Antizionism = Antisemitism

If you think that blatant anti-Zionism is anything but antisemitism, you are probably ignorantly playing into the hands of those who set out against Israel and the Jewish people as a whole.

A recent Huffington Post article by apparent anti-Semite Sharmine Narwaniis just more evidence of why anti-Israel is antisemitism.  Just read through the first few paragraphs and you can immediately see Narwani’s disposition against Israel.  This, of course, is covered by layers of examples of people who feel like her.  However, like I learned trying to neutralize Israel articles on Wikipedia, the majority opinion is often not the accurate opinion.

Now, before I continue, I would like to point out that criticizing Israel is not antisemitism.  Criticizing the United States is not un-American.  It is often a great motivator for governments to see constructive criticism about things that can improve the way a nation operates.  That is what democracy is after all, leadership inspired by the desires of the people.

However, if someone denies Israel’s right to exist, they are against the Jewish people.  That, by the original definition of the word, is antisemitism.  (The argument of semantics that Arabs are Semitic people as well came in much later, and I will not waste words on this post discussing that.  Read the first paragraph here for my answer to that.)  If someone were to absurdly suggest that Israel should exist somewhere in Europe or Africa, that person is discounting three millennia of history in the Middle East.

Dina Porat of Tel Aviv University gave a great juxtaposition of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism:

…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.

So, by that account, I derive a definition of anti-Zionism as a belief that the Jews should not exist as a people in their own self determined location.  That sounds, to me, a lot like antisemitism.  However, if you do not trust me or a college professor, one of the most respected people in United States history, one who fought against the oppression of Black Americans and worked toward equality, which has seemingly culminated with the election of a Black American as President of the United States, believed that anti-Zionism is very much the same thing as antisemitism.  That man is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“. . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely ‘anti-Zionist.’ And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God’s green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews–this is God’s own truth.

“Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so.

“Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.

So, if you can honestly look me in the eye (figuratively in this case) and say you are against Israel but not against the Jewish people, you are simply lying to yourself. 

In the case of those Jewish who are “anti-Zionist,” that is another debate of semantics.  Those small groups are not against Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, but simply the state in its current form.  They believe there should exist a kingdom in the entire biblical land of Israel, and that should be given to the Jewish people by God.  They just support a different version of Zionism, one that is much more rooted in literal biblical text.  They do, however, support a Jewish people living in what is today Israel.

To end this post, I would like to leave you with the words of Dr. King.  He told his friend, a self proclaimed anti-Zionist, in a letter published in 1967:

“Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews–make no mistake about it.”