Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is a term used to describe several different political and religious points of view that have in common some form of opposition to Zionism.

Defining anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is often characterized by opposition to the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. Anti-Zionist polemic dates back at least to 1900, and it was regularly used from the 1920s, through at least the mid-1940s in relation to events in the British Mandate of Palestine, when both Arab and Jewish organizations opposed the creation of a Jewish State in the area.

The term has regained wider currency in political debate since the 1970s, as part of the controversy over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Before the Six-Day War of 1967, opposition to the existence of Israel was largely confined to the Arab world. The Soviet Union and its allies took a very negative stance on Israel and on Zionism. Since the 1970s, however, opposition to Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has led to mounting criticism of Israel, which in turn has fueled the growth of anti-Zionism.

Both Zionism and anti-Zionism have been accused of being a form of racism. The UN General Assembly Resolution 4686 (passed in 1991) revoked earlier Resolution 3379 (passed in 1975) assertion that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." (See Zionism and racism)

In addition to a conventional definition of anti-Semitism ("hostility toward Jews as a religious or racial minority group, often accompanied by social, political or economic discrimination"), the unabridged edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, originally published in 1961 and reprinted in 2002, gives a controversial second and third definition to anti-Semitism, defining the word as "opposition to Zionism" and "sympathy for the opponents of Israel". (The modern college editions based on Webster's Third all omit the second definition of "anti-Semitism.") The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has mounted a campaign to get this definition removed. Hussein Ibish wrote in a letter to Miriam Webster the second and third definition "smears and impugns the motives of all those who support the human and political rights of Palestinians"

A Merriam-Webster company spokesman defended the definition as "a relic" based on a handful of citations from about 1950 in which anti-Semitism was "linked more or less strongly with opposition to Israel or to Zionism." The spokesman also stated that the sense wasn't supported by current usage, and added that it would probably be dropped when the company publishes a new unabridged version in a decade or so. However, the company said it was beyond its means to send out correction sheets to all libraries.

Ken Jacobson, the associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League, urged Merriam-Webster to retain the definition. "Zionism is the national expression of the Jewish people," he told the New York Times, "and to deny that, it seems to me, most often reflects anti-Semitic views."

Types of anti-Zionism

Political Zionism has encountered opposition ever since it was first articulated in the 19th century. It is therefore possible to speak of a history of anti-Zionism reaching back for more than a century. That history, however, embraces several different phenomena.

Muslim anti-Zionism opposes the state of Israel as an intrusion into what many Muslims consider to be their domain. Some anti-Zionists, including many Palestinian and other Arab or Islamic militant groups, as well as the government of Iran (since 1979 Islamic Revolution), insist that the State of Israel is illegitimate and refuse to refer to it as "Israel", instead using the locution "the Zionist entity" (see Iran-Israel relations). Other states, including those such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Syria that do not formally recognise Israel, as well as Egypt, which has recognised Israel, may be more interested in a perpetual fight against Israel as a decoy for public anger. According to Thomas Barnett,

"...Israel remains the whipping boy, the excuse, the symbol of everything Arab populations want but do not have - in large part - because if Arab leaders provided them that level of connectivity and individual freedom, it would eventually eliminate the ability of elites there to maintain their political standing. So the kings and the mullahs and the prisidents-for-life blame it all on Israel and - by extension - the United States. Does anyone really believe that the Middle East would not still have developed all the same problems if Israel had never come into being? Don't kid yourself, the ruling elites would have had to invent an "Israel" if none existed."

Many neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups are opposed to Zionism, simply out of antisemitism.

Aside from those voices generally considered "anti-Zionist," there are those who advocate a binational state comprising the current State of Israel and the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in which both Jews and Palestinians would be citizens with equal rights. Advocates of this may not necessarily consider themselves "anti-Zionist." They note that the bi-national concept was advanced by a vocal minority within the Zionist movement itself at the time of the founding of the state of Israel, notably by the writer Martin Buber, and by Judah Magnes, the first president of Hebrew University. Bi-national state proponents maintain that such a settlement must be arrived at voluntarily and by peaceful means, and argue that it would be in the best interests of the Jews and Palestinians alike. Opponents of this option argue that, under those conditions, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state or a safe haven for potential Jewish refugees. See Binational solution.

