Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Anti-Zionism, and antisemitism. What do these words have in common? They were both deliberately constructed by hateful academics as euphemisms for “Judenhass”, which is German for Jew-hatred. [1] Given that Zionism cannot be meaningfully separated from Judaism, it is clear that Anti-Zionism is used as a proxy for Judenhass. In other words, Anti-Zionism is just the latest attempt to turn hatred of Jewish people into an academic, politically tolerable stomach. To understand the evil of Anti-Zionism, one only has to understand the origins of Zionism, and what it has become. Zionism has been around since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. [2] Since then, a major focus of Jewish culture has been a desire to return to our homeland in Jerusalem. Zionism, as Jewish political activist Theodor Herzl advocated for it, was a movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland in the Land of Israel, and the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in that territory. Since the re-establishment of Israel, the goal of Zionism changed from creating a national homeland for the Jews to supporting its continued existence. Since Zionism is the movement for the continued existence of the state of Israel, Anti-Zionism is opposition to the existence of the state of Israel.
One central question that Anti-Zionism must answer is: What will happen to Israelis? What will happen if there is no Israel and no Israel Defence Forces to protect Israelis from organizations like Hamas, which on October 7th slaughtered 1,139 Israelis (mostly civilians), kidnapped 249 Israelis (including a pregnant woman, who has since given birth in captivity), and deliberately used sexual violence, including rape and genital mutilation, as a demoralizing tactic against Israelis. [3] What if they were your mothers, sisters, friends? An image of the aftermath of one of many Hamas atrocities is captioned: “A damaged and blood-stained kindergarten is seen following a deadly infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel”. A senior Hamas official has stated that “[The October 7th Massacre] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth… ” Hamas’s stated goal is to destroy Israel.
Again, what will happen to the Israelis? Anti-Zionism does not seek to answer this question. Rather, it is assumed that every Israeli civilian, having the audacity to exist, is guilty and must be left to fend for themselves. Israel and her people Israel are uniquely delegitimized and belittled. In the words of historian Jacob Talmon: “The Jewish state has become the Jew of the States”. The constant belittling and delegitimization of Israel is part of a deliberate campaign to characterize the state as “temporary”. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Anti-Zionists all operate under the assumption that Israel is less than a state, and with enough slaughtered Israeli civilians, the nation can be forcibly destroyed. It is this mindset, of which Anti-Zionism is just one manifestation, that has been passed down through generations and continues the Arab-Israeli conflict to this day. Anti-Zionism is nothing but hatred and destruction coated in scholarly rhetoric.
