Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is a term used to describe opposition to Zionism, the movement supporting the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Anti-Zionism takes many forms, from the refusal to recognize Israel's existence to religious opposition to the idea of a Jewish state. Arabs have argued that the reason that they are not willing to recognize Israel is because the Israelis are unwilling to recognize a Palestinian state.

Because of the diversity of opinion, and the argument that anti-Zionism is either inherently antisemitic or may act as a proxy for antisemitism, the phrase is controversial and sometimes disputed by those to whom it is applied. Some embrace the term, arguing that Zionism is a form of racism. The result is a persistent ambiguity in the use, criticism and defense of the phrase. For the purposes of this article, anti-Zionism is surveyed broadly, to discuss all notable opposition to Zionism, while noting where the anti-Zionist label tends to be a matter of dispute.

History 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 and in many forms.

Anti-Zionist publications date back to at least the turn of the last century, appearing increasingly 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, with notable exceptions including the Soviet Union and its allies. 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.

Types of anti-Zionism

The most vocal critics of Zionism tend to be the Palestinian and Arab peoples, the majority of whom view Israel as unrightfully occupying the Arab land of Palestine. Such critics generally opposed Israel's creation in 1948, and continue to criticize the Zionist movement which underlies it. These critics view the changes in demographic balance which accompanied the creation of Israel, including the displacement of some 700,000 Arab refugees, and the accompanying violence, as negative but inevitable consequences of Zionism and the concept of a Jewish State. While political positions still vary widely, it is generally stated that this type of anti-Zionism is based in opposition to Israel and its recognition as a legitimate state.

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 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 ought to 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 haven for potential Jewish refugees. They also point out the security risks in such a multi-ethnic state. 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, the danger posed by Arab anti-Semitism is intractable, and thus there can be no return to the status quo ante. These critics advocate only a peaceful settlement of the current conflict. Examples of this ideology are Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach and Rabbi Avigdor Miller, who wrote numerous letters and books on this.

World anti-Zionism

While it is possible to divide opposition to Zionism into the many different positions it takes, it can also be generally divided culturally and geographically. In the following sections, opposition to Zionism is discussed as it is commonly found in various populations and parts of the world.

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.

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. Yet, many in this group also felt that for Zionists to advocate emigration to Palestine would perpetuate the segregation of the "ghetto" that they were fighting to overcome. Some Jewish socialists rejected this latter 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 opposed attempts to build a secular and socialist Jewish state in what was then known as Palestine.

Orthodox Jews in this group did not reject the right of Jews to move to Palestine and reconstitute a Jewish nation. Rather, they maintained that such a state should follow Jewish law and tradition, with religious leadership. Other Orthodox Jews of that time objected to any creation of a Jewish state in Palestine before the arrival of the Jewish Messiah.

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Members of the Neturei Karta protesting against Zionism.

Some 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 continues to oppose the existence of the State of Israel. Among more mainstream Orthodox groups are the Satmar Hasidism, probably one of the largest Hasidic group in the world, with over 100,000 followers, along with other Hasidic groups influenced by Satmar and the group's late leader, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. Teitelbaum's book, VaYoel Moshe, published in 1958, expounds one Orthodox position on Zionism, based on a literal form of midrash (biblical interpretation). Citing to Tractate Kesubos 111a of the Talmud Teitelbaum states 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, more commonly, based in pragmatism, that it is better to cooperate with Israel than to actively oppose it. Thus the Belzer, and Gerer Hasidim, among others, claim that involvement in Israeli politics is necessary in order to offer a religious viewpoint in the Israeli Knesset. Some Haredi figures have even lent support to Israeli military operations. The Lubavitcher Rebbe in particular voiced his vehement opposition to land concessions, based on the Code of Jewish Law.

Haredi Jewish opposition to Zionism

Main article: Haredim and Zionism

In 1897, the first major Hasidic anti-Zionist initiative was launched by the Rebbes of Ger, Kotsk, and Radzin. Zionists were excommunicated. Zionist leaders accused the Hasidim of using violence against Zionists. The Rebbe of Siedlice called destroying Zionism a religious obligation and accused the Zionists of violence against anti-Zionist Hasidim.

