Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism.
The term is broadly defined in the modern
era to denote opposition to the political
movement of Jews to self-determination within
the territory of the historic Land of Israel
(also referred to as Palestine, Canaan, or
the Holy Land).
Anti-Zionism is also defined as opposition
to the State of Israel or, prior to 1948,
its establishment.
The term is used to describe various religious,
moral and political points of view, but their
diversity of motivation and expression is
sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism"
cannot be seen as having a single ideology
or source.
There is also a difference between how it
is discussed philosophically and how it is
enacted within a political or social campaign.
Many notable Jewish and non-Jewish sources
take the view that anti-Zionism has become
a cover for modern-day antisemitism, a position
that critics have challenged as a tactic to
silence criticism of Israeli policies.
Others, such as Steven M. Cohen, Brian Klug
and Todd Gitlin, see no correlation between
the two.
== History ==
== 
Jewish anti-Zionism ==
Jewish anti-Zionism is as old as Zionism itself,
and enjoyed widespread support in the Jewish
community until World War II.
The Jewish community is not a single united
group and responses vary both among and within
Jewish groups.
One of the principal divisions is that between
secular Jews and religious Jews.
The reasons for secular opposition to the
Zionist movement are very different from those
of religious Jews.
Opposition to a Jewish state has changed over
time and has taken on a diverse spectrum of
religious, ethical and political positions.
The legitimacy of anti-Zionist views has been
disputed to the present day, including the
more recent and disputed relationship between
anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Other views regarding the various forms of
anti-Zionism have also been discussed and
debated.
=== Before 1948 ===
There is a long tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism
that has opposed the Zionist project from
its origins.
The Bundists, the Autonomists, Reform Judaism
and the Agude regarded both the rationale
and territorial ambitions of Zionism as flawed.
Orthodox Judaism, which grounds civic responsibilities
and patriotic feelings in religion, was strongly
opposed to Zionism because, though the two
shared the same values, Zionism espoused nationalism
in secular fashion, and used "Zion", "Jerusalem",
"Land of Israel", "redemption" and "ingathering
of exiles" as literal rather than sacred terms,
endeavouring to achieve them in this world.
Orthodox Jews also opposed the creation of
a Jewish state prior to the appearance of
the messiah, as contradicting divine will.
By contrast, reform Jews rejected Judaism
as a national or ethnic identity, and renounced
any messianic expectations of the advent of
a Jewish state.
==== Religious ====
Hope for return to the land of Israel is embodied
in the content of the Jewish religion (see
Kibbutz Galuyot).
Aliyah, the Hebrew word meaning "ascending"
or "going up", is the word used to describe
religious Jewish return to Israel, and has
been used since ancient times.
From the Middle Ages and onwards, many famous
rabbis and often their followers returned
to the land of Israel.
These have included Nahmanides, Yechiel of
Paris, Isaac Luria, Yosef Karo, Menachem Mendel
of Vitebsk among others.
For Jews in the Diaspora Eretz Israel was
revered in a religious sense.
They prayed, and thought of the return, as
being fulfilled in a messianic age.
Return remained a recurring theme for generations,
particularly in Passover and Yom Kippur prayers,
which traditionally concluded with, "Next
year in Jerusalem", as well as the thrice-daily
Amidah (Standing prayer).Following Jewish
Enlightenment however, Reform Judaism dropped
many traditional beliefs, including aliyah,
as incompatible with modern life within the
Diaspora.
Later, Zionism re-kindled the concept of aliyah
in an ideological and political sense, parallel
with traditional religious belief; it was
used to increase Jewish population in the
Holy Land by immigration and it remains a
basic tenet of Zionist ideology.
Support for aliyah does not always equal immigration
however, as a majority of the world Jewish
population remains within the Diaspora.
Support for the modern Zionist movement is
not universal and, as a result, some religious
Jews as well as some secular Jews do not support
Zionism.
Non-Zionist Jews are not necessarily anti-Zionists,
although some are.