Finally, there are non-Zionists who hold that, while the creation of the State of Israel may have been an error because of the privileged status it accords to Jews in comparison to non-Jews; there can nevertheless be no return to the status quo ante. These critics advocate only a peaceful settlement of the current conflict.

Jewish anti-Zionism

Political opposition

The Zionist movement before the 1930s met with some ambivalence among the world's Jewish communities. While the religious connections with the Land of Israel were indisputable, many disassociated themselves with the socialist ideology that dominated early political Zionism. While the revisionist Zionist movement emerged as an alternative over time, the Holocaust solidified Zionism as a mainstream movement in world Jewry.

The many Jews, mainly in Europe, who supported socialist or communist political ideas, took the view that the defeat of anti-Semitism and the winning of civic equality for Jews required participation in the common struggle against capitalism and oppressive regimes, and that for Zionists to advocate emigration to Palestine was a means of perpetuating the segregation of the "ghetto" that they were fighting to overcome. Some Jewish socialists rejected this view and became Socialist Zionists. The largest Jewish socialist organisation in Europe, the General Jewish Labor Union, also known as the Bund, opposed Zionism right up until the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

Within the Jewish displaced persons community there eventually emerged a strong pro-Zionist movement. Zionism became part of the mainstream political consciousness of Arab Jewish communities and the large communities in the Jewish diaspora, especially following the formation of the State of Israel and the Six Day War.

Religious opposition

Many 19th century and early 20th century Orthodox Jews objected to Zionism because they rejected secular and atheist attempts to build a secular and socialist Jewish state in Palestine. Orthodox Jews in this group did not reject the right of Jews to move to Palestine and reconstitute a Jewish nation within its borders, but instead hoped that if any such state were to be created, it would follow to some extent Jewish law and tradition, and that its leaders would be religious Jews. Other Orthodox Jews of that time objected to any creation of a Jewish state in Palestine before the arrival of the Jewish Messiah, though they accepted the right of individual Jews to move to Palestine.

In other words, religious opposition to the State of Israel is different from political opposition in that it does not deny the territorial claim of the Jewish people (Am Israel) to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel), but rather objects to the formation of a secular state (Medinat Israel) that pre-empts religious requirements that would or could lead to the format of a new religious kingdom of Israel (Malchut Israel).

File:Zionism protest1.jpg

Members of the Neturei Karta protesting against Zionism.

Zionism remained a minority view among the Jewish diaspora until the 1930s. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler, and the systematic murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust, persuaded the majority of the world's surviving Jews that a Jewish state was an urgent necessity. Ever since, the great majority of Jews, religious and secular, have supported the State of Israel. A 2005 poll by The Israel Project showed some decline in this support: 82% of 800 American Jews polled said they support Israel, of which 63% indicated "strong" support.

A minority of Jews, however, continue to oppose Zionism on either political or religious grounds. The most radical and vocal of these is the small Neturei Karta group, which not only opposes Zionism, but also opposes the existence of the State of Israel. Among more mainstream Orthodox groups the most significant anti-Zionist group would be the Satmar Hasidism, probably one of the largest Hasidic group in the world, with over 100,000 followers, along with other Hasidic groups which are influenced by Satmar and revere the group's late leader, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, as an authority figure. Teitelbaum's book, VaYoel Moshe, published in 1958, is an exposition of one Orthodox position on Zionism, based on a literal form of midrash (biblical interpretation). According to Teitelbaum, Tractate Kesubos 111a of the Talmud explains that God and the Jewish people exchanged three oaths at the time of the Jews' exile from ancient Israel:

• That the Jewish people would not ascend to the Holy Land as a group using force;
• That the Jewish people would not rebel against the governments of countries in which they lived;
• That the Jewish people would not, by their sins, prolong the coming of the Jewish Messiah.

This was the position of most of the Orthodox world until the Holocaust. Even today, many Orthodox Jews, including the Agudat Israel party, which has participated in most of Israel's coalition governments, accept the validity of these oaths. They argue either that the Holocaust represented excessive persecution, thereby releasing the Jews from these oaths, or, far more commonly, that although they are opposed to Zionism, they adopt the pragmatic view that Israel exists as a state, and it would be better to cooperate with it than to actively oppose it. Thus the Belzer, and Gerer Hasidim, among others, have involved themselves in Israeli politics in an attempt to offer a religious viewpoint in the Israeli Knesset. Some Haredi figures have even lent support to Israeli military operations against Palestinian terrorists. The Lubavitcher Rebbe in particular voiced his strong opposition to land concessions, which he claimed cost Jewish lives in the long run.

