ANTI-ZIONISM, ANTIRACISM & ANTISEMITISM, OH MY!

Reason will not get someone out of a position reason did not get them into.

Oh, I’m a victim of a “witch hunt!” Poor me!

I’ve spent an enormous amount of time thinking about — and writing about — the intersection of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Certainly more than the average non-Jew probably. I keep coming back to this, refining my thinking on the topic, because it is a pivotal aspect in this discussion.

The mantra “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” is so central to the anti-Israel case that it needs to be debunked again and again. And yet, because we are talking about racial prejudice, it is impossible to conclusively discredit. Reason will not get someone out of a position reason did not get them into.

It is impossible to resolve because there is no way to prove it. You can accuse me of coming to my opinions based on bigotry, I can deny it, and neither of us is any further ahead.

Also, I struggle with the limitations of an “outsider.” What rights and what confines should govern someone who is not a member of a group in determining the nature of discrimination that group faces? This is a core crux in this case, because — more than, I think, any other discrimination — outsiders take it upon themselves to define for Jewish people not only the nature of the prejudice they face but even have the audacity to define for Jews who they are.

For example, years of consultation went into the creation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism. Then a bunch of non-Jews built an entire political movement aimed at discrediting it.

This is gobsmacking in so many ways, not least because it is almost always self-described “antiracists” and “progressives” who have a problem with the definition — people who, in every other instance, hold firm to the antiracist sacrament that it is the right of the group to define their own experiences with discrimination.

Now, here I have an unequivocal right to speak. In the case of this egregious abandonment of progressive ideals, I’m an insider. I’m a progressive antiracist — and that sure as hell grants me the right to condemn and call out the perpetrators of this very specific form of antisemitism and betrayal of the values we claim to share (and that I embody and they betray).

Any reasonable person would have to admit that the term “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” is a disgusting abrogation of antiracist values. When confronted with the remotest potential that we are infected by racial bias, we do not dismiss the assertion. We interrogate ourselves. Except in the case of our attitudes to Jews.

The silly defense “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” says that ideas about Jews have absolutely no impact on our ideas about the Jewish state. See how ridiculous that is? Of course they do. The question is, how much? Is it 5% or 95%? In matters of human affairs, these things are immeasurable.

Not only do anti-Zionists have the audacity to define for Jews the definition of the discrimination they face, they deign to define for Jews who they are. Routinely, anti-Zionists tell Jews they don’t deserve national self-determination because they are a “religion” not a “nation.” The ignorance is jawdropping. People who are absolutely devoid of understanding about the nature of Jewishness (it is a national identity, a peoplehood with a religion, Judaism, at its historic core) take it upon themselves — based on their own ignorant misperceptions — to tell Jews they don’t deserve a state.

Moreover — and this is absolutely key, and the point of greatest misunderstanding — the intersection of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is not the simplistic idea that people hate Jews therefore they hate Israel.

That’s not how any of this works.

If you are reading this, you carry antisemitic bias. If you come from a majority Christian or a majority Muslim society, you carry antisemitic ideas. These are in our civilizational DNA. So, when you hear Israelis accused of “stealing Palestinian land,” “only caring about their own,” or the dehumanizing, obscene accusation that the Israeli military in Gaza are “shooting fish in a barrel,” these ring true because we come from a society where we are instilled with ideas of Jewish avarice, insularity and bloodthirst, among so many other things.

That’s how this works.

Above all, the dismissal that “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” fails at its core. Anti-Zionism was unambiguously born of antisemitism. The anti-Zionist movement was invented by the Arab leaders and adopted by the masses in the first half of the 20th century — before Israel even existed — in opposition to the intolerable idea that the ultimate dhimmies, the Jews, would have self-determination on lands Muslims claim, despite all archeological and historical evidence, as their indigenous territories. 

Opposition to Israel — anti-Zionism — did not emerge as a result of Israeli actions or policies. It emerged as a premeditated opposition to Jewish self-determination before it even happened, based on Muslim supremacy and certitudes of Jewish inferiority.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic root and stem.

On the flip side — and this is the delicate balance of allyship — how do we stand with targeted communities without usurping their voices or talking over them? (Dissertations could be written on this subject using the “pro-Palestinian” movement as an example, with its white suburban activists donning keffiyehs like blackface and advancing an intolerant narrative that perpetuates war and Palestinian statelessness while purporting to speak in the interests of Palestinians.)

I struggle with this. I suppose I’ll write about it. If you have thoughts, please share. But, in a world where we see things like we did in my hometown Vancouver over the long weekend, in which thousands of screaming, chanting “pro-Palestinians” took over the streets Saturday and, on Sunday, a ragtag group of a few dozen people, mostly elderly, mostly Jews, stood in solidarity with the murdered hostages discovered in Gaza, I’ll risk overstepping to stand with the Jews.

But then there is the overriding question: Even if we could prove that anti-Zionism is antisemitic … then what?

I’ve struggled with this.

Again: Reason won’t get us out of a problem lack of reason got us into.

But say we could prove that anti-Zionists are driven by antisemitic bias, so irrefutably that even they had to face the facts.

If we think back to the times in history when entire societies were mobilized by racism — the “Old South” in the United States, apartheid South Africa — the perpetrators knew they were racist. They just thought that was the proper order of things.

That’s the situation here. Plenty of anti-Zionists know their movement is festering with antisemitism (you can’t march in the average “pro-Palestinian” rally and deny it). They’re good with that.

But let us not sacrifice the city if there is the possibility it houses one righteous person. Surely there are some people who may be persuaded to look inward.

If people do not even realize the potential for racial bias to influence their thinking — if they literally drown out pleas for self-reflection with the chant “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” — we need to pry open their determined witlessness by hammering away on this reality.

I’ll keep thinking (and writing) about this subject if you’ll keep reading.