Wikipedia

Anti-Zionism

opposition to the existence of a Jewish nation-state
(Redirected from Anti-Zionist)

Anti-Zionism means opposition to Zionism, the existence of the State of Israel. Those opposed to the existence of Israel are known as anti-Zionists. Anti-Zionism emerged at the same time as Zionism, when diaspora Jews began migrating to Palestine and changing the demographics there. Some anti-Zionists controversially labeled Zionism as settler colonialism.[3][4]

The first large-scale anti-Zionist demonstrations in Palestine, March 1920, during the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration.[1] The crowd of Muslim and Christian Palestinians are shown outside Damascus Gate, Old City of Jerusalem.
Antisemitic poster spotted at an allegedly anti-war rally in San Francisco on February 16, 2003, which incorporated both the motifs of "happy merchant Jews" and "Zio-Nazis". The slur ZIONIST PIGS[2] was also used.
Antisemitic graffiti in Madrid, 2003, equating the Star of David with the dollar sign and Nazi swastika.

Reception

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Endorsement

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Purported anti-Zionists oppose the existence of Israel under various pretexts, including concerns about Jewish nationalism, Palestinian displacement and geopolitical implications. Anti-Zionism is the strongest in the predominantly Muslim Arab world, especially among Palestinians. Some anti-Zionists call Israel "the bastard child of an evil ideology" and believe Israel to have been "born in sin" as a "racist, settler-colonial state". They accuse the Zionists of "pursuing ethnic cleansing, expulsions, theft and apartheid".[5] Media from countries subscribed to anti-Zionism sometimes delegitimize Israel as a "Zionist entity".[6][better source needed] Anti-Zionists also justify themselves by phrasing their arguments as mere criticism of Israel's policies, including the occupation of the West Bank, Golan Heights and the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.[7][8] [9] [better source needed]

Criticism

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Critics of anti-Zionism pointed out that many antisemites passed off their prejudice as anti-Zionism, often in the form of biased criticism or mendacious claims about Israel, if not rejecting the right of Israel to exist as a haven for Jews in a world full of violent antisemitism.[10]

Under the definition of antisemitism[11] of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an authoritative intergovernmental organization on antisemitism and the Holocaust,[11] anti-Zionism in the sense of opposing the Jewish right to self-determination is a form of antisemitism.[11][12]

David Hirsh, a British Jewish historian, criticized the dishonesty of many anti-Zionists:[13][14]

The left-wing tradition of antizionism [...] finds itself in a broad alliance with antisemitic movements that do not find the distinction between hostility to Israel and hostility to Jews to be of much significance [. ...] Antizionism does not allow Jews [...] to define their own identities. It defines their Zionism [...] as racism [. ...] alien to any decent community of human beings.

Walter Laqueur, a German-American Jewish historian,[15] also pointed out a similar issue with the anti-Zionists:[16]

In the light of history, the argument that anti-Zionism is different from antisemitism is not very convincing. No one disputes that in the late Stalinist period anti-Zionism was merely a synonym for antisemitism. [...] in the Muslim [...] Arab world, the fine distinctions between Jews and Zionists hardly ever existed.

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References

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  1. ↑ Caplan, Neil (2015-05-22). Palestine Jewry and the Arab Question, 1917-1925 (RLE Israel and Palestine). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-44282-0.
  2. ↑ A modified variant of the medieval European antisemitic slur Jewish pigs, later popularized by Martin Luther in the 16th century.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Rutland, Suzanne (2024-03-27). "When does anti-Zionism become antisemitism? A Jewish historian's perspective". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-08-12.
  6. ↑ "Kuwaiti newspaper apologies for using 'Israel'". The New Arab. 16 January 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
  7. ↑ "Israel's Occupation: 50 Years of Dispossession". Amnesty International. 7 June 2017.
  8. ↑ Rose, Sunniva (6 May 2019). "Shebaa farms: why Hezbollah uses Israel's occupation of a tiny strip of land to justify its arsenal". The National. Archived from the original on 2024-02-21. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
  9. ↑ "Gaza Strip: A beginner's guide to an enclave under blockade". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 "Working Definition Of Antisemitism". World Jewish Congress. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
    IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism :
  12. ↑
  13. ↑ Hirsh, David (12 January 2022). "How the Word "Zionist" Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. 4 (2). doi:10.26613/jca/4.2.83.
  14. ↑ Hirsh, David. "It was the new phenomenon of Israel-focused antisemitism that required the new definition. David Hirsh responds to a recent 'call to reject' the IHRA". Fathom Journal.
  15. ↑ Siegel, Fred (October 3, 2018). "Setting My Compass by Walter Laqueur, 1921-2018". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved October 23, 2024. Walter Laqueur wrote with the range of a journalist and the depth of a historian. He helped set my intellectual compass.

    Laqueur was born in Germany but escaped to Israel in 1939, leaving behind parents who perished in the Holocaust. While working the land, a fellow kibbutznik taught him Russian and by the mid-1960s he was writing books on the Soviets and the Middle East.
  16. ↑ Laqueur, Walter (2006). "The New Antisemitism". The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195341218. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
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