You ask, even if an anti-Zionist admitted that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, then what? We are confronted with something very base and dark in human nature, something we see as very ugly. I often think of LaFontaine’s fable of “The Wolf and The Lamb” where, even after all of the wolf’s specious reasons from wanting the lamb dead were dismantled by logic and common sense, the wolf still killed and ate the innocent lamb.
Anti-Zionism is just the latest window dressing to disguise - or try to rationalize - what is a primal urge: the need to expel the “Other” to maintain your own identity. Instead of disappearing, as have pretty much every other Iron Age people, the Jews have proven not only remarkably resilient but in the face of everything from prejudice to genocide, have nevertheless managed to contribute to Western civilization far out of proportion to their numbers.
In any other context, the Jewish story would be proof of the potential in every human to overcome adversity and make something of your life. Instead, it is read as a zero sum game: whatever the Jews have is something you have been denied. Therefore, the problem is not within, it is without and has a name. Looked at another way, Christians and Muslims understand that their own religions are outgrowths to greater or lesser extents of Judaism. Both sought some form of approval, neither received it - which risked to undermining the truth value of their religions - and they exacted their revenge for the perceived rejection. Martin Luther too first courted the Jews then after he was rejected wrote his infamous “On the Jews and Their Lies” - a vicious screed only rejected by the Lutheran Church after the Holocaust. Vatican II offered an olive branch of sorts from Catholics. But it is all a very tenuous program as the emotional need remains and no new target has been identified.
Absolutely the best! You may feel like you are struggling, but your essays come across as cogent and incisive analysis. I have shared your writing with many Jews, who all feel that you can keep defining Jew hatred as an ally because you really understand it, (better than some Jews unfortunately.) It’s a breath of fresh air to hear moral clarity on the left.
Brilliant article Pat. You don’t give yourself enough credit.
Especially timely as yesterday I was accused of gaslighting and being passive-aggressive when I laughed out at someone posted a whopper of an analysis of how PALS and ILS split evenly into 4 easily defined groups, where the bad Zionists took the crown of being the core of the problem (with a small section of responsibility dedicated to Hamas).
I muted the conversation pretty quickly as I couldn’t be asked to write an essay that would lead absolutely nowhere. And the writer said “I am against Zionists, not against Jews, I have Jewish friends…who left Israel because of the bad Zionists.” Ya well……….
To get to your question:
1) There’s a language problem as Zionism has become the new hate word and people use it in all sorts of (wrong) ways.
Take all these posts that claim the above and do a strike through of Zionists and replace with Jews and mirror back the issue.
2) As Charles Knapp pointed out, it’s a deep rooted issue of externalization, “Othering”, and having a perfect projection field over which you can attempt to exorcise your own demons, rather than dealing with them through accountability and the age old rule of “know thyself”. How to ignite someone’s journey to self-responsibility…? Only LIFE can do that. Many will not head the call…
3) If reason doesn’t work, maybe sarcasm will rattle a few of them. Ie play back their “let’s blame the Jews” dingadongs in the most sarcastic way you can.
I did this the other day by pointing out that surely the Jews must have a hidden hand in Afghanistan that forced the Taliban to issue the de facto ‘woman are nothing but a commodity and cannot sing and speak in public etc rule’. The cucumbers grew out of the earth crooked? Blame the Jews. The sky is a bit grey? Blame the Jews. I have done this over and over again, loudly and confidently in the middle of a public place with people in the last 12 months, and at least I have managed to make them visibly uncomfortable.
Other than that I am as lost for words as everyone else. Thanks again Pat.
Brilliantly written and some excellent points and interesting questions.
'How do we stand with targeted communities without usurping their voices or talking over them?'
I understand your trepidation and hesitation as a non-Jew speaking out for another ethno-religious group. In an age of deep political and cultural tribalism it seems as though we are only allowed (without fear of being cancelled) to have opinions on matters that are related to our own tribe. This is extremely concerning. As a society how are we to learn and understand the 'other' if not through debate and discussion? One should not have to be from 'said group' to be able to form opinions and arguments. Intention matters and I'm certain Pat that your intentions are to speak loud and proud in defence of a persecuted minority. 'Talking over' a group would happen only if you refused to listen to their concerns and not engage in dialogue. It is clear from your writings that you are deeply conscientious and go to great pains to avoid this. But what I think most important is that the Jews are a minority and you are a strong ally for their cause, if only there were more like you!
