Q&A: Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism?
Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism?
Question
Zionism is the name of a movement that supports the return of the Jews to their historic homeland.
Anti-Zionists argue that the State of Israel is illegitimate because its foundations are soaked in blood (though they do not say this about other countries), that it carries out ethnic cleansing/genocide and is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews (said by a doctor from Oxford, not by Hezbollah’s secretary-general), and that the Jews are not a people but only adherents of the same religion, and that there is no connection between the Jews and Israel just as there is no connection between Christianity and Greece. They say that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism; they do not hate Jews, they simply think Jews do not deserve a state (and anyway, what is this racism—“a state of the Jews”? What is wrong with a state of all its citizens?). For example, in Iran, the most anti-Zionist state, Jews live there unharmed.
And further, if we say that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, what are we to make of anti-Zionist Jews? Such as the secular Noam Chomsky and the religious Satmar Rebbe. Are they antisemites?
Many Holocaust victims opposed Zionism, and many antisemites who hated Jews supported Zionism in order to throw them out of their country.
On the other hand, Judaism has always been made up of God, the Torah, and the Land of Israel. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) defines the Jews as a people. To say that the Jews are not a people and have no connection to Israel is like saying that the Greeks have no connection to Greece. Throughout the generations, the Jewish people were exposed to pogroms and the danger of annihilation, and opposition to the existence of the only Jewish state in the world can point to the antisemitism in such a view.
These remarks are not directed at someone who criticizes Israeli policy, but only at someone who opposes its very existence
What does the Rabbi think?
Answer
I don’t understand the question. Do I think opposition to Zionism is antisemitism? It depends on what the opposition is based on.
Discussion on Answer
If he really opposes only the state (because in his view it belongs to them) and not Jews, then he is not antisemitic. Of course, what he says does not necessarily reflect his true opinion.
For example, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar was asked in an interview whether Israel has a right to exist, and he answered: “No. Israel is a settlement; this is an Arab and Muslim region and we are the owners of the home. It has been proven that the two-state solution is not possible; it is a process that has failed. We are not against Jews—they lived in this region for many years. We are against the occupation.”
According to his words, Hamas opposes Jewish control over the land because it is an Arab and Muslim region, but does not oppose Jews. Is Hamas antisemitic?