ANTI-ZIONISM IS IMMORAL

THE ASSUMED TAUTOLOGY “ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT ANITSEMITISM” SUGGESTS THAT ONE IS BAD BUT THE OTHER IS FINE. THAT’S A MISTAKE. THEY’RE BOTH WRONG.

Mmmmk.

A young person I’ll call Chad recently asked me what I write about and, when I told him that, among other topics, antisemitism is a major focus, he immediately informed me, “I’m an anti-Zionist.”

Fascinating. It was notable that he made the immediate connection between antisemitism and anti-Zionism without me having to tediously raise the issue. What would become more illuminating was the self-identification: I’m an anti-Zionist.

Not “I have criticisms of Israeli policy” or “I am concerned about xyz.” Chad’s position, as I would learn in the ensuing discussion, was not so much an intellectual one as an identity he has adopted. This was more than an opinion — in fact, it was hardly an opinion at all, since he knew practically nothing of the history or current realities of the region. It was who he saw himself as, how he viewed himself in the context of the world.

In his profound book, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, David Nirenberg argues (he doesn’t dumb it down quite so succinctly; I do) that Western civilization was basically founded in opposition to Judaism. To differentiate the new, post-Constantine Christian European civilization from that which had come before required an enemy, a scapegoat, an oppositional entity with which to contrast and invent itself.

That’s kind of what anti-Zionism does. It creates an empty vessel and heaps everything we hate onto this imagined construct. This is just one of hundreds of ways antisemitism and anti-Zionism intersect, laying waste to the facile defence that “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”

Note, also, that Chad did not choose to identify as “pro-Palestinian.” I actually give him a few points for this. Most people will couch their negative position (“anti-Zionism”) in a positive-sounding costume (“pro-Palestinianism”). This guy cut right to the chase.

It didn’t take long, of course, to find out that, not only did Chad not know much about Israel, Palestine or anything else, he didn’t know what “Zionism” is. He had adopted an ideology to such an extent that, within seconds of meeting me, declared himself “an anti-Zionist,” but did not even know what that meant.

Zionism, to clarify very simply, is Jewish nationalism. It is the idea that Jewish people have the right to national self-determination.

If you respond with, But Judaism is a religion and religions don’t get to have national self-determination, two things:

(1) Stop defining for other people what and who they are, and learn what the hell you’re talking about. Don’t be like Chad.

(2) There are 50+ Muslim-majority countries, ranging from full theocracies (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan) to monarchies and republics with various ranges of religious influence (Morocco, Jordan) to secular governments with Islamic influences (Turkey, Indonesia) and a range in between. There are also explicitly Hindu, Buddhist and Catholic countries. If you are concerned about one, tiny Jewish state (which is a secular democracy with legal equality for minorities) but show no concern for dozens of countries that transgress that church-state (or mosque-state, or whatever) divide, that’s your problem, not Israel’s.

Now, imagine a huge swath of the world jumping on a bandwagon, catapulting the cause of “anti-Zionism” to the forefront of global concern, with a smaller cohort of this global obsession taking this to an extreme where it becomes practically their entire identity.

Now imagine scratching the surface and discovering these people who have made this the core of their identity don’t even know what the term means. I am constantly reminded of Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Let’s get a handle on some terminology here. If you are an “anti-Zionist,” you believe Israel should not exist. And yet there are people wandering the earth self-defining this way who, when pressed, insist that they are supporters of coexistence and do not seek the destruction of the state of Israel.

But that’s what “anti-Zionism” means: No Israel. No Jewish state. Jewish statelessness.

Zionism is nothing more or less than Jewish nationalism, the idea that the Jewish people, like everyone else, have a right to national self-determination.

“Criticism of Israel” is something quite different. That can range from, say, the most gentle disagreement with some aspect of that country’s policy on any number of topics to condemnation of almost everything the country does or is, short of calling for its absolute destruction.

But we cannot overlook the crucial difference between these two terms.

Some people will attribute more to the term “Zionist” and that may be fair. Zionism was once a theory. Now it is a practice. The dream of Jewish self-determination (“Zionism”) has now been realized and, like any human undertaking that is real, it is fallible and open to criticism. So it may be justifiable to attribute more to the term “Zionist” than its base, theoretical meaning.

But then there is a whole different phenomenon. There are people who don’t seem to even have the vaguest understanding of the term in any context. People use “Zionist” as a catchall disparaging term. Somehow, in their minds, it gets tied up and inextricable from terms like “capitalist,” “neoconservative,” or “imperialist.”

In British Columbia, there is a brainiac politician who, before she got elected to the legislature, was an organizer for the bus drivers’ union. She got in some hot water for saying that “We have vocal Zionists in our worksites, and we’ve had to battle them.”

I happen to run in circles that, if there were indeed a cabal of Zionist bus drivers, I would know about them. The party leader eventually punished her, but we never really got to the bottom of the problem. Media never questioned what she meant by what she said. I guess I can take some blame for this personally, since I have been a reporter for the local Jewish newspaper and I could have made the effort to ask what the hell she was talking about. My bad.

Instead, it has just sat out there, this politician having made a statement that clearly positioned “Zionists” as an evil entity but without any explanation for what exactly the term means.

But why does this matter? Anti-Zionism has become a global phenom and those who actually know what they’re talking about (even if they hold the deeply problematic idea that Jews should again be made a stateless people) argue that it is a legitimate position and therefore it doesn’t matter how people come to it or how ignorant they may be of the larger issues around the topic.

But no. That’s wrong. Anti-Zionism is wrong and all the defenses for it are wrong. The silly assumed tautology that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” purports that one is bad and the other is perfectly acceptable. No. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are different (in many ways) but they are both bad.

Not all anti-Zionists come to their position out of ignorance. They can be informed and still come to anti-Zionism out of a lack of morality. You can be anti-Zionist based on a reading of history that leads you to think that Jews do not deserve national self-determination. This is an immoral position for a few reasons.

For one thing, it defies the Wilsonian consensus that all people deserve national self-determination — and if you support Palestinian or other national self-determinations but not the Jewish one, there’s a name for that.

Second, Jewish statelessness is one of the reasons for the long history of Jewish oppression culminating in the Holocaust. If you dismiss ideas of another Jewish genocide as paranoid, I have this to say: I might have given that argument some credence two years ago. Since October 7, 2023, “anti-Zionists” have pretty much given up the pretense that Jewish genocide is a problematic outcome. There are plenty of people calling for Jewish genocide — “Long live October 7” is the clearest, but “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the intifada” are close seconds.

What is most scary to Jewish people and the seemingly small number of other appropriately alarmed people is that the vast majority of the world’s citizens do not seem the least bit upset by genocidal Jew-hatred. The phenomenon of bystanders is almost scarier than the phenomenon of would-be perpetrators. The perpetrators may (at this point) be perpetrating nothing more than hateful words. The bystanders, in opposition, can’t even muster that level of response.

Or you can be anti-Zionist based on ignorance, like the historical denial of Jewish indigeneity to the land or other “explanations” for your immoral position.

In the first case, you demonstrate indifference to the implications of Jewish statelessness, which has led (and could lead again) to catastrophe. In the latter, you demonstrate ignorance of it. Neither is a moral positon for humanitarian people.

Finally — and here is where Chad deserves credit, because he never claimed to be “pro-Palestinian.”

You can’t call yourself “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.” You are either pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist and anti-Palestinian. Because the only way this ends peacefully is through mutual recognition and coexistence. Both sides have to give some to get some. If you are promoting an intolerant, one-sided position, you are not advancing peace or Palestinian self-determination.

That’s not a political position. That’s a moral one.