The latest debate unfolding in the Jewish community today concerns whether anti-Zionism should be treated as its own distinct form of hatred and separated from antisemitism.
Proponents argue that anti-Zionism is not merely political criticism of Israel nor simply “antisemitism by another name,” but a distinct, contemporary form of Jew-hatred with its own history, ideology, language, and tactics. They argue that treating it as a form of antisemitism fails to explain how it functions and why it so often targets Jews as Jews.
This is a topic I have been wrestling with for some time, particularly the question of whether anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic.
It was heartening to see that my views on the topic are shared by Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the former U.S. envoy for antisemitism, who believes that treating anti-Zionism as a category entirely separate from antisemitism is not an especially accurate or a helpful framework for combating it.
I suspect that author Yossi Klein Halevi, another expert on Zionism and anti-Zionism, would also agree.
He has often argued that anti-Zionism is best understood as the most recent iteration of antisemitism and not something wholly distinct from it, but rather the form it has taken in our time. I find that argument persuasive.
The push to treat anti-Zionism as a category distinct from antisemitism is not primarily coming from historians or experts on antisemitism. Rather, it has emerged largely from segments of the pro-Israel activist and influencer community, particularly those focused on advocacy, campus politics and policy strategies. Their aim is not analytical precision, but rhetorical and strategic effectiveness.
In my view, not all opposition to Zionism is inherently antisemitic, even if much of the Jewish community worldwide regards such opposition to Zionism as repugnant.
For example, some ultra-Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionists because they believe that no Jewish state should be established until the coming of the Messiah. This position is theological rather than antisemitic.
Notably, in this instance, the goal — a Jewish state (or kingdom) in the land of Israel — is shared with Zionism; the disagreement concerns the means and the timing, not the legitimacy of Jewish presence or history in the Land of Israel. In the ultra-Orthodox view, the new kingdom of Israel should come from a pious descendant of King David and not the secular hand of David Ben-Gurion.
Similarly, Palestinian Arab opposition to Zionism is not intrinsically antisemitic.
From their perspective, this is a national conflict over land and sovereignty, much like other territorial disputes throughout history. They seek all the land between the river and the sea, and that struggle — however tragic or irreconcilable one may find it — is not automatically hatred of Jews as Jews. Just as the Indians and the Pakistanis are at war over Kashmir or the Armenians and the Azeris are at war over Nagorno-Karabakh, doesn’t mean any side is inherently bigoted against the other. They are warring parties.
That said, anti-Zionism as a movement and as a culture, almost inevitably devolves into antisemitism and we already have two widely regarded frameworks for identifying when that occurs.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism explicitly recognizes that while criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic, certain forms of anti-Zionism — particularly those that deny Jewish self-determination or apply classic antisemitic tropes to Israel — do cross that line. Similarly, Natan Sharansky’s well-known “3D test” (demonization, delegitimization and double standards) offers a practical guide for distinguishing legitimate political critique from antisemitism. These frameworks do not claim that all anti-Zionism is antisemitic — but they reflect the reality that, as a movement, it routinely collapses into antisemitism.
We see this clearly in the rhetoric of the BDS movement and the broader anti-Israel ecosystem.
Claims that Jews lack Jewish DNA, that Jews are really Khazars, that Jesus was a Palestinian, that modern Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel, that Zionists are Nazis or that Zionism is racism — these are not critiques of state policy. They are classic antisemitic tropes, repackaged for modern consumption.
We are seeing antisemitic tropes also largely present in Palestinian society in general, and in turn throughout Palestinianism — whether that is in the Palestinian textbooks that teach there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem or that Jewish Israelis are thirsty for the blood of Palestinian children. That is classic antisemitism. So, yes, it is true that Palestinian anti-Zionism has largely devolved into antisemitism.
In that sense, the term “anti-Zionism” has become no less insidious than “antisemitism” was when Wilhelm Marr coined the latter. It functions as a red herring—a politically sanitized label that often masks a call for the dismantling of the world’s only Jewish state.