Generally however, Zionism does have the support
of the majority of the Jewish religious organizations,
with support from segments of the Orthodox
movement, and most of the Conservative, and
more recently, the Reform movement.Many Hasidic
rabbis oppose the creation of a Jewish state.
The leader of the Satmar Hasidic group, Rabbi
Joel Teitelbaum's book, VaYoel Moshe, published
in 1958, expounds one Orthodox position on
Zionism, based on a literal form of midrash
(biblical interpretation).
Citing to Tractate Kesubos 111a of the Talmud
Teitelbaum states that God and the Jewish
people exchanged three oaths at the time of
the Jews' exile from ancient Israel, forbidding
the Jewish people from massively immigrating
to the Land of Israel, and from rebelling
against the nations of the world.
==== Secular ====
Prior to the Second World War many Jews regarded
Zionism as a fanciful and unrealistic movement.
Many liberals during the European Enlightenment
had argued that Jews should enjoy full equality
only on the condition that they pledge their
singular loyalty to their nation-state and
entirely assimilate to the local national
culture; they called for the "regeneration"
of the Jewish people in exchange for rights.
Those liberal Jews who accepted integration
and/or assimilation principles saw Zionism
as a threat to efforts to facilitate Jewish
citizenship and equality within the European
nation-state context.The Jewish Anti-Zionist
League, in Egypt, was a Communist-influenced
anti-Zionist league in the years 1946–1947.
In Israel, there are several Jewish anti-Zionist
organisations and politicians, many of these
are related to Matzpen.
=== After World War II and the creation of
Israel ===
Attitudes changed during and following the
war.
In May 1942, before the full revelation of
the Holocaust, the Biltmore Program proclaimed
a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist
policy of a "homeland" with its demand "that
Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth".
Opposition to official Zionism's firm, unequivocal
stand caused some prominent Zionists to establish
their own party, Ichud (Unification), which
advocated an Arab – Jewish Federation in
Palestine.
Opposition to the Biltmore Program also led
to the founding of the anti-Zionist American
Council for Judaism.The full knowledge of
the Holocaust altered the views of many who
critiqued Zionism before 1948, including the
British journalist Isaac Deutscher, a socialist
and lifelong atheist who nevertheless emphasised
the importance of his Jewish heritage.
Before World War II, Deutscher opposed Zionism
as economically retrograde and harmful to
the cause of international socialism, but
in the aftermath of the Holocaust he regretted
his pre-war views, arguing for Israel's establishment
as a "historic necessity" to provide a refuge
for the surviving Jews of Europe.
In the 1960s, Deutscher renewed his criticism
of Zionism, scrutinizing Israel for its failure
to recognise the dispossession of the Palestinians.Other
objections relate to the maintenance of a
Jewish majority within the present state of
Israel.
Post-Zionism, a related term, has been criticized
as being equivalent to anti-Zionism.
==== 
Religious ====
Most Orthodox religious groups have accepted
and actively support the State of Israel,
even if they have not adopted "Zionist" ideology.
The World Agudath Israel party (founded in
Poland) has at times participated in Israeli
government coalitions.
Most religious Zionists hold pro-Israel views
from a right-wing viewpoint.
The main exceptions are Hasidic groups such
as Satmar Hasidim, which have about 100,000
adherents worldwide, as well as numerous different,
smaller Hasidic groups, unified in America
in the Central Rabbinical Congress of the
United States and Canada and in Israel in
the Edah HaChareidis.David Novak writes that
many Jewish anti-Zionists resent the way Zionism
'mak(es) Jewishly unwarranted claims on them
and other Jews.
According to Jonathan Judaken, 'numerous Jewish
traditions have insisted that preservation
of what is most precious about Judaism and
Jewishness "demands" a principled anti-Zionism
or post-Zionism.'
This tradition dwindled in the aftermath of
the Holocaust, and the establishment of Israel
but is still alive in religious groups such
as Neturei Karta and among many intellectuals
of Jewish background in both Israel and the
diaspora, such as George Steiner, Tony Judt
and Baruch Kimmerling .