Haredi Jewish opposition to Zionism

Main article: Haredi anti-Zionism

Especially in Poland and Hungary, most Haredi Jewish movements, including the entire Hasidic world, remained opposed to Zionism. In some cases this opposition was only mild and passive; in other cases it was very strong. The strongest forms of anti-Zionism originated in Hungary, where in 1920 a group of 12 leading rabbis condemned Zionism in very strong words. It was followed by a similar declaration in 1925. Hasidic movements strongly opposing Zionism are, amongst others, Satmar, Bobov, Munkacz, Belz, Vizhnitz, Toldos Aharon, Dushinsky, Pshevorsk, Tosh and many others. Satmar is the biggest Hasidic movement in the world today, with a membership estimated between 100,000 and 125,000 persons; Belz numbers circa 50,000 people.

Among the leading rabbis in the Haredi community, in the past and present, who see the founding of the State of Israel as a violation of these oaths are the Chazon Ish, Steipler Gaon, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum of Satmar, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the Brisker Rav, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Kahn of Toldos Aharon, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach, Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam of Bobov, Rabbi Yisrael Abuchatzera (the Baba Sali), Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum of Satmar, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Eliashiv, Rabbi Yaakov Meir Shechter, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss, Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Freund, Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Sheinberg, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, Rabbi Nosson Gestetner, Rabbi Moshe Rabenuvitz of Har-Sinai, Rabbi Binyamin Zilber, Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, Rabbi Yisrael Alter of Ger, Rabbi Yisroel Hager of Vizhnitz, Rebbe Mordechai Hager of Vizhnitz, Rabbi Aharon Rokeach of Belz}, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Twerski of Skver, Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Dushinsky, Rabbi Yisrael David Fisher, Rabbi Binyamin Rabinowitz, Rabbi Avraham Chaim Roth of Shomer Emunim, Rabbi David Kahn of Toldos Aharon, Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Kahn of Toldos Avraham Yitzchak, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Ulman of Dushinsky, Rabbi Moshe Sacks of Satmar and others.

Regardless of their position, almost none of these groups and rabbis opposes the idea of Jews as individuals emigrating to Israel, but rather oppose the notion of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, either in its current form, or sometimes in any form at all.

Arab anti-Zionism

At the time when the Zionist settlement of Palestine began, most of the Arab world was under the control either of the Ottoman Empire or of one or other of the European colonial powers. There was thus no official voice for the Arab peoples.

Towards the beginning of Zionist settlement in Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a few Arabs were willing to consider alliance with the Zionist movement; for instance, Emir Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who helped lead the Arab nationalist revolt against the Ottomans, signed the following agreement with Chaim Weizmann at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference:

Mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine.

Furthermore, this agreement called for the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and supported all necessary measures:

to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.

However, Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British promises of independence to the Arab nations; these were not kept. Moreover, he had little local support for his position; Arab Palestinian leaders, among them the mayor of Jerusalem, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, rejected this agreement made in their name. Although there was little specifically Palestinian national consciousness before the 1920s, the Arab inhabitants of Palestine rejected any suggestion of Palestine being severed from the Arab-Islamic world. A Jewish minority had lived in Palestine for centuries, with a second-class dhimmi status (not applicable to most of the more recent Zionist immigrants) conferred by Islamic law, and attacks against them were rare and illegal; but the Arab Palestinians were strongly opposed to the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish immigrant state, and hence to any immigration that would threaten to change the majority status of the Arab population. Thus, while small-scale Jewish immigration (such as the First Aliyah of the 1880s) caused little trouble and indeed was often welcomed for the economic development it would herald, larger influxes of Jews were resisted strenuously.

Once the Balfour Declaration made it clear that the Zionist project intended to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine rather than merely to encourage settlement there, Arab opposition grew much firmer, and has grown steadily more so as the early Arab Palestinian nationalists' fears of becoming a minority in part of the British Mandate of Palestine had been realized. The hostilities punctuated the 1920s (Jerusalem pogrom of April, 1920, 1929 Palestine riots) and 1930s (activities of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam and the Black Hand group, 1936-1939 Great Uprising).