Once again, if Palestinians oppose Israel as part of a national conflict, that alone is not necessarily antisemitic. But the ideological movement that surrounds and amplifies that struggle has repeatedly and predictably crossed into antisemitism, both in its language and in its targets.
One of the strongest arguments for understanding anti-Zionism as antisemitism is this: Zionism is arguably the oldest anti-colonial movement in existence. It is the return of an indigenous people to their historic homeland and the pursuit of self-determination in their ancestral homeland — a right universally recognized for other peoples. To deny that Jewish history, to deny Jewish attachment to the land of Israel, is to deny Jewish peoplehood itself. That denial is antisemitic.
This is especially striking when voiced by those who claim to oppose colonialism, given that the Arab conquest is one of many successive colonialist dominations of the land of Israel. Singling out Jewish self-determination as uniquely illegitimate reveals something deeper than political disagreement.
But should anti-Zionism be treated as a separate form of hatred from antisemitism? That is the central debate. Antisemitism seeks the destruction of the Jewish people; anti-Zionism seeks the destruction of the Jewish state. The two are not identical—but they are intimately connected. That is why anti-Zionism so frequently collapses into antisemitism, and why the anti-Zionist movement is so rife with antisemitism.
What we should not do is artificially separate the two, because doing so muddies the waters.
Lipstadt concurs, stating “I fear it would simply confuse matters.”
Antisemitism is widely recognized as morally abhorrent and socially toxic; even antisemites recoil at being branded with the label.
“Anti-Zionist,” by contrast, has become a badge of honor. It allows people to evade moral scrutiny while indulging the same old hatreds. Anti-Zionists would (and do) welcome the label.
Why let them off the hook? If what they are espousing is antisemitic, they should be labeled as such.
Meanwhile, Jewish individuals, gatherings, synagogues, cemeteries and Holocaust memorials are being attacked in the name of Gaza and the Palestinian cause. Jews who have never been to Israel, Jews who oppose Israeli policy, Jews who are long dead—none are spared. To support Israel is to be a supporter of genocide and it thus makes Jews everywhere legitimate targets in their worldview. That is not political protest. That is antisemitism.
In this worldview, to support Israel is to be labeled a supporter of genocide — and that framing has consequences.
Once Israel is cast as a Nazi-like state committing the ultimate crime, Zionism ceases to be a political position and becomes a moral stain. Because roughly 85% of North American Jews and more than 90% of Jews worldwide support Israel in some form, this logic renders Jews everywhere complicit in genocide. In this distorted worldview, Jews are no longer innocent, but supporters and enablers of evil, and therefore legitimate targets.
Furthermore, the charge of “genocide” is not merely a modern-day blood libel; it echoes a much older pattern.
Jews have often been cast as whatever a given civilization defines as its most loathsome qualities. As Klein Halevi has observed, under Christianity Jews were the Christ-killers; under Islam, the killers of prophets; under communism, they were capitalists; to capitalists, they were communists; under Nazism, they were racial polluters.
Today, the gravest moral crimes are racism, colonialism, apartheid and genocide — and once again, Jews and the Jewish state, now recast as “Zionists” and the “Zionist entity,” are accused of embodying them all.
Denying Israel’s right to exist, labeling it the “Zionist entity,” and demonizing all Zionists is not a policy critique; it is a quintessential example of the rhetoric that has led to the persecution and slaughter of Jews throughout history. That is why this language is not incidental — it is antisemitic at its core.
This is why I agree that quibbling over when anti-Zionism crosses the line into antisemitism is beside the point: the real-world consequences are already evident.
Those who insist that they can be anti-Zionist without being tainted by antisemitism may feel unfairly implicated by these acts. But the deeper unfairness lies elsewhere: Jews, regardless of nationality, politics, military service, or even whether they are alive, are being targeted simply for being Jews.
That doesn’t mean we should introduce yet another euphemism. Trying to reframe anti-Zionism as a distinct hate movement would take decades to bear fruit, if it ever catches on. Meanwhile, it will give a pass to the antisemites at a time of record levels of antisemitism.