==== 
Secular ====
Noam Chomsky has reported a change in the
boundaries of what are considered Zionist
and anti-Zionist views.
In 1947, in his youth, Chomsky's support for
a socialist binational state, in conjunction
with his opposition to any semblance of a
theocratic system of governance in Israel,
was at the time considered well within the
mainstream of secular Zionism; today, it lands
him solidly in the anti-Zionist camp.Alvin
H. Rosenfeld in his much discussed essay,
Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,
claims that a "number of Jews, through their
speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in
virulent antisemitism by questioning whether
Israel should even exist".
Rosenfeld's general claims are:
"At a time when the de-legitimization and,
ultimately, the eradication of Israel is a
goal being voiced with mounting fervor by
the enemies of the Jewish state, it is more
than disheartening to see Jews themselves
adding to the vilification.
That some do so in the name of Judaism itself
makes the nature of their assault all the
more grotesque."
"Their contributions to what's becoming normative
discourse are toxic.
They're helping to make [anti-Semitic] views
about the Jewish state respectable – for
example, that it's a Nazi-like state, comparable
to South African apartheid; that it engages
in ethnic cleansing and genocide.
These charges are not true and can have the
effect of delegitimizing Israel."Some Jewish
organizations oppose Zionism as an integral
part of their anti-imperialism.
Some secular Jews today, particularly socialists
and Marxists, continue to oppose the State
of Israel on anti-imperialist and human rights
grounds.
Many oppose it as a form of nationalism, which
they argue to be a product of capitalist societies.
One secular anti-Zionist group today is the
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network,
a socialist, anti-war, and anti-imperialist
organization that calls for "the dismantling
of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian
refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization
of historic Palestine".
== Outside the Jewish community ==
=== 
Palestinians ===
Anne de Jong asserts that direct resistance
from inhabitants of historic Palestine "focused
less on religious arguments and was instead
centred on countering the experience of colonial
dispossession and opposing the Zionist enforcement
of ethnic division of the indigenous population".Palestinian
Christian owned Falastin was founded in 1911
in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa.
The newspaper is often described as one of
the most influential newspapers in historic
Palestine, and probably the nation's fiercest
and most consistent critic of the Zionist
movement.
It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism
and was shut down several times by the Ottoman
and British authorities, most of the time
due to complaints made by Zionists.
=== British colonial officials ===
The British anti-ZionistJohn Hope Simpson
believed that the Arabs were "economically
powerless against such a strong movement"
and thus needed protection.
Charles Anderson writes that Hope Simpson
was also "wary of the gulf between Zionist
rhetoric and practice, observing that 'The
most lofty sentiments are ventilated in public
meetings and in Zionist propaganda' but that
the Jewish National Fund and other organs
of the movement did not uphold or embody a
vision of cooperation or mutual benefit with
the Arabs".
=== Secular Arab ===
Anti-Zionism in the Arab world emerged at
the end of the 19th century, very soon after
the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel
in 1897.
However, only after the Young Turk revolution
in 1908 did opposition to Zionism in Palestine
and Greater Syria became widespread.According
to philosopher Michael Neumann, Zionism as
an "expansionist threat" has caused Arab hostility
toward Israel and even antisemitism.
Pan-Arabist narratives in the 1960s Nasser
era emphasized the idea of Palestine as a
part of the Arab world taken by others.
In this narrative, the natural means of combating
Zionism is Arab nations uniting and attacking
Israel militarily.
Most Arab citizens of Israel do not have strong
anti-Zionist views.
A poll of 507 Arab-Israelis conducted by the
Israeli Democracy Institute in 2007 found
that 75 percent profess support for Israel's
status as a Jewish and democratic state that
guarantees equal rights for minorities.
Israeli Arab support for a constitution in
general was 88 percent.
=== Muslim ===
Anti-Zionist Muslims consider the State of
Israel as an intrusion into what many Muslims
consider to be Dar al-Islam, a domain they
believe to be rightfully, and permanently,
ruled only by Muslims due the fact it was
historically conquered in the name of Islam.Palestinian
and other Muslim groups, as well as the government
of Iran (since the 1979 Islamic Revolution),
insist that the State of Israel is illegitimate
and refuse to refer to it as "Israel", instead
using the locution "the Zionist entity" (see
Iran–Israel relations).