File:Al-Farida, Lebanon pre-1967 war.jpg

Nasser (Egypt), backed by Arab states, kicks Israel into the Gulf of Aqaba. Pre-1967 War cartoon. Al-Jarida newspaper, Lebanon (Oren, 2002)

When the Arabs found themselves in a position of conflict with Zionism, a Jewish movement, over the destiny of Palestine, anti-Semitic sentiment also began to spread among Arabs. Most of the Arabs knew little of the events in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. They asked why they should be expected to give up their homeland to provide a refuge for the victims of European anti-Semitism. Asked why Jews from Europe and America would want to come and seize Palestine from the Arab-Islamic world, some Arabs turned to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other pieces of European anti-Semitic propaganda for explanations: the Jews were an evil and malignant race, were the sworn enemies of Islam, were agents of the western Christian-imperialist powers, etc. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, eventually allied himself with the Nazi regime. Anti-Semitic views had become widespread in the Arab world by the 1970s, and since then have been greatly inflamed by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian armed conflict.

Arab anti-Zionism is also partly a reflection of the internal politics of the Arab states. Most Arab governments since the end of colonial rule have been more or less oppressive, whether monarchies or dictatorships. Although oil wealth has given prosperity to the smaller Gulf states, most Arab regimes have provided notably less material well-being and political progress to their large and rapidly expanding populations than, for instance, comparable East Asian governments. Diverting popular anger towards Israel and its western supporters has thus served as a useful safety-valve for some Arab regimes. Even in Egypt, which has formally recognised Israel, the regime encourages its frustrated intellectual and political class to indulge in anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, partly as a means of drawing attention from domestic political issues.

Modern anti-Zionism in the Arab world comes from a variety of ideological backgrounds, different ones being emphasised by different groups or in different countries—local nationalism, pan-Arab (or more rarely pan-Syrian) nationalism, Islamism, socialism, and anti-colonialism, to name a few—and is nearly universal as a popular sentiment. (Among Palestinians themselves, of course, the motivations are often more concrete than ideological, and would deserve a separate treatment.) The principal objections to Zionism found in all varieties of Arab anti-Zionism are the views that the Palestinians' land was unjustly taken from them by the British Empire (through the Balfour Declaration) and subsequently by Israel, first in 1948 and then again starting in 1967; that this process continues today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and that the Palestinians are still suffering from its consequences. Different ideologies, however, emphasize different aspects of this, and differ on the appropriate response.

Anti-colonialist narratives—particularly popular in Arab countries with violent experiences of colonial rule—focus especially on the parallels with cases such as Algeria or Rhodesia, seeing it in terms of a foreign power encouraging immigration into the country of a group which then sought to dominate the country. In this narrative, the natural means of combating Zionism is considered to be Palestinian revolution, and the ends would be expulsion or weakening of the Zionists seen as "occupiers".

Pan-Arabist narratives—which enjoyed their heyday in the 1960's in the Nasser era, but have declined since—emphasize the idea of Palestine as a part of the Arab world taken by others (partly overlapping with the previous.) As such, Israel is seen as both a symbol of Arab weakness and—insofar as it geographically cuts the Arab world into two noncontiguous halves—an obstacle to any union of the Arab world. In this narrative, the natural means of combating Zionism is Arab nations uniting and attacking Israel militarily. Pan-Syrian narratives, promoted mainly by Syria, are essentially parallel.

Local nationalist narratives, outside of Palestinians, emphasize the idea of Israel as a threat to the nation (commonly citing extremist Israeli individuals' dreams of a nation stretching "from the Nile to the Euphrates"). Among Palestinians, these emphasize other issues—such as the Palestinian refugee problem, and that in their view, over 90% of the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine is controlled by Israel; this is best treated separately.

Map of British Palestine and Trans-Jordan

Israel on the other hand claims that it controls only 23% of the original mandate, with the rest under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which already has a majority Palestinian Arab population.

Arab socialist narratives differ little from those of the rest of the world, which are covered in other sections of this article.

Muslim anti-Zionism

File:Islam problem israel.jpg

Front cover of Islam and the Problem of Israel (1980)

Muslim narratives, originally more popular among the more conservative nations of the Muslim world itself but now fairly widespread, emphasize the idea of Palestine as Muslim land—land once ruled by Muslims and once having a Muslim majority—taken by a non-Muslim political power, and regard it as the duty of Muslims to retake this land. They also emphasize the suffering of the Palestinians, seeing it as Muslims' duty to aid them against what they consider to be their oppressors. In this narrative, the natural means of combating Zionism is considered to be jihad, whether by Palestinians or others.

