The problem is that the term ‘Zionism’ has had scope creep.
Now it also includes a political movement in Israel that endorses the idea of Israel’s expansion and sees the Palestinian neighbors as occupying land to be.
So when many people say that they are “anti-Zionist” they aren’t necessarily saying that they don’t think Israel has a right to exist at all, but that they don’t think it has a right to have expanded and to effectively annex its neighbors (a 2023 theme that’s not very favorable to Israel with whom it shares the association). Or additionally that it doesn’t have a right to exist by committing war crimes and human rights violations to make that happen (another association with the same).
Some are saying that it doesn’t have a right to exist at all. And I agree in that instance it is pretty anti-Semetic. But Zionist expansion attitudes are also technically anti-Semetic given that both Israelis and Palestinians are Semetic populations, and both can trace their ancestry to the same exact ancestral indigenous Canaanite populations.
The problem is that telling which attitude of “anti-Zionism” is which just from the term “anti-Zionist” has become impossible because the term Zionism itself now means a spectrum of things.
Well then the ball is in the court of the anti-zionists to better educate themselves and understand the words they’re using and ideologies they claim to be espousing.
Let’s stick with the definition of Zionism that almost all Jews across the world and in Israel would actually recognise, which is the one I already gave above. And the reality is that almost any Jew interprets “Anti-Zionism” to be “Israel should be destroyed”, which is unsurprising when recent opinion polling shows that among 18-24 year old Americans want “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas”.
A big part of the problem is that many, many Palestinians still refuse to accept that Israel is a state which exists, has the right to exist, and is going nowhere. It’s part of a very cruel cycle of delusion that their Arab neighbours subject them to. Ezra Klein at the New York Times talks about this at about 7 minutes into this podcast episode – there’s this cruel idea perpetuated across Palestinian “refugees” (who are not refugees by any standard definition) that they will one day ‘go home’. They won’t, and the consequence for those Palestinian ‘refugees’ of not grasping this has been devastating for them.
Some are saying that it doesn’t have a right to exist at all. And I agree in that instance it is pretty anti-Semetic. But Zionist expansion attitudes are also technically anti-Semetic given that both Israelis and Palestinians are Semetic populations, and both can trace their ancestry to the same exact ancestral indigenous Canaanite populations.
Antisemitism isn’t about hatred of Semites, it’s specifically hatred of Jews. It’s impossible to be antisemitic to non-Jews. While it’s common and understandable, most Jews would also ask that you don’t hyphenate antisemitism precisely because it leads people to make that above mistake.
However, without intending it, by hyphenating the term “antisemitism,” one implicitly reproduces antisemitic stereotypes. Every time journalists or a social-media users writes “anti-Semitism” (with a hyphen), they signify that there is something called “semitism” or even, “Semitism” with a capital “s.” This way, one justifies a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification, which is the core of antisemitism. To understand this, we have to go back two centuries to the origins of the term.
That said, I of course acknowledge there are ideological extremists in Israel too. Palestinians and Jews are both indigenous to the land – this is the whole problem. It would have been an easy issue to settle long ago if that wasn’t the case. Jonathan Freedland has written very movingly on this in The Guardian, and Haaretz have reported on DNA testing verifying the common ancestry of Jews and Palestinians. It’s likely that many Palestinains (not all, but many) are the descendents of Jews who later converted to Christianity and, later still, to Islam.
And the reality is that almost any Jew interprets “Anti-Zionism” to be “Israel should be destroyed”, which is unsurprising when recent opinion polling shows that among 18-24 year old Americans want “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas”.
It’s pretty weird phrasing for a poll where “58 percent said Hamas should be removed from running Gaza, and a plurality, 45 percent, said Israel should be the one to run Gaza if Hamas is removed.”
Antisemitism isn’t about hatred of Semites, it’s specifically hatred of Jews. It’s impossible to be antisemitic to non-Jews. While it’s common and understandable, most Jews would also ask that you don’t hyphenate antisemitism precisely because it leads people to make that above mistake.
The term has come to be exclusively applied, but at a technical level the word’s construction relates to a broader set of people who are closely related to the population it is exclusively applied to. Ironically the desire to avoid hyphenation is to distance Jewish identity from the notion of the ethnic associations of Semites, which really just goes to how inappropriate the term is in general. Prejudice against a Japanese person who converted to Judaism for their religion probably shouldn’t be labeled with a term relating to an ethnic origin, but prejudice against an ethnically Jewish atheist is quite appropriately labeled as such. The problem is we’re lumping two very different prejudices together (against religion vs against ethnicity).
Also, as someone who is ethnically Jewish, you might want to check your “almost any Jew interprets” or “most Jews would ask” - it’s a bit gross to be Jew-splained to, especially when you certainly don’t speak for me or most of my family.
The term has come to be exclusively applied, but at a technical level the word’s construction relates to a broader set of people who are closely related to the population it is exclusively applied to.
This isn’t true. It surprises me that you understand antisemitism so poorly given your own exposure to the risk of it.