Islamic maps of the Middle East frequently
do not show the State of Israel.
In an interview with Time Magazine in December
2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "Everyone knows
that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands
of the United States and British governments."The
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al
Husseini opposed the Jewish immigration to
Palestine before the creation of the State
of Israel, and in several documented cases
expressed his hostility toward Jews in general
and Zionists in particular.Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan, whom the Anti-Defamation
League named "the leading anti-Semite in America",
has a long track record of hostility towards
Jews in general and Zionists in particular.
=== Christian ===
==== 
Positions of the World Council of Churches
====
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been
described as taking anti-Zionist positions
in connection with its criticisms of Israeli
policy.
It is claimed the council has focused disproportionately
on activities and publications criticizing
Israel in comparison with other human rights
issues.
The council members have been characterized
by Israel's former Justice minister Amnon
Rubinstein as anti-Zionist, saying "they just
hate Israel".
The WCC has been charged with prioritising
Anti-Zionism to the extent it has neglected
appeals from Egyptian Copts to raise their
plight under Sadat and Mubarak in order to
avoid distracting world attention.
==== Presbyterian Church of USA ====
After publishing "Zionism unsettled", which
it initially commended as "a valuable opportunity
to explore the political ideology of Zionism",
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) promptly
withdrew the publication from sale on its
website following criticism that it was Anti-Zionist,
one critic claimed it posits that the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is fueled by a 'pathology inherent
in Zionism.'
In February 2016, the General Assembly was
lobbied by its Advisory Committee on Social
Witness Policy (ACSWP) to lay aside a two
state solution and support the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions movement.
Presbyterians for Middle East Peace described
this proposal as a "one-sided, zero-sum solution".
==== Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
====
In January 2015, the Lausanne movement, published
an article in its official journal made comparisons
between Christian Zionism, the crusades and
the Spanish Inquisition and described Zionism
as "apartheid on steroids".
The Simon Wiesenthal Center described this
last claim as "the big lie", and rebutted
the "dismissal of the validity of Israel's
right to exist as the Jewish State".
==== Church of Scotland ====
Despite its strong historic support for Restorationism,
famously by Robert Murray M'Chyene and by
both Horatius and Andrew Bonar, in April 2013
the Church of Scotland published "The Inheritance
of Abraham: A Report on the Promised Land",
which rejected the idea of a special right
of Jewish people to the Holy Land through
analysis of scripture and Jewish theological
claims.
The report further denied the "belief among
some Jewish people that they have a right
to the land of Israel as a compensation for
the suffering of the Holocaust" and argued
"it is a misuse of the Bible to use it as
a topographic guide to settle contemporary
conflicts over land."
The report was criticised by Jewish leaders
in Scotland as "biased, weak on sources, and
contradictory.
The picture it paints of both Judaism and
Israel is barely even a caricature."
Subsequently, the Church issued a statement
saying that the Church had not changed its
"long-held position of the rights of Israel
to exist".
It also revised the report.
==== Methodist Church of Great Britain ====
Charles and John Wesley, founders of the Methodist
Church, held Restorationist views.
Following the submission of a report titled
'Justice for Palestine and Israel' in July
2010, the UK Methodist Conference questioned
whether 'Zionism was compatible with Methodist
beliefs'.
Christian Zionism was characterised as believing
that Israel "must be held above criticism
whatever policy is enacted", and conference
called for a boycott of selected Israeli goods
"emanating from illegal settlements".
The UK's Chief Rabbi described the report
as "unbalanced, factually and historically
flawed", and said that it offered "no genuine
understanding of one of the most complex conflicts
in the world today.
Many in both communities will be deeply disturbed."
=== 
Third Position, fascist, and right-wing ===
Anti-Zionism has a long history of being supported
by various individuals and groups associated
with Third Position, right-wing and fascist
(or "neo-fascist") political views.
