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Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be seen as having a single ideology or source.

Definition

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (July 2011)

Zionism may be defined as, "An international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel." Zionism is also "a political movement among Jews which holds that the Jews are a nation, and as such need to establish a national homeland", and as a religious movement within Orthodox Judaism which encourages Jews to establish a sovereign commonwealth in the Land of Israel that is governed by Halakha (Jewish law), and as "a movement to support the development and defense of the State of Israel, and to encourage Jews to settle there." Therefore, a possible definition for anti-Zionism is opposition to these objectives; and people, organizations or governments that oppose these objectives can in some sense be described as anti-Zionist. "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," an essay published by the American Jewish Committee, concludes that, with the maturing of Israel since its founding in 1948, the term anti-Zionism in scholarly work is often used to mean advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. Opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is anti-Zionism or what can be called Post-Zionism.

Diversity of anti-Zionism

Opposition to Zionism has changed over time and has taken on a spectrum of religious, ethical, political or military forms. Some include, opposition to the creation of a Jewish state prior to the appearance of the messiah, objection to the idea of a state based on maintenance of a Jewish majority, differing democratic values and differing levels of geographical extension.

Brian Klug of The Guardian has argued that anti-Zionism represents fair opposition to Israel. The legitimacy of anti-Zionist views has been disputed to the present day, including the more recent and disputed relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. A range of other views regarding the various forms of anti-Zionism is discussed and debated.

Anti-Zionism and antisemitism

This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. Please help summarize the quotations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or excerpts to Wikisource. (March 2010)

In recent years, commentators have argued that contemporary manifestations of anti-Zionism have become a cover for antisemitism, and that a "new antisemitism" rooted in anti-Zionism has emerged Advocates of this concept argue that much of what purports to be criticism of Israel and Zionism is demonization, and has led to an international resurgence of attacks on Jews and Jewish symbols and an increased acceptance of antisemitic beliefs in public discourse. Critics of the concept argue that the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is used to stifle legitimate criticisms of Israel, and trivializes antisemitism. Others go the other way and claim "anti-Zionism" has become a requisite proof of progressive conviction today, and is similar to Jews converting to Christianity a century ago.

Professor Kenneth L. Marcus, former staff director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, identifies four main views on the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, at least in North America:

1. anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic in its essence and in most, if not all, of its manifestations;
2. anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are both analytically and historically distinct, but the two ideologies have merged since 1948;
3. anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism remain distinct, but anti-Zionism occasionally crosses the line into "outright anti-Semitism", while anti-Semitism often pollutes anti-Zionist discourse; and/or
4. anti-Zionism is analytically distinct from anti-Semitism, but much apparent criticism of Israel or Zionism is in fact a thinly veiled expression of anti-Semitism.

Marcus also states: "Unsurprisingly, recent research has shown a close correlation between anti-Israeli views and anti-Semitic views based on a survey of citizens in ten European countries."

Professor Robert S. Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the originator of Marcus's second view of anti-Zionism (that anti-Zionism and antisemitism merged post-1948) argues that much contemporary anti-Zionism, particularly forms that compare Zionism and Jews with Hitler and the Third Reich, has become a form of antisemitism:

Anti-Zionism has become the most dangerous and effective form of anti-Semitism in our time, through its systematic delegitimization, defamation, and demonization of Israel. Although not a priori anti-Semitic, the calls to dismantle the Jewish state, whether they come from Muslims, the Left, or the radical Right, increasingly rely on an anti-Semitic stereotypization of classic themes, such as the manipulative "Jewish lobby," the Jewish/Zionist "world conspiracy," and Jewish/Israeli "warmongers."

Dina Porat (head of the Institute for Study of Anti-semitism and Racism at Tel-Aviv University) contends that anti-Zionism is anti-semitic because it is discriminatory:

...antisemitism is involved when the belief is articulated that of all the peoples on the globe (including the Palestinians), only the Jews should not have the right to self-determination in a land of their own. Or, to quote noted human rights lawyer David Matas: One form of antisemitism denies access of Jews to goods and services because they are Jewish. Another form of antisemitism denies the right of the Jewish people to exist as a people because they are Jewish. Antizionists distinguish between the two, claiming the first is antisemitism, but the second is not. To the antizionist, the Jew can exist as an individual as long as Jews do not exist as a people.

Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini maintains that anti-Zionism is "politically correct antisemitism" and argues that the same way Jews were demonized, Israel is demonized, the same way the right of Jews to exist was denied, the right for Self-determination is denied from Israel, the same way Jews were presented as a menace to the world, Israel is presented as a menace to the world.

In July 2001, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that during a visit there, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer stated that "anti-Zionism inevitably leads to antisemitism."