'But then there is the overriding question: Even if we could prove that anti-Zionism is antisemitic … then what?'
I think I agree with what Pebbles posted here, 'There's a language problem as Zionism has become the new hate word...' I would go even further and say that any terminology that explicitly refers to the Jews and only the Jews immediately 'others' them and perpetuates the problem of us vs them. Deep at the heart of antisemitism is jealousy, jealousy of the exclusive nature of the Jewish tribe and Jewish disregard for being understood by the rest. Therefore any terminology which exclusively refers to the Jews stirs up further resentment. Instead let's call it what it is, racism. Antisemitism is racism. Anti-Zionism is racism. It is pure hatred of a group due to their ethnicity.
And no reason won't get us out of this as racism ain't rational. But again referring to an excellent point that Pebbles made about making use of sarcasm as a weapon to disarm the Jew-haters. This reminds me of something I saw recently online, referring to 'Rules for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky which full disclosure I haven't read but I think one of the rules rings true here, 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.'
I really have nothing against French people. I even know some French people. That doesn't give them any right to have a made-up country. I really don't think that France should exist.
Pat this is great - keep writing. You hint at something that I commented about before... There has been a concerted and deliberate effort to train people to hate Jews and as a derivative hate liberal western democracies. Every country does horrible things, but 40 years of deliberate bias academia, news, and now socials has created a perspective that Jews (and therefore Israel) solely and only do horrible things.
The thing is, people do not realize that this actually harms Palestinians, creates more violence in the Middle East, and erodes liberal democracies. It ignores what the brave Palestinians who are literally risking their lives to tell the world what they want. It encourages violence instead of practical solutions to reaching coexistence. And it turns people against the liberal democracies that give them civil liberties.
I share with you and all readers my deep dive into this (apologies if I already did)
“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.”
Your insights are thoughts I don’t see anywhere else. Really deep.
If you’re into reason, here’s a counter-argument to your post: The equation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is false on its face by logic and simple semantics.
If you were to say “a very large number of anti-Semites use anti-Zionism as a masquerade to hide their anti-Jewish bigotry” or note a strong apparent correlation between people holding anti-Zionist views and likely anti-Semitic ones, I’d probably agree with you. But your assertion is much, much stronger than that.
Zionism is a lot more than just acknowledging the existence of the State of Israel—it’s a living and evolving comprehensive nationalistic political ideology and set of historical narratives. Anti-Zionism is an ideology and set of counter-narratives in opposition to it.
Let’s just take a liberal perspective on the matter, for arguments sake. Individuals are sovereign and have natural rights, not nation-states. The nation-state of Israel and the Jewish people are two separate things therefore opposition to one of those cannot be equated to opposition to the other. To conflate the two—a people with a land and a nation—is a nationalist premise that any liberal (to be sure, left-progressives aren’t necessarily liberals these days) or and student of 20th century history should reject. A true liberal must also reject the illiberal ideology of anti-Semitism. There isn’t any tension there.
A true liberal believes in the rule of law and accepts that international law is centered around the existence of recognized nation-states, such as Israel, and a relatively peaceful world order that is derived from it, that secure the rights and welfare of and provide personal security for their citizens. But that doesn’t make a liberal a nationalist nor oblige them to accept a nationalist premise about the conceptual inseparability of a people with what some of them claim as their homeland.
But to reject that premise is to reject a central tenet of Zionism. Thus a well-meaning liberal finds himself in the Anti-Zionist camp and therefore, in your view, necessarily an anti-Semite.
Well thought-out and reasoned, thank you -- but not quite accurate in the last assessment of my thesis. A few things to consider: You define Zionism too broadly, in my perspective. Zionism is, very simply, the idea that Jews have a right to self-determination. Everything after that (government policies, the behaviour of the country;'s military, everything that happens in that country) is secondary. Therefore, anti-Zionism is simply the idea that Jews * do not * have the right to national self-determination. Anti-Zionism is not "criticism of Israel" or its policies, etc. The bigger point is that I'm not arguing that it is "I hate Jews = I hate Israel" or even vice versa. My point is, most importantly, that people hold (often unconscious) iideas about Jews so that when they hear the most outlandish allegations against Israel, they may be inclined to believe them because they comport with ideas they (don't even know they) have about Jews.
