Whenever Israel/Palestine is in the news it is inevitable that there will be those who equate Judaism with Zionism. And there will always be those who accuse any critic of Israel or of Zionism of being antisemitic. Without a doubt, there are some critics of Israel who are indeed antisemitic or who use antisemitic tropes. But since this has become a common tactic against dissent, it’s important to set the record straight. Antisemitism is akin to any other social hatred, such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc. It is vile and its legacy is that of prejudice, persecution and cruelty against Jews. It should be unequivocally condemned by any person of conscience.
But Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing. Judaism is an ethnic-religious identity that spans several millennia, cultures and continents. It has a rich, diverse and beautiful history that can be found in the Middle-east, Europe, Russia, the Americas and beyond. And antisemitism is the demonization and dehumanization of Jews for no other reason but their ethnic-religious identity. It has resulted in unfathomable crimes against humanity, the apex being the Shoah, or Holocaust in Europe. But it is probably more useful in this instance to explore the historical context of the latter term.
Zionism is a political ideology which emerged in the 19th century and is modeled in many ways after other colonial settler projects in Europe at the time. It gained support in response to the persecution of Jews by European Christians and pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Its goal was to establish a homeland for Jews in Palestine, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire and, following World War I, by the British.
There were Jews who lived in relative peace in Palestine alongside their Muslim and Christian neighbours for centuries prior to Zionism. But this ideology, borne of European persecution, was largely premised on the idea of a nation-state for Jews alone. The idea being it would be the only place Jewish people would be safe.
European Jewish immigrants began coming to Europe in significant numbers in the late 19th century. But this massively increased just prior to and following the horrors of the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews were tortured and annihilated by the Nazis and their collaborators.
As European Jews flooded Palestine, conflicts between the new immigrants and the indigenous Palestinians grew. The British Empire played an enormous role in fomenting this conflict. In the midst of the first World War in 1917, when Palestine was under Ottoman control, a public declaration known as the Balfour Declaration was issued by the British government in support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
At this time, the Jewish population was a small minority. Understandably, most Palestinians were angered that their ancestral claims to the land were ignored. Although many rented their homes or property due to not having enough money to buy, the vast majority had lived there for centuries. Many Europeans, who had far more capital, were able to come in and buy up swaths of land and uproot the indigenous communities living there.
The conflict eventually culminated into war. Well armed Zionist militias launched attacks against the occupying British and against Palestinian villages. There were many instances of Zionist terrorism, from the bombing of the King David Hotel to the massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Irgun Zionist militia in the village of Deir Yasin. Some armed Palestinian groups launched their own attacks on Zionist targets.
But in 1948, the Zionist project gained the upper hand. The United Nations partition plan afforded them the best lands and resources for a new state. The Palestinians would be left fragmented and with little remaining of their ancestral homeland. A war ensued and the result of it is what is known as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, where up to 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled or fled their homes out of fear. More than 400 villages were emptied of their residents.
In the years following the Nakba, and with the establishment of the state of Israel, new Jewish immigrants were given the keys to Palestinian homes, many of which had the prior occupants possessions still in them. Over the years, an elaborate system of apartheid was codified into law. It began limiting the rights of Palestinians living within Israel’s new borders. Following the 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank taken from Jordan and the Gaza Strip taken from Egypt. Those living in these occupied territories, most of whom were refugees, were subjected to Israeli military rule.
Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and in the Occupied West Bank today have been under Israeli military occupation rule for over 50 years. They are routinely subjected to home demolitions, checkpoints and night raids. They are considered stateless and if they leave, Israel can prevent them from returning. In addition to this, illegal Israeli settlers have steadily taken over huge swaths of land in the occupied territories, in violation of international law, with assistance and protection of the Israeli government and military. These settlers have often used violence and intimidation against Palestinian farmers and villages.
As for Gaza, the Israeli government removed Jewish settlers from the strip in 2005 with the stated goal of granting them sovereignty. However, the Israeli military never completely gave up control of the airspace, borders or sea. In the aftermath, a little-known fundamentalist social-religious organization, known as Hamas, won the election in Gaza. This fringe organization gained traction among the population largely thanks to Israel, which bolstered its influence as a way of weakening the secular Palestinian Fatah party. Since then, it has arguably ruled Gaza with an iron fist.
But the biggest cause for misery among Gazans has been the Israeli blockade, which has restricted food and medicine and which collectively punished the entire population with punitive restrictions on travel and indiscriminate shootings of fisherman and drone bombings. The blockade has lasted 15 years. It is worth remembering that half of Gaza are children.
While most of the world rightfully condemns the atrocities against Israeli civilians by Hamas militants on October 7th, it has yet to forcefully condemn Israeli war crimes, atrocities and its ongoing systemic apartheid. It has yet to forcefully condemn the illegal settler terrorism in the Occupied West Bank. It has yet to forcefully condemn IDF military brutality against Palestinian civilians. It has yet to forcefully condemn the genocidal rhetoric from Israeli politicians and apologists and the state’s current campaign of ethnic cleansing.
To date, far more Palestinians have been killed by the state of Israel, than Israelis killed by Palestinian militants. And it is Israel that possesses an army, navy, air force and nuclear weapons, and receives billions of dollars in military aid as well as political, tactical and diplomatic support from the most powerful nation on the planet, the United States. The Palestinians have none of this. In fact, even though the US has appointed itself arbiter, its stated allegiance will always be on the side of Israel.
To be clear, antisemitism is wrong. It should be condemned at every turn. But criticizing the state of Israel or the ideology of Zionism is NOT antisemitism. Condemning Zionism is not antisemitic. This is partly because Zionists are not exclusively Jewish. They can be Christian or secular. There are even some Muslim Zionists. And it is also because criticizing any political ideology is essential to democratic discourse and analysis. Of course, the conclusions of any analysis can and should be openly discussed or even questioned.
But the truth is that Jews have been at the forefront in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. This liberation does not mean that Jewish people living in that land have no right to be there. But it does mean that no group should be elevated above another. That the Palestinians who live there should not be treated as second class citizens or, worse, as subhuman. Like anyone, they deserve equal rights. This is what the anti-apartheid struggle has taught us. No group should have supremacy over another.
As Israel carpet-bombs Gaza, a place which was referred to as an open-air prison and which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said is becoming a “graveyard for children,” the world is in the uneasy position of watching an unfolding genocide. If we are to possess the conscience needed to prevent the unthinkable, we must get beyond the terms that seek to obfuscate the situation and silence dissent. This begins with setting the record straight, once and for all.
Kenn Orphan, November 2023