A number of militantly racist groups and their
leaders are anti-Zionist, David Duke and the
Ku Klux Klan for example, and various other
Aryan / White-supremacist groups.
In these instances, anti-Zionism is usually
also deeply anti-Semitic, and often revolves
around conspiracy theories discussed below
=== 
Soviet Union ===
During the last years of Stalin's rule, official
support for the creation of Israel in 1948
was replaced by strong anti-Zionism.
According to Izabella Tabarovsky, a researcher
with the Kennan Institute: "[T]he Soviets
... [claimed] that their ideology was anti-Zionist,
not anti-Semitic.
... Soviet ideologues relied for inspiration
on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, on
the ideas of classic religious anti-Semitism,
and even Mein Kampf, but adopted them to the
Marxist framework by substituting the idea
of a global anti-Soviet Zionist conspiracy
for a specifically Jewish one.
Jewish power became Zionist power.
The rich and conniving Jewish bankers controlling
money, politicians, and the media became the
rich and conniving Zionists.
The Jew as the anti-Christ became the Jew
as the anti-Soviet.
Instead of the Jew as the devil, they presented
the Zionist as a Nazi."
As outlined in the third edition of the Great
Soviet Encyclopedia (1969–1978), the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union's position during
the Cold War became: "the main posits of modern
Zionism are militant chauvinism, racism, anti-Communism
and anti-Sovietism, [...] overt and covert
fight against freedom movements and the USSR."
=== International ===
Anti-Zionist sentiments were also manifested
in organisations such as the Organization
for African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement,
which passed resolutions condemning Zionism
and equating it with racism and apartheid
during the early 1970s.
This culminated in the passing by the United
Nations General Assembly of Resolution 3379
in November 1975, which declared "Zionism
is a form of racism."The decision was revoked
on 16 December 1991, when the General Assembly
passed Resolution 4686, repealing resolution
3379, by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions
and 17 delegations absent.
Thirteen out of the 19 Arab countries, including
those engaged in negotiations with Israel,
voted against the repeal, another six were
absent.
No Arab country voted for repeal.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation denounced
the vote.
All of the ex-communist countries and most
of the African countries who had supported
Resolution 3379 voted to repeal it.
=== African-American ===
After Israel occupied Palestinian territory
following the 1967 Six-Day War, some African-Americans
supported the Palestinians and criticized
Israel's actions, for example by publicly
supporting Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat
and calling for the destruction of the Jewish
state.
Immediately after the war, the black power
organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee published a newsletter criticizing
Israel, and asserting that the war was an
effort to regain Palestinian land and that
during the 1948 war, "Zionists conquered the
Arab homes and land through terror, force,
and massacres."
In 1993, philosopher Cornel West wrote: "Jews
will not comprehend what the symbolic predicament
and literal plight of Palestinians in Israel
means to blacks....
Blacks often perceive the Jewish defense of
the state of Israel as a second instance of
naked group interest, and, again, an abandonment
of substantive moral deliberation."
African-American support of Palestinians is
frequently due to the consideration of Palestinians
as people of color – political scientist
Andrew Hacker writes: "The presence of Israel
in the Middle East is perceived as thwarting
the rightful status of people of color.
Some blacks view Israel as essentially a white
and European power, supported from the outside,
and occupying space that rightfully belongs
to the original inhabitants of Palestine."
== Anti-Zionism and antisemitism ==
In the early 21st century, it was also claimed
that a "new antisemitism" had emerged that
was rooted in anti-Zionism.
Advocates of this concept argue that much
of what purports to be criticism of Israel
and Zionism is demonization, and has led to
an international resurgence of attacks on
Jews and Jewish symbols and an increased acceptance
of antisemitic beliefs in public discourse.
Critics of the concept have suggested that
the characterization of anti-Zionism as antisemitic
is inaccurate, sometimes obscures legitimate
criticism of Israel's policies and actions
and trivializes antisemitism.
=== View that the two are interlinked ===
A number of sources link anti-Zionism with
antisemitism.
