The emerging field of hate studies, and its component disciplines such as social and moral psychology, teach us that our thinking processes are not a matter of pure logic. Especially when we see the world as “us” vs. “them” and when our group identity is tethered to an issue of perceived social justice or injustice, we tend to reduce our worldview into “good” and “bad,” craving certainty and simplicity.
Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory that charges Jews with conspiring to harm non-Jews, providing an explanation for what goes wrong in the world.
Is anti-Zionism, which denies Jews the right to self-determination in their historic and religious homeland, antisemitic? It depends.
Anti-Zionism that sees the Jewish state as a continuation of a Jewish conspiracy and/or is expressed with gleeful reference to classic antisemitic tropes, is clearly antisemitism. Anti-Zionism can also lead to discrimination against Jews. Between 1975 and 1991 the United Nations declared Zionism a form of racism. Some Jewish students in the UK were told they weren’t allowed to have an organization because as Jews they were Zionists, as Zionists they were by definition racists, and racist organizations weren’t permitted.
I’m a Zionist, but what if I were born to the other “team?” Imagine being born into an Arab family with long roots in historic Palestine. You and your family would have experienced the demographic and political changes from the ingathering of Jews that upended your community’s life and identity. Would your hostility toward those who established a new state in your homeland be because they were Jews, or because of your loss?
Some Jews are anti-Zionist, including the Satmar Hasidim. And some Jews, such as students active in groups like IfNotNow, may not be able to square the re-establishment of a Jewish state and its impact on Palestinians with their theological view that Judaism requires “repairing the world.” Are they all antisemites?
The Jewish narrative of connection to Israel and pride in its rebirth, and the Arab view of that rebirth as a tragedy, are irreconcilable. Yet both are real narratives. We are not thinking critically if we adopt one as a faith while declaring the other in bad faith or worse. Both narratives have to be engaged, simultaneously, as difficult and emotionally disturbing as that might be.
Anti-Zionism, even when not antisemitic, still has an antisemitic effect in my view, because it posits perpetual conflict – Jews are never going to give up their right to self-determination without a fight. But it is also anti-Palestinian in effect, for the same reason, not caring how many people die in this fight, when the only, albeit imperfect, solution, I can foresee is for each side to have a state (and thus both sides will have to lose).
Some critics of Israel say anti-Zionism is never antisemitism. Some supporters of Israel insist that anti-Zionism is always antisemitism. Each claim is asserted as a moral position. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt notes, morality both binds and blinds.