Israel’s sins in the occupied territories are inexcusable, and the military campaign that is destroying Gaza is criminally lacking in sound political objectives. But if anti-Zionists declare every Israeli to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for power, there will be nobody with whom to make peace in the future.
TEL AVIV – There is a Jewish joke, often attributed to the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, that an anti-Semite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary. One could say the same about anti-Zionists. After all, Zionism is an old concept, which was central to Jewish liberation long before it became synonymous with Palestinian subjugation.
Examples of more-than-necessary hatred of Zionists abound. In 1975 – when there were hardly any Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had not yet accepted the two-state solution – the United Nations General Assembly passed a now-infamous resolution declaring Zionism to be a “form of racism.” The late British historian Arnold Toynbee condemned Zionism so vehemently that even he eventually acknowledged that his animus was “disproportionate,” and that he had over-applied to Zionism his contempt for Western colonialism.
Such sentiment has persisted and even intensified, particularly since Israel launched its war in Gaza last year, in response to the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. For example, in March, the editors of the progressive magazine Guernica retracted an essay in which Israeli writer Joanna Chen described the conflicting emotions she experienced in the aftermath of the October 7 attack.
TEL AVIV – There is a Jewish joke, often attributed to the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, that an anti-Semite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary. One could say the same about anti-Zionists. After all, Zionism is an old concept, which was central to Jewish liberation long before it became synonymous with Palestinian subjugation.
Examples of more-than-necessary hatred of Zionists abound. In 1975 – when there were hardly any Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had not yet accepted the two-state solution – the United Nations General Assembly passed a now-infamous resolution declaring Zionism to be a “form of racism.” The late British historian Arnold Toynbee condemned Zionism so vehemently that even he eventually acknowledged that his animus was “disproportionate,” and that he had over-applied to Zionism his contempt for Western colonialism.
Such sentiment has persisted and even intensified, particularly since Israel launched its war in Gaza last year, in response to the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. For example, in March, the editors of the progressive magazine Guernica retracted an essay in which Israeli writer Joanna Chen described the conflicting emotions she experienced in the aftermath of the October 7 attack.