Campus research in 2016 in the US has also
reported close geographical correlation between
the two phenomena, accompanying a recent upsurge
in anti-Semitism.
==== Government officials ====
French President Emmanuel Macron calls anti-Zionism
"a reinvention of anti-Semitism."
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls expressed
similar views.In the 2015, a German court
in Essen ruled that "'Zionist' in the language
of antisemites is a code for Jew".
Taylan Can, a German citizen of Turkish origin,
yelled "death and hate to Zionists" at an
anti-Israel rally in Essen in July 2014, and
was convicted for hate crime.
In contrast, in February 2015, a court in
Wuppertal convicted two German Palestinians
of an arson attack on a synagogue, but denied
that the crime was motivated by antisemitism.
==== Academia ====
Professor Kenneth L. Marcus, former staff
director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
identifies four main views on the relationship
between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, at
least in North America:(p. 845–846) Marcus
also states: "Unsurprisingly, recent research
has shown a close correlation between anti-Israeli
views and anti-Semitic views based on a survey
of citizens in ten European countries."
Professor Robert S. Wistrich, head of the
Vidal Sassoon International Center for the
Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, is the originator of Marcus's
second view of anti-Zionism (that anti-Zionism
and antisemitism merged post-1948) argues
that much contemporary anti-Zionism, particularly
forms that compare Zionism and Jews with Hitler
and the Third Reich, has become a form of
antisemitism: "Anti-Zionism has become the
most dangerous and effective form of anti-Semitism
in our time, through its systematic delegitimization,
defamation, and demonization of Israel.
Although not a priori anti-Semitic, the calls
to dismantle the Jewish state, whether they
come from Muslims, the Left, or the radical
Right, increasingly rely on an anti-Semitic
stereotypization of classic themes, such as
the manipulative 'Jewish lobby,' the Jewish/Zionist
'world conspiracy,' and Jewish/Israeli "warmongers".
Nevertheless, I believe that the more radical
forms of anti-Zionism that have emerged with
renewed force in recent years do display unmistakable
analogies to European anti-Semitism immediately
preceding the Holocaust....
For example, 'anti-Zionists' who insist on
comparing Zionism and the Jews with Hitler
and the Third Reich appear unmistakably to
be de facto anti-Semites, even if they vehemently
deny the fact!
... For if Zionists are 'Nazis' and if Sharon
really is Hitler, then it becomes a moral
obligation to wage war against Israel.
... Anti-Zionism is ... also the lowest common
denominator and the bridge between the Left,
the Right, and the militant Muslims; between
the elites (including the media) and the masses;
between the churches and the mosques; between
an increasingly anti-American Europe and an
endemically anti-Western Arab-Muslim Middle
East; a point of convergence between conservatives
and radicals and a connecting link between
fathers and sons."
Dina Porat (head of the Institute for Study
of Antisemitism and Racism at Tel-Aviv University)
contends that anti-Zionism is antisemitic
because it is discriminatory: ... antisemitism
is involved when the belief is articulated
that of all the peoples on the globe (including
the Palestinians), only the Jews should not
have the right to self-determination in a
land of their own.
Or, to quote noted human rights lawyer David
Matas: One form of antisemitism denies access
of Jews to goods and services because they
are Jewish.
Another form of antisemitism denies the right
of the Jewish people to exist as a people
because they are Jewish.
Antizionists distinguish between the two,
claiming the first is antisemitism, but the
second is not.
To the antizionist, the Jew can exist as an
individual as long as Jews do not exist as
a people.
British sociologist David Hirsh wrote a book
called Contemporary Left Antisemitism in which
he studied anti-Zionism empirically.
Philosophically, one might privately find
under a set of theoretical circumstances that
it is possible to be an anti-Zionist without
being an antisemite, but according to Hirsh's
book, "When anti-Zionism gets a foothold [in
an organization] and becomes popular and normal
and legitimate, it brings antisemitism with
it."
==== Others ====
According to the December 1969 issue of Encounter,
a student attacked Zionism in the presence
of Dr. Martin Luther King, an American civil
rights activist.
