Anti-Zionists are Racists
Jews, who make up only .2% of the world’s population, are also some of the most hated people on the planet.
Despite people who oppose Israel’s policies, politics and mere existence, they often like to say they are not antisemitic — they don’t hate Jews. They just don’t believe Jews have a right to their own state. Saying things like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic because it means they want to do away with Israel. And the Israelis who live there shouldn’t be allowed there. That is all considered fine under progressive ideology because they view Jews as oppressors.
But it doesn’t matter what they say — all those who say that they are against Jews because they are Zionists are racists. Jews should be able to have their own land — the state of Israel — like any other people. Saying otherwise makes you a racist.
I am not equating those who are opposed to the current or prior Israeli governments as anti-Zionists. Israelis don’t all agree about their own politics. That doesn’t mean they don’t want the State of Israel to exist.
Jews who have lived in the land of Israel since the time of the Old Testament — there is even DNA to prove it linking genetic material from two buried Israelites to modern-day Jews. Israel’s population is mainly made up of Mizrahi Jews who were in Israel for generations and from the one million Jews who had to flee Arab countries. There are also Jews who left Europe either before or after the Holocaust.
Herzl created the modern Zionism political movement because of a huge amount of antisemitism in Europe. He knew there needed to be a safe place for Jews. This was the reason he wanted to garner a movement to create a safe place and ultimate homeland for Jews in what was then part of the land occupied by the Ottomans, what is now Israel.
But most of these people ARE antisemetic and are using their argument over Palestine to continue to make a case against Jews. When Jews are harrassed for being Jews like this Israeli tourist was for peeling an anti-Israel sticker off the train station wall — and condemned for any action taken by Israel, that is antisemitism. In France, a Jewish woman was allegedly abducted and raped “to avenge Palestine.” The people that foster this harassment and attitude are racist. Antizionists are racists.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement helmed by Omar Barghouti speaks to social justice around Palestinian rights but only by taking all rights away from Israel. There is no attempt to co-exist.
Similarly these college protests are not just asking for divestment from Israel.
For more on these protests, see my prior article: https://medium.com/the-judean-peoples-front/its-exhausting-rooting-for-the-anti-hero-israel-621c835e91e6
They are also asking for universities to sever ties to Jewish support groups like Hillel, the largest Jewish support organization for college students. They urge this severance because Hillel supports Zionism. Hillel also provides a place for Jews to gather, worship, eat kosher meals and support each other in community. Hillel has reported that 61% of Jews have felt less safe on campus this spring as a result of encampments and protesting giving rise to growing antisemitism.
Each troubling event that happens, is a result of this movement to entwine antisemitism into a new movement — trying to use the cloak of anti-Zionism to make it ok to hate Jews.
Well, it’s still not ok. And if you do it — you are a racist.
