OP-ED: Why anti-Zionism is worse than antisemitism

By DANIEL FRIEDMAN

(JNS.org) – Across campuses, protests and social media, a common refrain echoes: “We’re not antisemitic, we’re just anti-Zionist.” This defense is meant to absolve demonstrators from the charge of bigotry and to frame their rage as political rather than prejudiced.

A group of former Buchenwald prisoners on the refugee ship “Mataroa” in the port of Haifa. Credit: Zoltan Kluger via Israel National Photo Collection/PMO.

But it is neither innocent nor benign. In fact, anti-Zionism is more dangerous than antisemitism itself. Why? Because while antisemitism may despise the Jew, anti-Zionism ultimately destroys the Jew.

For millennia, Jews have been expelled from one country to the next, treated as second-class citizens, their property stolen and their lives threatened. In medieval Europe alone, Jews were exiled from states encompassing today’s England, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Italy and Germany. These expulsions were often followed by grudging acceptance elsewhere, typically driven by self-interest: Jewish communities brought commercial expertise, financial networks and a cosmopolitan fluency that could enrich their host countries.

But this transactional hospitality was temporary. Again and again, as Jews built success and stability, they were met with jealousy and suspicion. Eventually, local rulers or mobs would turn on them, expelling them anew and seizing what they had built. The cycle of welcome, wealth and expulsion repeated itself across continents and centuries.

Yet even at the worst of times, the Jews had somewhere to go. Another country, another kingdom, another border. Until the 20th century.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power, he initially followed the same old playbook. The goal was expulsion, not extermination. As late as 1938, Nazi Germans were trying to force Jews to emigrate. But this time, the doors were closed. Country after country refused to take in Jewish refugees. Carrying more than 900 desperate Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, the infamous voyage of the SS St. Louis is a tragic emblem of this indifference. Turned away from Cuba, the United States and Canada—where the slogan “None is too many” was applied to Jewish refugees—the ship returned to Europe, where many of its passengers later perished in the Holocaust.

Hitler was no more antisemitic than previous antisemites. The real problem lay with the other nations of the world that refused to accept Jewish refugees like those in bygone eras. And so, when expulsion failed, extermination began. Long before Hitler locked the gas chamber doors barring Jewish escape, other countries locked their own doors, barring Jewish escape.

In 1948, the State of Israel was born. For the first time in 2,000 years, Jews had sovereignty. Not just a place to live, but a place to go when no other country would take them in. Israel transformed the fate of Jews everywhere. Never again would Jews be left stranded at sea or abandoned in lands that turned on them.

That’s why anti-Zionism is so sinister. When someone says they are “only” against Zionism, they are saying they oppose the right of the Jewish people to a homeland. They are saying the Jewish nation should be the only nation on earth without a state. And they are saying that if Jews are persecuted—whether in Paris, Brooklyn or Buenos Aires—they should have nowhere to run. It’s not about policies or borders or governments. It’s about erasing the guarantee of Jewish survival.

The existence of Israel has made the world safer not just for Israelis but for Jews everywhere. Governments now know that if they threaten their Jewish citizens, those citizens have a place to go, and a country that will fight for them.

Zionism is not an ideology of conquest but of refuge. It is not about superiority but survival. To oppose Israel’s right to exist is not to critique a policy; it is to roll back the one protection that has ensured “Never Again” is more than a catchphrase.

Daniel Friedman is the assistant professor of political science at Touro University.