King responded to the student, "When people
criticize Zionists, they mean Jews.
You're talking anti-Semitism."Israeli journalist
Ben-Dror Yemini maintains that anti-Zionism
is "politically correct antisemitism" and
argues that the same way Jews were demonized,
Israel is demonized, the same way the right
of Jews to exist was denied, the right for
Self-determination is denied from Israel,
the same way Jews were presented as a menace
to the world, Israel is presented as a menace
to the world.Israeli American journalist Liel
Leibovitz says that 21st century "anti-Zionists"
do not like Jews whether they live in Israel
or anywhere else in the world.
He cites the example of the "anti-Zionist"
professor at Oberlin who posted antisemitic
conspiracy theories on her website and the
"anti-Zionist" Stanford University student
who claimed that many of the classical antisemitic
conspiracy theories are not antisemitic.British
socialist Adam Langleben had been a supporter
of the British Labour Party all of his life
until its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was caught
on video accusing "Zionists" of lacking a
sense of irony possessed by other British
citizens.
Although Corbyn used the word "Zionist" and
not the word "Jew," Langleben asserted, "[F]or
any Jewish person watching the video we will
have heard ‘Jew,’ because most Jews in
Britain subscribe to being a Zionist or supportive
of the state of Israel—not the policies,
but the existence [of the Jewish state]."
Langleben's break with Labour came after repeatedly
defending Corbyn from critics.
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times op-ed
columnist Bret Stephens wrote that anti-Zionists
"excel in making excuses for the wicked and
finding fault with the good.
When you find yourself on the same side as
Hassan Nasrallah, Louis Farrakhan and David
Duke on the question of a country’s right
to exist, it’s time to re-examine every
opinion you hold."
Stephens admitted, "Anti-Zionism might have
been a respectable point of view before 1948,
when the question of Israel’s existence
was in the future and up for debate.
Today, anti-Zionism is a call for the elimination
of a state — details to follow regarding
the fate befalling those who currently live
in it" (emphasis in the original).
In another column, Stephens wrote, "Of course
it’s theoretically possible to distinguish
anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism, just as it’s
theoretically possible to distinguish segregationism
from racism.
But the striking feature of anti-Zionist rhetoric
is how broadly it overlaps with traditionally
anti-Semitic tropes."
=== 
View that the two are not interlinked ===
On the appointment of Steve Bannon, who is
reputed to be anti-semitic, as Donald Trump's
White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor
in 2016, several commentators said Bannon's
personal attitudes would not necessarily translate
into opposition to Israel.
The sociologist Steven M. Cohen finds little
correlation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism,
while Todd Gitlin stated that anti-Semitism
and right-wing Zionism can coexist without
difficulty.Critics such as Norman Finkelstein,
Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Salaita
challenge the equation of anti-Zionism and
antisemitism as a tactic to silence criticism
of Israeli policies.
Brian Klug argued, "We should unite in rejecting
racism in all its forms: the Islamophobia
that demonises Muslims, as well as the anti-semitic
discourse that can infect anti-Zionism and
poison the political debate.
However, people of goodwill can disagree politically
- even to the extent of arguing over Israel's
future as a Jewish state.
Equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism can
also, in its own way, poison the political
debate."
On 15 January 2004, Klug wrote, "To argue
that hostility to Israel and hostility to
Jews are one and the same thing is to conflate
the Jewish state with the Jewish people."
=== View that anti-Zionism leads to antisemitism
===
According to David Cameron, the Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom, "there has been an
insidious, creeping attempt to delegitimize
the state of Israel, which spills over often
into anti-Semitism."In July 2001, the Simon
Wiesenthal Center reported that during a visit
there, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
stated, "anti-Zionism inevitably leads to
antisemitism."
In 2015, the Center observed in a newsletter
introducing its report on North American campus
life, that 'virulent anti-Zionism is often
a thinly-veiled disguise for virulent anti-Semitism'.