Later, a group of Hasidim and Misnagdim formed Agudath Israel, which slowly moved from strong anti-Zionism to non-Zionism and passive support of the state once it was formed. However, the Hasidim in general remained opposed to the state and to Zionism. Especially the Edah HaChareidis, led by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, remained and still remains virulently opposed to all forms of Zionism.

Most Haredim consider themselves bound in principle to "historical anti-Zionist conceptions, inclinding isolation",. Occasionally, even followers of Haredi groups which are not generally known for strongly opposing Zionism, such as Belz, participate in demonstrations against the state, alongside groups which are more known for their anti-Zionism such as Satmar, Skver and Tosh.

Satmar, which is known for its anti-Zionism, has about 100,000 followers. Satmar Hasidim in Israel refuse to accept money from the state and avoid interaction with the state as much as possible. The same is true of the smaller group Sighet, which is allied and practically merged with Satmar.

Extreme hostility to Zionism is also a characteristic of the Munkatsher Hasidim. The founding Rebbe of Munkacz, Grand Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapira, was known for cursing secular Zionists, religious Zionists, and those who joined Agudath Israel. His anti-Zionist tirades were especially virulent, more so than those of any other Hasidic leader. He called Zionism a "demonic force". He accused the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avrohom Mordechai Alter, and all of Agudath Israel of being "crypto-Zionist heretics".

Both Rabbi Teitelbaum of Satmar and Rabbi Shapira of Munkacz opposed religious Zionism even more strongly than secular Zionism. Rabbi Shapira called it a violation of one of the thirteen principles of the Jewish faith listed by the Rambam.

All Hasidic Jewish opponents to Zionism, including Rabbi Teitelbaum and Rabbi Shapira, do approve of Jews living in the Land of Israel. Their opposition is not to Jews living in the Land of Israel, but to the ideology of Zionism, which includes taking control of the land by force. Indeed, there are many Hasidim and yeshivos of both Munkacz, Satmar and many other strongly anti-Zionist groups in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem. Yakov M. Rabin, a professor of history at the University of Montreal, argues in his book ‘’A Threat Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism,’’ that Haredi Jews who publicly criticize Zionism do so for two religiously-based reasons:

“The first of these is to prevent desecration of the name of God. And since the State of Israel often claims to be acting on behalf of all the world's Jews, and even in the name of Judaism, these Jews feel they must explain to the public, and primarily to non-Jews, the falsehood of this pretension. The second commandment is to preserve human life. By exposing the Judaic rejection of Zionism, they hope to protect Jews from the outrage they believe the State of Israel has generated among the nations of the world.”

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, some 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.

This agreement also 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.

For a number of reasons, the agreement was never realized. For one, Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfilment of British promises of independence to the Arab nations, which 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. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine also rejected any suggestion of Palestine being severed from the Arab-Islamic world. While a Jewish minority had lived in Palestine for centuries, 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) was accepted and often welcomed for economic reasons, 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. 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).

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

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 retained social and economic problems. 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:local nationalism, pan-Arab (or more rarely pan-Syrian) nationalism, Islamism, socialism, and anti-colonialism, to name a few. Anti-Zionism in some form is nearly universal as a popular sentiment. 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 and anti-imperialist narratives—particularly popular in Arab countries with violent experiences of colonial rule—focus especially on 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. According to this view, the natural means of combating Zionism is considered to be Palestinian revolution, and the expulsion or weakening of the Zionist "occupiers". Among Palestinians, examples of notable inidividuals or political parties that emphasize anti-imperial and anti-colonial narratives in their opposition to Zionism include: Ghassan Kanafani, Edward Said, Leila Khaled, George Habash, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and The Palestinian Revolutionary Communist Party. Examples of Palestinian solidarity groups that root their activism against Zionism in anti-imperial and anti-colonial terms include: Students for Justice in Palestine, Al-Awda [1], and Sumoud [2].

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.

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.

Muslim anti-Zionism

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

Muslim opinion generally emphasizes the idea of Palestine as Muslim land, where Muslims and Christians lived for more than 1300 years, taken by a non-Muslim political power. They also emphasize the suffering of the Palestinians, seeing it as Muslims' duty to aid them against what they consider to be their oppressors. For some of this view, the natural means of combating Zionism is considered to be jihad, whether by Palestinians or others.

An example of this view 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 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 as to necessitate war. From the standpoint of Islam, Faruqi wrote, Zionism represents apostasy against Judaism.

