On Thurs, Nov. 13, the Consortium for Palestine Studies and the Palestinian Student Union will host a conference at UCLA that will revisit “Zionism as a form of racism.”
Yes, you read that right. After accusing Zionism of the worst sins on the planet—from genocide to colonialism to apartheid—anti-Zionists are now bringing back the big one: “racism.”
Needless to say, no one at the conference will be there to argue for the other side.
No one will share, for example, that Zionism represents one of the peak moments in Jewish history—the return of a people to its biblical homeland after yearning for 1900 years to come home to Zion.
No one will talk about the Zionist state as a multicultural nation where non-Jewish citizens serve on the Supreme Court, graduate from its medical schools and serve as speakers in its parliament.
Attendees at the conference won’t hear that Zionism has managed to create a free and open society despite being surrounded by enemies sworn to its destruction.
Or that the Zionist state is home to the Arabs and Muslims with the most freedom and opportunities in the Middle East.
Or that it has made immeasurable contributions to the world in technology, agriculture, medicine and humanitarian aid, and is a global leader in innovation and water technology.
No one will hear that side of the story because the purpose of the conference is not a search for truth but indoctrination to delegitimize the Zionist state.
Never mind that bashing Zionism these days is anything but courageous. In fact, it’s the ultimate conformism: you take the most unfairly maligned country on earth—Israel—and just pile on, knowing it can only make you more popular.
To add an academic patina to their conference, the organizers will revisit the 1975 UN “Zionism is Racism” resolution to “explore its contemporary relevance.” (Even a tough-on-Israel UN ended up rescinding that resolution by a vote of 111 in favor, 25 against.)
Evidently, fifty years after that UN calumny, this group of UCLA anti-Zionists are hoping to resuscitate an infamous lie.
This level of brazenness is evidence of the renewed chutzpah against Jews and Zionism we’ve seen since Oct. 7. Just take the most offensive accusations and slap them on Zionists. There are no consequences.
Thus, if you’re a UCLA student, you may well learn on Nov. 13 that being pro-Israel makes you a racist. How’s that for a message of complexity and nuance?
How does one even begin to counter such accusations? How does one respond when a charge is so defamatory?
The only answer that comes to mind is an idea I heard last Saturday night from my friend Judea Pearl: organize a counter-conference on the same day and title it, “Why Anti-Zionism Is Racism.”
Fight chutzpah with chutzpah.
It turns out there’s a case to be made that anti-Zionism is indeed a form of racism.
For starters, denying a people’s movement for self-determination in its ancestral homeland smacks of racism. Opposing this right, while supporting it for others, is blatantly discriminatory.
Because a core part of modern Jewish identity is a connection to Israel, anti-Zionism inherently targets Jews as an ethnoreligious group, another form of racism and bigotry.
Furthermore, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, claiming that the “existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” is considered an expression of antisemitism.
This counter-conference, however, should not just target anti-Zionism; it should also target the shameful indoctrination we’ve been seeing at more and more universities.
It’s one thing for street activists to throw out reckless accusations and never care about showing the other side. But a so-called “academic” conference? The Nov. 13 hatefest is worthy of the nastiest activists — one-sided propaganda with an anti-Israel agenda.
We should hold universities to a higher standard of discourse. UCLA, and its student body, deserve better.
Hateful speech may be protected by the first amendment, but a university is allowed to shape its own speech policy. That policy must be driven by an honest search for truth.
A conference that attaches the worst sin to Zionism is not searching for truth. It is searching for yet another way to disseminate its contempt for one country, the only country in the world that happens to be Jewish.
How racist of them.