== Conspiracy theories ==
The antisemitic hoax The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion came to be used among Arab
anti-Zionists, although some Arab anti-Zionists
have tried to discourage its usage.
Antisemitic sources have claimed that The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion were read
at the First Zionist Congress.
Neil J. Kressel asserts that for many years
the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism
has been blurry.A number of conspiracies involving
the Holocaust have been advanced.
One advanced by the Soviets in the 1950s claims
that Nazis and Zionists had a shared interest
or even cooperated in the extermination of
Europe's Jewry, as persecution would force
them to flee to Palestine, then under British
administration.
Claims also have been made that the Zionist
movement inflated or faked the impact of the
Holocaust.
The President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud
Abbas wrote in his 1983 book, The Other Side:
The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and
Zionism based on his CandSc thesis completed
in 1982 at the Moscow Institute of Oriental
Studies, with Yevgeny Primakov as thesis advisor.
In 1968, the East German communist paper Neues
Deutschland justified the Warsaw Pact invasion
of Czechoslovakia with the headline "In Prague
Zionism is in power".
In 1995, William Korey released a work titled
Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology
of Zionism.
Korey's central argument is that the Soviet
Union promoted an "official Judeophobic propaganda
campaign" under the guise of anti-Zionism
from 1967 to 1986; after this program was
shut down by Mikhail Gorbachev, a populist
and chauvinist group called Pamyat emerged
in the more open climate of Glasnost to promote
an openly antisemitic message.
Korey also argues that much official late-period
Soviet antisemitism may be traced back to
the influence of Protocols of the Elders of
Zion.
He notes, for instance, that a 1977 Soviet
work titled International Zionism: History
and Politics contains the allegation that
most major Wall Street financial institutions
are "large financial-industrial Jewish monopolies"
exercising control over many countries in
the world.
Russian antisemitism was reviewed by Robert
O. Freedman in the Slavic Review; while he
concurs with the book's central thesis, Freedman
nevertheless writes that the actual extent
of Soviet antisemitism may have been less
than Korey suggests.Accusations have been
made regarding Zionism and the 2003 invasion
of Iraq, claiming that prominent Zionists
were forcing Western governments into war
in the Middle East for Israel's interests.The
Sudanese government has alleged that the Darfur
uprising (in which some 500,000 have been
killed) is part of a wider Zionist conspiracy.
Egyptian media have alleged that the Zionist
movement deliberately spreads HIV in Egypt.According
to the Anti-Defamation League, Neo-Nazi and
radical Muslim groups allege the U.S. government
is controlled by Jews, describing it as the
"Zionist Occupation Government".Article 22
of the 1988 Hamas charter claims that the
French Revolution, the Russian Revolution,
colonialism and both world wars were created
by the Zionists or forces supportive of Zionism.
Article 32 alleges that the Zionist movement
seeks to create an Empire stretching from
the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates river in
Iraq.In April 2010, Abd Al-Azim Al-Maghrabi,
the deputy head of Egyptian Arab Lawyers Union,
stated in an interview with Al-Manar TV (as
translated by MEMRI) that the Hepatitis C
virus was produced by "the Zionists" and "this
virus is now spreading in Egypt like wildfire."
He also called for it to be "classified as
one of the war crimes perpetrated by the Zionist
enemy".In June 2010, Egyptian cleric Mus'id
Anwar gave a speech that aired on Al-Rahma
TV (as translated by MEMRI) in which he alleged
that the game of soccer (as well as swimming,
bullfighting and tennis) was in fact a Zionist
conspiracy, stating that:
As you know, the Jews, or the Zionists, have
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Over 100 years ago, they formulated a plan
to rule the world, and they are implementing
this plan.
One of the protocols says: "Keep the [non-Jews]
preoccupied with songs, soccer, and movies."
Is it or isn't it happening?
It is [...] the Zionists manage to generate
animosity among Muslims, and even between
Muslim countries, by means of soccer.
== See also ==
Anti-globalization and antisemitism
Israel and the apartheid analogy
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel
Jewish assimilation
Jews Against Zionism