Those who advocate separating anti-Zionism from antisemitism are people working on these issues day-to-day, when most people simply aren’t paying attention. They’re talking to an echo chamber
The vast majority of Americans don’t even know what Zionism is, let alone why anti-Zionism should be considered hatemongering.
Polling indicated that only about one-third (34%) of the general U.S. population claimed to be familiar with the term Zionism in any regard, while just 14% could correctly define Zionism — meaning a solid majority have no idea what you would even be talking about.
You know who is also seeking to separate anti-Zionism from antisemitism? The anti-Zionists.
Because anti-Zionists often claim to oppose only “Zionists” and not “Jews,” they can evade accusations of antisemitism while still harassing Jews at synagogues and in Jewish neighborhoods, applying ideological litmus tests to Jews, treating “Zionist” as a slur, and justifying or minimizing violence against Jews framed as resistance to Zionism.
So, why is this movement to separate the two catching on within the pro-Israel community?
It’s because the pro-Israel influencer and activist community don’t want to deal in nuance or academic debate.
They just want to say — anti-Zionism is a form of hatred like anti-Black racism, and it must be outlawed and condemned by everyone. It’s a valid argument.
Like much in the world, things are more complex than many would like them to be, and nuance is not something people these days — in the era of social media hot takes — want to embrace.
The anti-Israel movement certainly embraces this lack of nuance — and intentionally works to control the conversation surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I outlined this in a piece I penned just before Oct. 7, that to further their aims, the modus operandi of the anti-Israel movement can best be described as reductive, adaptable and discursive.
They are trying to establish the narrative and control the rules of discourse. They try to shut down speech and silence people who run afoul of their guidelines. They are not interested in discussing history, nuance or facts, but rather reducing the conflict to a few simple buzzwords that are meant to demonize Israel.
This pro-Israel movement to detach anti-Zionism from antisemitism is simply trying to re-tool the way this form of antisemitism is fought, by fighting back the same way — without nuance and without complexity. They are seeking to embrace the placard strategy.
I do agree with this movement that the Jewish community must do a better job of educating our children about Israel and anti-Zionism.
Parents outsource this education to Hebrew Schools and Jewish summer camps. The only problem being — these entities don’t discuss Israel in any meaningful way, but rather, focus on Judaism.
Hebrew schools and the Jewish summer camps don’t teach about Herzl, Jabotinsky, Begin, Golda, Ben-Gurion, and Rabin. They don’t teach about the breakup of the Ottoman Empire or the Balfour Declaration. They don’t teach about the San Remo Conference, the Hebron Massacre, the White Papers, the Irgun, the Arab Revolt on 1936, the Peel Commission, and the United Nations’ (UN) vote for partition. They don’t teach about the P.L.O., Black September, Hamas, Gaza, the first intifada, the second intifada, and UNRWA. They don’t teach about 1948, 1967, 1973, and 2000. And they certainly don’t teach about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement or about Arab-Israelis and the Abraham Accords. Instead, they only are told Israel is a magical land. Utopia.
But you know who does know all about Israel? Most young Palestinian and Arab children growing up in North America. They grow up learning the history of the “Nakba,” “Palestine,” and all the talking points that come with this. They have been indoctrinated with their anti-Israel talking points since birth.
When these two groups of children eventually meet on a college campus, the Jewish kids are outmatched. The Arab kids wax poetic while the Jewish kids look on dumbfounded.
As Sun Tzu stated: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, you will also suffer defeat for every victory gained. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
The movement to decontextualize anti-Zionism from antisemitism rests on very unsteady ground, and this movement to do so actually weakens the argument rather than strengthening it.
This conversation and the dangers of antisemitism (and anti-Zionism) are too important to be ceded to slogans and activism.
Anti-Zionism may not always begin as antisemitism, but in our time, it has functioned as its most socially acceptable and politically protected expression. Treating it otherwise does not protect Jews—it protects those who target them.
Ari Ingel is an attorney and Executive Director of Creative Community for Peace
