Israel, Zionism and Antisemitism

The state of Israel was born from the horrors perpetuated by The Protocols and into the Cold War, an ideological battle that was waged by proxies in the Middle East. We must understand this when considering the multifaceted conflict of Israel and Palestine that has spanned decades and can be extraordinarily difficult to parse out the truth.

The modern day flag of Israel. It depicts the Shield of David or Star of David between two stripes. The Shield of David is a traditional Jewish symbol. The stripes symbolize a Jewish prayer shawl.

What is Zionism? 

The word Zion refers to a mountain in Jerusalem in which the Jewish King David, a revered figure is believed to be buried. Zion has come to refer to Jerusalem and the land of Israel and was adopted as the name for the Jewish national self-determination movement that emerged in the late 1800s when ethnic nationalism became was popular.

The Jewish Question, the question of how, or whether, Jews could be integrated into their European host societies and, if not, what should be done with them, is what led to Zionism.

Theordore Herzl is considered one of the foundational fathers of political Zionism and helped start the World Zionist Organization which had its first meeting in 1897, at Basel Switzerland.

The delegates at the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland (1897) Source Conspiracists have long claimed this meeting was where the 'Elders of the Protocols of Zion' was recorded.

Theodor Herzl was the founder of the modern Zionist movement. In his 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat, he envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century.

 Herzl began Zionism after witnessing anti-Jewish riots in Paris and came to the belief that antisemitism could never be truly conquered, instead a Jewish state was needed to safeguard the Jews and that a Jewish state in the Jews’ ancestral homeland, Israel, would be the only way to ensure Jewish way of life. [i]

Despite horrific antisemitic pogroms in the early 20th century, support for Zionism was very low among Jews. This was for various reasons: Orthodox and more conservative Jews believed that Jews had been exiled due to God’s will and would only return in the future end of times while Jewish liberals believed that Jewish integration would solve antisemitism and that a Jewish state would only lead to more antisemitism. World events ultimately solved these complicated problems.

The collapse of the Ottoman empire following WWI meant the British were given authority over the lands of Palestine and Jewish migration (that had largely come from Eastern European Jews) continued with this added protection. As the threat of fascism and Nazism grew so too did the number of arrivals, and following the holocaust the population swelled to 650,000 Jewish residents a massive jump compared to the 50,000 residents in the early 20th century. 

The genocide they experienced in Europe cemented Zionism within the minds of many Jews and as the arrivals of refugees grew, and with it the amount of land held by the Palestinians the natives of that land diminished, so too did violence grow.

Arab residents being forced out of Haifa, by armed Haganah men, April, 1948. Credit: Fred Chesnik / IDF and Defense Establishment Archive

This violence culminated on May 14, 1948, when Israel declared its independence and over 700,000 Palestinians were violently evicted or fled to the West Bank (then belonging to Jordan) Gaza (a part of Egypt) or neighbouring Arab states, this is termed Nakba, meaning catastrophe in Arabic. The Nakba continued through to the mid-1960s and with it a series of crises and wars with Israel and neighbouring Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria. This occurred during the backdrop of the Cold War, the Soviets had initially welcomed the creation Israel believing that it could become a key strategic ally within the area, but this sentiment shifted when Israel joined the French and British in the Suez crisis (in which the Egyptian government sought to nationalise the Suez canal). Following these events Israel became a key opponent of the Soviets.

Some Jewish scholars have pointed to the use of Soviet propaganda in the role of creating modern antizionism which framed Anti-Zionism as anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-racist, and anti-Western.[ii]

This framing placed Palestinian terrorism alongside international and national struggles such as Vietnam, anti-apartheid and other revolutionary movements. This campaign was so successful that in 1975 the U.N passed a resolution declaring Zionism to be “a form of racism and racial discrimination”. This was later repealed in the early 1990s following the work of Jewish organisations. [iii]

Whether Zionism is imperialist, colonialist and racist really centres around the issue: does an effective application of Zionism mean statelessness for Palestinians? Again this question is complicated. Previously liberal Zionists including former Prime Minister Ben-Gurion have pushed for a two-state solution in which Palestine becomes an independent state while other liberal Zionists have challenged this notion instead calling for equal rights for Palestinians within Israel.

Neither of these things have happened and the erasure of culture and history and the genocide of Palestinians continues.

The ultranationalism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government now perceives any Palestinian self-determination as a direct threat to Israel.[iv]

The actions of Israel: the blockade of Gaza, the forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank, bans on political speech, mandatory detention without trial, and disproportionate violence, have all meant that accusations of antisemitism against Palestinian causes appear to many as a way to shut down criticism.

This is where definitions come in. 

In 2016 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance put forward a working definition of antisemitism. While stressing that legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitism, seven of its 11 examples of antisemitic behaviour relate to Israel. These include:

· denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, by claiming the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.

· drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

· holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.[v]

Some have criticised as silencing freedom of speech and academic freedom and freedom of expression, Anti-Zionist Jews have instead created a counter definition, The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism which labels the following as not antisemitic:

· Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism 

· Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state.[vi]

This is all well and good but the term Antizionist has long been used as a dog whistle by far-right and conspiracists.

Following the 2023 October 7th attacks by Hamas against Israel and the subsequent genocide in Gaza there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks and language, these words and their definitions have become incredibly fraught with tension.

This issue becomes even more complicated when you have organisations such as the U.S Anti-Defamation League downplaying Elon Musk's Nazi salute as "an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm" - this comes after editors at Wikipedia labelled data from the ADL unreliable writing "on the topic of antisemitism when Israel and Zionism are not concerned, and the reliability is a case-by-case matter.”

While on the face of it both Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism should be a simple definitions but the history of these words are more complicated then we can imagine.

[i] Thomas, Andrew. 2023. “Israel-Hamas War: What Is Zionism? A History of the Political Movement That Created Israel as We Know It.” The Conversation. December 10, 2023. https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-what-is-zionism-a-history-of-the-political-movement-that-created-israel-as-we-know-it-217788 

[ii] Izabella Tabarovsky Zombie Anti-Zionism. Tablet Magazine. July 31, 2024 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/zombie-anti-zionism 

[iii] Evelyn Sommer. Fighting Delegitimization: The United Nation’s “Zionism Is Racism” Resolution, a Case Study. World Jewish Congress. N.D https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/85th-anniversary/fighting-delegitimization-the-united-nations-zionism-is-racism-resolution-a-case-study#:~:text=On%20November%2010%2C%201975%2C%20the,Peru%2C%20on%20August%2025%E2%80%9330 

[iv] Eran Kaplan. “Israel’s ‘Iron Wall’: A Brief History of the Ideology Guiding Benjamin Netanyahu.” The Conversation. March 25, 2024. https://theconversation.com/israels-iron-wall-a-brief-history-of-the-ideology-guiding-benjamin-netanyahu-225936 

[v] Siobhan Marin. What is anti-Zionism? And is it the same thing as anti-Semitism? It's a question many are debating. ABC news. February 15, 2024 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-15/jewish-australians-anti-semitism-anti-zionism-israel-ihra/103446882 

[vi] The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. 2020. https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/.