Antizionism vs Antisemitism

What is Antisemitism?

Antisemitism is racism, hostility, prejudice, vilification, discrimination or violence, including hate crimes, directed against Jews, as individuals, groups or as a collective – because they are Jews. Its expression includes attributing to Jews, as a group, characteristics or behaviours that are perceived as dangerous, harmful, frightening or threatening to non-Jews.

- IJV Working Definition of Anti-Semitism

More on Antisemitism

Antisemitism exists across the political spectrum, but, particularly in its most violent forms, it comes primarily from the political right.

There are many Zionists who are antisemitic, such as Donald Trump.

Some antisemites use anti-Zionism as a cover, which must be condemned and fought against. However, this does not change that being anti-Zionist is not inherently antisemitic nor does it discredit the overwhelming majority of the anti-Zionist movement.

What is Zionism?

Zionism

Modern Zionism is a political movement, born in the late 19th century, that aimed to establish a Jewish state in historic Palestine in response to European antisemitism.

More on Zionsim

  • Presents Jewish people as a unified nation, ignoring the diversity that has developed in the diaspora.
  • There were multiple strands of Zionism and early Zionists considered other places such as Argentina and Uganda but eventually they settled on Palestine.
  • The biggest obstacle to the Zionist project was the fact that the land was already populated by majority non-Jewish Palestinian people. Therefore, Zionism necessitated the violent expulsion of the Palestinian people through a process of ethnic cleansing.
  • In 1948, 750,000 of the 1.4 million Palestinians were forcibly expelled from Palestine by Zionist militias.
  • In total, the State of Israel has absorbed 3.1 million immigrants since its creation, 1 million of them between 1990 and 1999. The State of Israel has in fact strongly encouraged Jewish immigration with the objective of ensuring that the majority of Israel’s population remains Jewish.

What is Antizionism?

Anti-Zionism can be defined as opposition to the settler-colonial ideology that led to the the displacement of the Palestinian people through the creation of a Jewish majority state in Palestine.

Israel’s existence as an apartheid state nowadays is the consequence of the implementation of Zionism, which required the privileging of Jewish settlers at the expense of the Palestinian population, leading to the disposession and endless military occupation of the Palestinian people. E.g. Israel’s Laws of Return and Citizenship allow any Jewish person in the world to become an Israeli citizen while denying the right of return for Palestinian refguees who were expelled by the creation of Israel.

To be anti-Zionist is to be anti-racist, anti-settler colonialism, and anti-Israeli apartheid.