You could then say denying Jews the right to self-determination is anti-Semitic to avoid the different possible meanings or connotations of Zionism held by you and the person or people you are addressing.
But why is denying a Jewish right to self-determination, which—right or no right—has been a fait accompli since 1948, a grave moral offense when no such taboo exists in denying the same right to the Palestinians? The Israeli Knesset recently overwhelmingly voted against support for a two-state solution yet I didn’t hear any outrage or accusations of bigotry towards the Israeli government coming from the pro-Israel community.
A non-universal right is no right at all; It’s a privilege or an entitlement.it then seems to be fair game that those sympathetic with the side that lacks the same privileges or entitlements of statehood drawn upon ethnic lines that Israeli Jews enjoy would object to the situation.
As for your last point, I tend to agree that Israel’s western critics often argue as if Israel is a uniquely malevolent or evil force in the world. Post-imperial western nations like the United States, France, Britain, Spain, etc. with the most outspoken Israeli critics have done far worse things in their histories—and on larger scales— than anything Israel is even accused of doing, yet that doesnt seem to register much.
Thank you. Seems to me the difference between you and “them” is you might just have the belief that the Jewish people have a legitimate claim to their homeland. The them doesn’t agree. You may very well be on the way to getting mugged sufficiently by reality to become a conservative. Remember just because we’re right doesn’t make us wrong.
You ask, even if an anti-Zionist admitted that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, then what? We are confronted with something very base and dark in human nature, something we see as very ugly. I often think of LaFontaine’s fable of “The Wolf and The Lamb” where, even after all of the wolf’s specious reasons from wanting the lamb dead were dismantled by logic and common sense, the wolf still killed and ate the innocent lamb.
Anti-Zionism is just the latest window dressing to disguise - or try to rationalize - what is a primal urge: the need to expel the “Other” to maintain your own identity. Instead of disappearing, as have pretty much every other Iron Age people, the Jews have proven not only remarkably resilient but in the face of everything from prejudice to genocide, have nevertheless managed to contribute to Western civilization far out of proportion to their numbers.
In any other context, the Jewish story would be proof of the potential in every human to overcome adversity and make something of your life. Instead, it is read as a zero sum game: whatever the Jews have is something you have been denied. Therefore, the problem is not within, it is without and has a name. Looked at another way, Christians and Muslims understand that their own religions are outgrowths to greater or lesser extents of Judaism. Both sought some form of approval, neither received it - which risked to undermining the truth value of their religions - and they exacted their revenge for the perceived rejection. Martin Luther too first courted the Jews then after he was rejected wrote his infamous “On the Jews and Their Lies” - a vicious screed only rejected by the Lutheran Church after the Holocaust. Vatican II offered an olive branch of sorts from Catholics. But it is all a very tenuous program as the emotional need remains and no new target has been identified.
Brilliantly said!
All I can say is thank you. I don't feel so alone. Thank you
Thank you Milton.
Absolutely the best! You may feel like you are struggling, but your essays come across as cogent and incisive analysis. I have shared your writing with many Jews, who all feel that you can keep defining Jew hatred as an ally because you really understand it, (better than some Jews unfortunately.) It’s a breath of fresh air to hear moral clarity on the left.
Thank you Cynthia!
Brilliant article Pat. You don’t give yourself enough credit.
Especially timely as yesterday I was accused of gaslighting and being passive-aggressive when I laughed out at someone posted a whopper of an analysis of how PALS and ILS split evenly into 4 easily defined groups, where the bad Zionists took the crown of being the core of the problem (with a small section of responsibility dedicated to Hamas).
I muted the conversation pretty quickly as I couldn’t be asked to write an essay that would lead absolutely nowhere. And the writer said “I am against Zionists, not against Jews, I have Jewish friends…who left Israel because of the bad Zionists.” Ya well……….
To get to your question:
1) There’s a language problem as Zionism has become the new hate word and people use it in all sorts of (wrong) ways.
Take all these posts that claim the above and do a strike through of Zionists and replace with Jews and mirror back the issue.