An example of this narrative is the work of Ismail al-Faruqi (1926-1986). In Islam and the Problem of Israel (1980), he argued that Zionism was a "disease" largely influenced by European romanticism far removed from the religion of the Jews, Judaism. He opposed the "Zionist occupation" of Palestine and called for the dismantling of Israel and the launch of a jihad. He said that the injustice caused by Zionism is such that there is no means of stopping it short of war. From the standpoint of Islam, Faruqi wrote, Zionism represents apostasy against Judaism.

Western anti-Zionism

Before the 1970s, serious criticism of Israel, let alone opposition to its existence, was almost unknown in the western countries, except to some extent in the Communist parties. Indeed there was an almost completely uncritical acceptance of Israel's projected image of itself as a nation of brave pioneers making the desert bloom. This was partly motivated by genuine admiration for the efforts of the pioneering Israelis, partly by a sense of guilt about the failure of the West to prevent the Holocaust or to take in the Jewish refugees of the 1930s and 1940s, and partly by relief that the "Jewish question" had now finally been solved by the creation of a Jewish state. Pro-Zionist sentiment in the west peaked in the 1960s, epitomised by the Hollywood epic Exodus (1960) and by support (except of France) for "plucky little Israel" in the Six-Day War.

The tide of opinion turned after 1970, however, as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), formed in 1964, began to conduct its campaign of "armed struggle" against Israel, through violent and often deadly attacks in Europe against Jewish and Western civilian targets. These acts included the hijacking and destruction of passenger airliners and the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. These events coincided with a wave of radicalism which swept through the western intellectual world in the wake of the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s (see The Sixties). Many Westerners and Third World activists came to see the Palestinians as an oppressed people like the South Vietnamese or the black South Africans, and the PLO as a national liberation movement of the type they supported in other places.

This wave of radicalism soon passed, but it left an intellectual climate in most western countries much less sympathetic to Israel than had existed before 1967. This anti-Israeli sentiment might have faded had there been an Arab-Israeli settlement, as seemed possible for example after President Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. But the repeated disappointments of Middle East diplomacy, and the spread of the opinion that the Palestinians were the victims of western neo-colonialism in the form of a Jewish settler state planted in the Arab world, created a permanent reservoir of anti-Zionist sentiment among western intellectuals, including some Jews. Maxime Rodinson's 1973 book Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? was influential in promoting this view.

The active expression of western anti-Zionism has tended to ebb and flow in relation to events in the Middle East. When developments seem positive, such as during the period of the Oslo Accords and the prime ministership of Yitzhak Rabin, and again during the Barak-Arafat negotiations in 1999-2000, western opinion, even on the anti-Zionist left, welcomes the reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians. When events turn out badly, as they did after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin or with the launching of the Second Intifada or the election of Sharon; during these times western anti-Zionism flares up again.

Most Western anti-Zionism is of the second or the third type described above, advocating coexistence rather than expulsion: very few western intellectuals actively desire the physical destruction of Israel, and most would welcome any settlement if it was acceptable to the Palestinians.

Most western anti-Zionists deny vehemently that they are anti-Semites or that anti-Zionism can be equated with anti-Semitism. Israelis and Zionists outside Israel often respond that a demand to destroy or abolish the state of Israel is intrinsically anti-Semitic, since Israel represents the fulfillment of the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. Both these positions are in most cases sincerely held, and the conflict arises from the absence of an agreed definition of key terms such as "anti-Semitism" and "Zionism," and the fact that many western anti-Zionists either do not accept the concept of a right to national self-determination (for any nation, not just a Jewish nation) or do not accept that Israel represents its fulfillment. This debate is complicated by two further factors: the habit of genuine anti-Semites of using the term "Zionist" as a synonym and/or euphemism for "Jew," and the tendency for radical Islamist elements to use the rhetoric of traditional European anti-Semitism. These rhetorical cross-currents make it almost impossible for Zionists and anti-Zionists to converse across the gulf of hostility and incomprehension which has grown up over the past decades.

The distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is, however, recognised by some Jewish commentators. Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, said in 2002: "I see three distinct positions: legitimate criticism of Israel, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism can certainly become a form of anti-semitism when it becomes an attack on the collective right of the Jewish people to defensible space. If any people in history have earned the right to defensible space it is the Jewish people. But anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are different things. We're hearing more voices in Britain now who are denying Israel's right to exist and I have to fight that - but I don't confuse that with an assault on me as the bearer of a religious tradition." However, in 2003 he said "Today's anti-Semitism has three components: The first is anti-Zionism, the notion that Jews alone have no right to a nation of their own, a place in which to govern themselves. No. 2—all Jews are Zionists and therefore legitimate targets like Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl. No. 3, Israel and the Jewish people are responsible for all the troubles in the world, from AIDS to globalization. Put those three propositions together and you have the new anti-Semitism."

Soviet anti-Zionism

Main articles: Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

File:Sov-mold-aug-27-1971.jpg

The spider (an image traditionally used by anti-Semites to dehumanize Jews) is Zionism, the web is woven from: slander, lies, provocations, Anti-Sovietism, Jewish question, anti-Communism. Newspaper Soviet Moldavia, August 27, 1971

From 1919 onwards, Zionism was viewed in the Soviet Union as a form of bourgeois nationalism, and its active promotion among Jews was banned. During the years of Joseph Stalin's rule Soviet Jews were frequently attacked as "Zionists," although the majority of Soviet Jews at that time were not Zionists. After the creation of Israel, however, many Soviet Jews began to sympathise with the Jewish state, thus arousing further antagonism from the Soviet government, who saw Zionism as a potential source of disloyalty.

Due to his anti-British realpolitik, Stalin played a key role in the foundation of the state of Israel. During the last years of Stalin's rule, roughly 1948-1953, official Soviet anti-Zionism was intensified due to geopolitical concerns outlined below. This included a campaign against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans" and the fabrication of the Doctors' plot. After Stalin's death, anti-Zionism continued through the rise of "Zionology" in the 1960s and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public. While these were all officially carried out under the banner of anti-Zionism, critics argue that they had a strong anti-Semitic content, often borrowed directly from traditional Russian anti-Semitism.

The Soviet Union's stance towards Zionism was strongly influenced by geopolitical concerns. From the 1950s, Israel began to emerge as a close Western ally (even with pro-Western sympathies earlier on), and the specter of Zionism raised fears of internal dissent and opposition. Therefore, during the Cold War, the Soviet government liquidated almost all Jewish organizations, and placed synagogues under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers. At the same time, the persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West. See Jackson-Vanik amendment.

In 1975, the Soviet Union sponsored the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, discussed below.

International anti-Zionism

Many of the most important authorities on ethics in the 20th century have contributed to the debate on Zionism, with some, such as Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s and '40s, expressing opposition to the Zionist movement.

In parallel with the rise of anti-Zionist sentiment in the west was increased hostility towards Israel at the international level. During the 1950s and 1960s Israel made great efforts to cultivate good relations with the newly independent states of Africa and Asia, and hostility to Israel was confined to the states of the Arab-Muslim world and the Communist bloc. But a combination of inter-related circumstances in the 1970s radically changed this situation.

The first was the increased hostility to Israel following the onset of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the late 1960s, as described above. The second was the decline in the prestige of the United States following the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. The third was increased economic power of the Arab oil-producing states in the aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the resulting energy crisis. The fourth was the rise of radical anti-western regimes in a series of African countries. The fifth was the increased diplomatic and economic presence of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba in Africa.

This anti-Zionist trend was manifested in organisations such as the Organization for African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement, which passed resolutions condemning Zionism and equating it with racism and apartheid during the early 1970s. It culminated in the passing by the United Nations General Assembly of Resolution 3379 in November 1975, declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism." This resolution was passed by 72 votes to 35, with 32 abstentions. The 72 votes in favour consisted of all 20 Arab states, another 12 Muslim-majority states (including Turkey), 12 Communist countries, 14 non-Muslim African states, and 14 other states (including Brazil, India, Mexico and Portugal).