The word “Semitic” was first used by a German historian in 1781 to bind together languages of Middle Eastern origin that have some linguistic similarities. The speakers of those languages, however, do not otherwise have shared heritage or history. There is no such thing as a Semitic peoplehood. Additionally, one could speak a Semitic language and still have anti-Semitic views.
And in 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined “Antisemitismus” to mean hatred of the Jewish “race,” adding racial and pseudo-scientific overtones to the animus behind the word. But hatred toward Jews, both today and in the past, goes beyond any false perception of a Jewish race; it is wrapped up in complicated historical, political, religious, and social dynamics.
And yes, I agree with the second paragraph that the term is a poor one (for reasons I further laid out in my comment) and should be retired for two different terms regarding bias against Judaism and bias against ethnic Jews.
The problem is that the term ‘Zionism’ has had scope creep.
Now it also includes a political movement in Israel that endorses the idea of Israel’s expansion and sees the Palestinian neighbors as occupying land to be.
So when many people say that they are “anti-Zionist” they aren’t necessarily saying that they don’t think Israel has a right to exist at all, but that they don’t think it has a right to have expanded and to effectively annex its neighbors (a 2023 theme that’s not very favorable to Israel with whom it shares the association). Or additionally that it doesn’t have a right to exist by committing war crimes and human rights violations to make that happen (another association with the same).
Some are saying that it doesn’t have a right to exist at all. And I agree in that instance it is pretty anti-Semetic. But Zionist expansion attitudes are also technically anti-Semetic given that both Israelis and Palestinians are Semetic populations, and both can trace their ancestry to the same exact ancestral indigenous Canaanite populations.
The problem is that telling which attitude of “anti-Zionism” is which just from the term “anti-Zionist” has become impossible because the term Zionism itself now means a spectrum of things.
Well then the ball is in the court of the anti-zionists to better educate themselves and understand the words they’re using and ideologies they claim to be espousing.
Let’s stick with the definition of Zionism that almost all Jews across the world and in Israel would actually recognise, which is the one I already gave above. And the reality is that almost any Jew interprets “Anti-Zionism” to be “Israel should be destroyed”, which is unsurprising when recent opinion polling shows that among 18-24 year old Americans want “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas”.
A big part of the problem is that many, many Palestinians still refuse to accept that Israel is a state which exists, has the right to exist, and is going nowhere. It’s part of a very cruel cycle of delusion that their Arab neighbours subject them to. Ezra Klein at the New York Times talks about this at about 7 minutes into this podcast episode – there’s this cruel idea perpetuated across Palestinian “refugees” (who are not refugees by any standard definition) that they will one day ‘go home’. They won’t, and the consequence for those Palestinian ‘refugees’ of not grasping this has been devastating for them.
Antisemitism isn’t about hatred of Semites, it’s specifically hatred of Jews. It’s impossible to be antisemitic to non-Jews. While it’s common and understandable, most Jews would also ask that you don’t hyphenate antisemitism precisely because it leads people to make that above mistake.
https://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org/antisemitism-hyphen/
Jewish Telegraph Agency: The New York Times updates style guide to ‘antisemitism,’ losing the hyphen
That said, I of course acknowledge there are ideological extremists in Israel too. Palestinians and Jews are both indigenous to the land – this is the whole problem. It would have been an easy issue to settle long ago if that wasn’t the case. Jonathan Freedland has written very movingly on this in The Guardian, and Haaretz have reported on DNA testing verifying the common ancestry of Jews and Palestinians. It’s likely that many Palestinains (not all, but many) are the descendents of Jews who later converted to Christianity and, later still, to Islam.
It’s pretty weird phrasing for a poll where “58 percent said Hamas should be removed from running Gaza, and a plurality, 45 percent, said Israel should be the one to run Gaza if Hamas is removed.”
And if we’re talking about polls, less than 30% of Jewish Israelis support a two state solution, so the idea of polls dictating foreign policy might not be the best idea in general for either Israel or Palestine.
The term has come to be exclusively applied, but at a technical level the word’s construction relates to a broader set of people who are closely related to the population it is exclusively applied to. Ironically the desire to avoid hyphenation is to distance Jewish identity from the notion of the ethnic associations of Semites, which really just goes to how inappropriate the term is in general. Prejudice against a Japanese person who converted to Judaism for their religion probably shouldn’t be labeled with a term relating to an ethnic origin, but prejudice against an ethnically Jewish atheist is quite appropriately labeled as such. The problem is we’re lumping two very different prejudices together (against religion vs against ethnicity).
Also, as someone who is ethnically Jewish, you might want to check your “almost any Jew interprets” or “most Jews would ask” - it’s a bit gross to be Jew-splained to, especially when you certainly don’t speak for me or most of my family.
This isn’t true. It surprises me that you understand antisemitism so poorly given your own exposure to the risk of it.
https://www.adl.org/spelling-antisemitism-vs-anti-semitism
Many of the peoples who speak Semetic languages are in fact closely related, even if not all of the peoples are by basis of speaking the languages.
And yes, I agree with the second paragraph that the term is a poor one (for reasons I further laid out in my comment) and should be retired for two different terms regarding bias against Judaism and bias against ethnic Jews.