals support for the success and safety of the Jewish people.
The AJC report made mention of an October 2019 incident when a Holocaust survivor was “interrogated by a member of SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) during a speaking engagement at Benedictine University.” It goes on to say that “the student demanded that the survivor ‘condemn the establishment of the Zionist Israeli state.’” Later on, the report cites an incident in August of 2020 where “a Jewish student government representative at the University of Southern California resigned following incessant bullying, and an impeachment campaign launched because of her identity as a Zionist.” These people, both the USC student and the Holocaust survivor, were targeted for two things — their Judaism and their support for Israel. It is hard to deny that those two things go hand in hand. If a student is attacked for being Jewish, it is clearly Antisemitsm and should be handled with the university as such. If a Jewish student is shouted down and impeached from their student body for supporting Israel, the Jewish homeland, it should be reported to the university and dealt with as an Antisemitic incident. Why? Because this student was targeted for vocally supporting the Jewish homeland and is clearly being targeted because of her beliefs.
Israel is a complicated country with an incredibly intricate political system. No member of the Jewish community should blindly support Israel without learning its politics and parliamentary procedures. No American Jew supports everything Israel does, nor should they. However, it seems that wherever anti-Zionism is, Antisemitism is also present. So in the clearest terms possible, denying, legitimizing, and attempting to dismantle the Jewish homeland threatens the safety and prosperity of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