2) As Charles Knapp pointed out, it’s a deep rooted issue of externalization, “Othering”, and having a perfect projection field over which you can attempt to exorcise your own demons, rather than dealing with them through accountability and the age old rule of “know thyself”. How to ignite someone’s journey to self-responsibility…? Only LIFE can do that. Many will not head the call…
3) If reason doesn’t work, maybe sarcasm will rattle a few of them. Ie play back their “let’s blame the Jews” dingadongs in the most sarcastic way you can.
I did this the other day by pointing out that surely the Jews must have a hidden hand in Afghanistan that forced the Taliban to issue the de facto ‘woman are nothing but a commodity and cannot sing and speak in public etc rule’. The cucumbers grew out of the earth crooked? Blame the Jews. The sky is a bit grey? Blame the Jews. I have done this over and over again, loudly and confidently in the middle of a public place with people in the last 12 months, and at least I have managed to make them visibly uncomfortable.
Other than that I am as lost for words as everyone else. Thanks again Pat.
Great strategy! A little humour can break down barriers. Thanks!
Brilliantly written and some excellent points and interesting questions.
'How do we stand with targeted communities without usurping their voices or talking over them?'
I understand your trepidation and hesitation as a non-Jew speaking out for another ethno-religious group. In an age of deep political and cultural tribalism it seems as though we are only allowed (without fear of being cancelled) to have opinions on matters that are related to our own tribe. This is extremely concerning. As a society how are we to learn and understand the 'other' if not through debate and discussion? One should not have to be from 'said group' to be able to form opinions and arguments. Intention matters and I'm certain Pat that your intentions are to speak loud and proud in defence of a persecuted minority. 'Talking over' a group would happen only if you refused to listen to their concerns and not engage in dialogue. It is clear from your writings that you are deeply conscientious and go to great pains to avoid this. But what I think most important is that the Jews are a minority and you are a strong ally for their cause, if only there were more like you!
'But then there is the overriding question: Even if we could prove that anti-Zionism is antisemitic … then what?'
I think I agree with what Pebbles posted here, 'There's a language problem as Zionism has become the new hate word...' I would go even further and say that any terminology that explicitly refers to the Jews and only the Jews immediately 'others' them and perpetuates the problem of us vs them. Deep at the heart of antisemitism is jealousy, jealousy of the exclusive nature of the Jewish tribe and Jewish disregard for being understood by the rest. Therefore any terminology which exclusively refers to the Jews stirs up further resentment. Instead let's call it what it is, racism. Antisemitism is racism. Anti-Zionism is racism. It is pure hatred of a group due to their ethnicity.
And no reason won't get us out of this as racism ain't rational. But again referring to an excellent point that Pebbles made about making use of sarcasm as a weapon to disarm the Jew-haters. This reminds me of something I saw recently online, referring to 'Rules for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky which full disclosure I haven't read but I think one of the rules rings true here, 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.'
Thanks Emma for your kind and thoughtful words.
Really great. Thanks for writing this. 🙏
The best reasoning and writing on this topic that I've encountered. Thank you. Keep it up.
Thank you Sharon!!!
There are none I admire, respect and am deeply grateful for, more than non-Jews who stand up for Jewish people. Thank you.
I really have nothing against French people. I even know some French people. That doesn't give them any right to have a made-up country. I really don't think that France should exist.
Thank you for being an ally and keep up the great work!
Thank you Nicole!
Pat this is great - keep writing. You hint at something that I commented about before... There has been a concerted and deliberate effort to train people to hate Jews and as a derivative hate liberal western democracies. Every country does horrible things, but 40 years of deliberate bias academia, news, and now socials has created a perspective that Jews (and therefore Israel) solely and only do horrible things.
The thing is, people do not realize that this actually harms Palestinians, creates more violence in the Middle East, and erodes liberal democracies. It ignores what the brave Palestinians who are literally risking their lives to tell the world what they want. It encourages violence instead of practical solutions to reaching coexistence. And it turns people against the liberal democracies that give them civil liberties.
I share with you and all readers my deep dive into this (apologies if I already did)
Socials: https://yoavfisher.medium.com/why-jews-and-israel-are-evil-part-1-3652cb8ed996
Academia: https://medium.com/@yoavfisher/why-jews-and-israel-are-evil-part-2-b593b37c9853
News: https://medium.com/@yoavfisher/why-jews-and-israel-are-evil-part-3-9c07313dffc0
“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.”