Muslim anti-Zionism generally 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 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). In an interview with Time Magazine in December 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments" [3].

Western anti-Zionism

Before the 1970s, serious criticism of Israel was relatively unknown in the western countries, except to some extent in the Communist parties. At that time there was a largely uncritical acceptance of Israel's projected image of itself as a nation of pioneers making the desert bloom. This was partly motivated by genuine admiration for the efforts of the Israelis, partly by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust, 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 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. These acts included the hijacking and destruction of passenger airliners and the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, and 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 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, 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 tends to increase.

Most Western anti-Zionism continues to advocate 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, however. One problem in this 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 nearly 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."

In a major essay in The Nation in January 2004, historian Brian Klug took issue with the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, arguing that this actually emptied the term "antisemitism" of any content. He concluded "when anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance."

Soviet anti-Zionism

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

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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, which 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. 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 (with pro-Western sympathies earlier on). Moreover, the spectre 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.

Paralleling 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. 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. 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 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 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 anti-Zionism 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

See also: 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. 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."

The historian Walter Laqueur, in his book Dying for Jerusalem: the past, present and future of the holiest city, writes at length about anti-Zionism being used as a “cover” for 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.

Some scholars believe that while Anti-Zionism may not be inherently anti-Semitic, it very often either becomes anti-Semitism or is used to hide anti-Semitism.

Thomas Friedman writes 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.”

Robert S. Wistrich argues that although several types of anti-Zionism are not intrinsically antisemitic, much of contemporary radical anti-Zionism has become a form of antisemitism.

Other scholars posit that anti-Zionism should remain distinct from anti-Semitism. Brian Klug, for example, writes that even when anti-Zionism is expressed in unfair and foul terms, it is not necessarily anti-Semitism.

In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in its working definition of antisemitism, identified several ways in which antisemitism can manifest itself, such as using double standards against Israel or drawing analogies between its behavior and that of the Nazis, while also stating that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”

In a criticism of this working definition, European Jews for a Just Peace, an organization of 18 European Jewish pro-Palestinian peace groups, contested several of its findings, and specifically targeted any inherent assumptions that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism.

In 2006, Edward H. Kaplan and Charles A. Small, both of Yale University, conducted a survey on the connection between radical anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism in Europe. The study was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in August of the same year. The authors’ overall conclusion, as summarized in the abstract, is that “anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-Semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-Semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed.” They conclude that “…when an individual’s criticism of Israel becomes sufficiently severe, it does become reasonable to ask whether such criticism is a mask for underlying anti-Semitism.” However, Kaplan and Small are careful to avoid concluding that the correlation they find (i.e., that extreme anti-Zionists are also likely to be antisemites) is proof to the theory that anti-Zionism is itself antisemitic.

Historian Diana Muir reviewed the paper and concluded that the correlation shown between anti-Zionistic attitudes and anti-Semitism was almost perfect. Muir also supports the study's conclusion that only a small fraction of Europeans believe the anti-Zionistic and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Steven Zipperstein, professor of Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University, argues that a belief in the State of Israel's responsibility for the Arab-Israeli conflict is considered "part of what a reasonably informed, progressive, decent person thinks," and a disproportionate criticism of Israel is not the result of new anti-Semitism, or even classical anti-Semitism, but is simply a "by-product of the wildly disproportionate responses that mark the post-September 11 world." Zipperstein writes that "anti-Israelism" is shaped by "a much distorted, simplistic, but this-worldly political analysis devoid of anti-Jewish bias."

Definitional Dispute

There has been some dispute over whether anti-zionism should be defined as a form of anti-semitism. 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, 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. In a letter to Merriam-Webster, Hussein Ibish wrote that 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."

Others reject the notion that opposition to Jewish statehood is de facto> anti-Semitism. Brian Klug wrote: "... you do not have to be an anti-semite to reject the belief that Jews constitute a separate nation in the modern sense of the word or that Israel is the Jewish nation state. There is an irony here: it is a staple of anti-semitic discourse that Jews are a people apart, who form "a state within a state". Partly for this reason, some European anti-semites thought that the solution to "the Jewish question" might be for Jews to have a state of their own."

See also

• Post-Zionism
• Zionism

Other resources

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