By 1991 this international situation had been completely reversed following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American-led victory over Iraq in the Gulf War and the return of the United States to global political and economic dominance. On December 16, 1991, under pressure from the United States and Israel, the General Assembly passed Resolution 4686, repealing the resolution 3379, by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions and 17 delegations absent. Thirteen out of the 19 Arab countries, including those engaged in negotiations with Israel, voted against the repeal, another six were absent. No Arab country voted for repeal. The PLO denounced the vote. All the ex-Communist countries and most of the African countries who had supported Resolution 3379 voted to repeal it. Only three non-Muslim countries voted against the resolution: Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. Nevertheless, only one Muslim-majority country (Albania) voted for the resolution: the rest abstained or absented themselves.

International anti-Zionism, like domestic anti-Zionism in many countries, rises and falls in parallel with events in the Middle East, and the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 saw some revival of the anti-Zionist rhetoric in some countries; however, it is also possible that it was not until this time that media attention focused on the phenomenon.

Anti-Zionism and antisemitism

Main article: New antisemitism

Some commentators believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and attribute this to antisemitism. Some supporters of Zionism go so far as to say that all expressions of anti-Zionism qualify as antisemitism. Critics of this view believe that associating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is intended to stifle debate, deflect attention from valid criticisms, and taint anyone opposed to Israeli actions and policies.

Since the support and defense of Israel has become a central focus of Jewish life for many since 1948, many Jews see attacks on the existence of Israel as inherently antisemitic. For example, Yehuda Bauer, Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has argued: "If you advocate the abolition of Israel ... that means in fact that you're against the people who live there. If you are, for example, against the existence of Malaysia, you are anti-Malay. If you are against the existence of Israel, you are anti-Jewish."

According to Tanya Reinhardt, Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University who said she was speaking as one who loves the country and its people, "Being against Israel is the best act of solidarity and compassion with the Jews that one can have. ... The system of prisons that Israel is building is also a prison for Israelis. This small state is making itself the enemy of the entire Arab world and now the Muslim world. A state with this strategy does not have a future, so the solution for the Palestinians is also the solution for Israel."

Another position is that criticism of Israel or Zionism is not in itself antisemitic, but that anti-Zionism can be used to hide antisemitism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in response to a question from the audience after a lecture at Harvard University shortly before his death in 1968, said, “When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism.” On April 3, 2006, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced that anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism may often serve as "camouflage" for "anti-Semitic bigotry" on American college campuses:

On many campuses, anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist propaganda has been disseminated that includes traditional anti-Semitic elements, including age-old anti-Jewish stereotypes and defamation. This has included, for example, anti-Israel literature that perpetuates the medieval anti-Semitic blood libel of Jews slaughtering children for ritual purpose, as well as anti-Zionist propaganda that exploits ancient stereotypes of Jews as greedy, aggressive, overly powerful, or conspiratorial. Such propaganda should be distinguished from legitimate discourse regarding foreign policy. Anti-Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism.

One of the first people who criticized Israel immediately after its Independence was Albert Einstein who co-authored a letter to the editor of the New York Times criticizing it for the massacres at Deir Yassin. Einstein, Albert (1948-12-04). "New Palestine Party Visit of Menachen Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed". New York Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Thomas Friedman wrote that "[c]riticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction - out of proportion to any other party in the Middle East - is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest".

In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), part of the European Union, tried to define more clearly the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. The EUMC developed a working definition of anti-Semitism that defined ways in which attacking Israel or Zionism could be anti-Semitic. The definition states:

Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

• Denying the Jewish people right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor.

• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

• Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.

A formal, academic survey of attitudes towards Jewish people and Israel was recently conducted among 5,000 participants in ten European countries. Kaplan and Small of Yale University published the results in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. They found an almost perfect correlation between anti-Zionist attitudes and frank anti-Semitism. People who believed that the Israeli soldiers "intentionally target Palestinian civilians," and that "Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians" are justified, also believed that "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind," "Jews have a lot of irritating faults," and "Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want." Diana Muir, summarizing the article, states that "only a small fraction of Europeans believe any of these things." She further claims that "anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism flourish among the few, but those few are over-represented in Europe's newspapers, its universities, and its left-wing political parties."

Post-Zionism

Main article: Post-Zionism

See also

• Anti-Arabism
• Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public
• History of Israel
• History of Palestine
• Islam and anti-Semitism
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• New anti-Semitism
• Zionism
• Zionism and racism
• Zionist Occupied Government
• Zionology

Other resources

For other resources and external links, see Zionism and anti-Zionism (resources)