Your insights are thoughts I don’t see anywhere else. Really deep.
I appreciate that, Rivka. Thank you.
Re: allyship. We need your voice! This is not something you should be fretting about. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Naro!
If you’re into reason, here’s a counter-argument to your post: The equation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is false on its face by logic and simple semantics.
If you were to say “a very large number of anti-Semites use anti-Zionism as a masquerade to hide their anti-Jewish bigotry” or note a strong apparent correlation between people holding anti-Zionist views and likely anti-Semitic ones, I’d probably agree with you. But your assertion is much, much stronger than that.
Zionism is a lot more than just acknowledging the existence of the State of Israel—it’s a living and evolving comprehensive nationalistic political ideology and set of historical narratives. Anti-Zionism is an ideology and set of counter-narratives in opposition to it.
Let’s just take a liberal perspective on the matter, for arguments sake. Individuals are sovereign and have natural rights, not nation-states. The nation-state of Israel and the Jewish people are two separate things therefore opposition to one of those cannot be equated to opposition to the other. To conflate the two—a people with a land and a nation—is a nationalist premise that any liberal (to be sure, left-progressives aren’t necessarily liberals these days) or and student of 20th century history should reject. A true liberal must also reject the illiberal ideology of anti-Semitism. There isn’t any tension there.
A true liberal believes in the rule of law and accepts that international law is centered around the existence of recognized nation-states, such as Israel, and a relatively peaceful world order that is derived from it, that secure the rights and welfare of and provide personal security for their citizens. But that doesn’t make a liberal a nationalist nor oblige them to accept a nationalist premise about the conceptual inseparability of a people with what some of them claim as their homeland.
But to reject that premise is to reject a central tenet of Zionism. Thus a well-meaning liberal finds himself in the Anti-Zionist camp and therefore, in your view, necessarily an anti-Semite.
Well thought-out and reasoned, thank you -- but not quite accurate in the last assessment of my thesis. A few things to consider: You define Zionism too broadly, in my perspective. Zionism is, very simply, the idea that Jews have a right to self-determination. Everything after that (government policies, the behaviour of the country;'s military, everything that happens in that country) is secondary. Therefore, anti-Zionism is simply the idea that Jews * do not * have the right to national self-determination. Anti-Zionism is not "criticism of Israel" or its policies, etc. The bigger point is that I'm not arguing that it is "I hate Jews = I hate Israel" or even vice versa. My point is, most importantly, that people hold (often unconscious) iideas about Jews so that when they hear the most outlandish allegations against Israel, they may be inclined to believe them because they comport with ideas they (don't even know they) have about Jews.
You could then say denying Jews the right to self-determination is anti-Semitic to avoid the different possible meanings or connotations of Zionism held by you and the person or people you are addressing.
But why is denying a Jewish right to self-determination, which—right or no right—has been a fait accompli since 1948, a grave moral offense when no such taboo exists in denying the same right to the Palestinians? The Israeli Knesset recently overwhelmingly voted against support for a two-state solution yet I didn’t hear any outrage or accusations of bigotry towards the Israeli government coming from the pro-Israel community.
A non-universal right is no right at all; It’s a privilege or an entitlement.it then seems to be fair game that those sympathetic with the side that lacks the same privileges or entitlements of statehood drawn upon ethnic lines that Israeli Jews enjoy would object to the situation.
As for your last point, I tend to agree that Israel’s western critics often argue as if Israel is a uniquely malevolent or evil force in the world. Post-imperial western nations like the United States, France, Britain, Spain, etc. with the most outspoken Israeli critics have done far worse things in their histories—and on larger scales— than anything Israel is even accused of doing, yet that doesnt seem to register much.
Well said. We who are recipients of pro-terrorist, anti-zionist hate, are very clear about what it really is.
Thank you. Seems to me the difference between you and “them” is you might just have the belief that the Jewish people have a legitimate claim to their homeland. The them doesn’t agree. You may very well be on the way to getting mugged sufficiently by reality to become a conservative. Remember just because we’re right doesn’t make us wrong.