Brian Klug has argued that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are distinct but not mutually exclusive concepts:

There is a long and ignoble history of "Zionist" being used as a code word for "Jew," as when Communist Poland carried out "anti-Zionist" purges in 1968, expelling thousands of Jews from the country, or when the extreme right today uses the acronym ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) to refer to the US government. Moreover, the Zionist movement arose as a reaction to the persecution of Jews. Since anti-Zionism is the opposite of Zionism, and since Zionism is a form of opposition to anti-Semitism, it seems to follow that an anti-Zionist must be an anti-Semite. Nonetheless, the inference is invalid. To argue that hostility to Israel and hostility to Jews are one and the same thing is to conflate the Jewish state with the Jewish people. In fact, Israel is one thing, Jewry another. Accordingly, anti-Zionism is one thing, anti-Semitism another. They are separate. To say they are separate is not to say that they are never connected. But they are independent variables that can be connected in different ways.

Some critics of Israeli policy argue that Israeli propagandists and supporters often try to equate anti-Zionism and sometimes even criticism of Israeli policy, with antisemitism, to silence opposition to Israeli policies. Noam Chomsky for example argues:

There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; "one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all," Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position (Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973). But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism – or in the case of Jews, as "self-hatred," so that all possible cases are covered.

Anti-Zionism outside the Jewish community

Secular Arab

According to philosopher Michael Neumann, Zionism as an "expansionist threat" has caused Arab hostility toward Israel and even antisemitism. Anti-Zionist sentiment has increased with ongoing Arab Israeli conflicts: after the June 1967 Six-Day War where Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights; during the 1982 Lebanon War where Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon, attacking the PLO, as well as Syria, leftist and Muslim Lebanese forces, leading to Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon; the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, including the attack on the Jenin refugee camp; the 2006 Lebanon War; and the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict.

Pan-Arabist narratives in the 1960s Nasser era emphasized the idea of Palestine as a part of the Arab world taken by others. In this narrative, the natural means of combating Zionism is Arab nations uniting and attacking Israel militarily. Pan-Syrian narratives, promoted mainly by Syria, are essentially parallel.

In contrast, a poll of 507 Arab-Israelis conducted by the Israeli Democracy Institute in 2007 found that 75 percent profess support for Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state which guarantees equal rights for minorities. Israeli Arab support for a constitution in general was 88 percent.

Muslim

Muslim anti-Zionism considers the State of Israel an intrusion into what many Muslims consider to be Dar al-Islam, a domain rightfully, and permanently, ruled only by Muslims due the fact it was historically conquered in the name of Islam.

Palestinian and other Muslim groups, as well as the government of Iran (since the 1979 Islamic Revolution), insist that the State of Israel is illegitimate and refuse to refer to it as "Israel," instead using the locution "the Zionist entity" (see Iran–Israel relations). Islamic maps of the Middle East frequently do not show the State of Israel. In an interview with Time Magazine in December 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments."

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al Husseini opposed the Jewish immigration to Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel, and in several documented cases expressed his hostility toward Jews in general and Zionists in particular.

Christian

Catholic Church anti-Zionism

Many modern Popes have been openly critical of Zionism, including Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius XII. Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val reportedly explained the Church's policy of non possumus to Theodore Herzl and his emerging movement of Zionism, saying that as long as the Jews deny the divinity of Christ, the Church certainly could not make a declaration in their favor. The Holy See did not establish relations with Israel until 1993 because of these issues.

Positions of the World Council of Churches

The World Council of Churches has been described by some as taking anti-Zionist positions in connection with its criticisms of Israeli policy. They believe the council has focused disproportionately on activities and publications criticizing Israel in comparison with other human rights issues. The council members have been characterized by Israel's former Justice minister Amnon Rubinstein as anti-Zionist, saying "they just hate Israel."

Soviet Union

From 1928–1934, during the so-called "Third Period" in the Soviet Union, Zionism was outlawed. But by the late 1930s, the official position of Zionism began to change to a more favourable one. In the Soviet encyclopedia of this time, it was stated that Jewish migration to Palestine had become a "progressive factor" because many of the workers stood on the left. At the beginning of 1947, the Soviet Union supported the partition of Palestine. Joseph Stalin wanted to use the Jews in Palestine against British imperialism, and to establish a point of support for the USSR in the Middle East.

During the last years of Stalin's rule, official support for the creation of Israel in 1948 was replaced by strong anti-zionism. The level of confrontation with those deemed as anti-Soviet "Jewish nationalists" was toned down after Stalin's death in 1953, but the official position of opposition to Zionism remained in force: the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public, as well as numerous other initiatives, were state-sponsored.

As outlined in the third edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1969–1978), the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's position during the Cold War became: "the main posits of modern Zionism are militant chauvinism, racism, anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism,... overt and covert fight against freedom movements and the USSR."

At the same time, the spectre of Jewish allegiance to Israel amid the tensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict raised fears of internal dissent and opposition. The Soviet government liquidated almost all remaining Jewish organizations. It placed synagogues under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers. At the same time, the general restriction on the right of refuseniks, or Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate for Israel, emerged as a major human rights issue in the West. (See Jackson-Vanik amendment.)

International

Anti-Zionist sentiments were also manifested in organisations such as the Organization for African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement, which passed resolutions condemning Zionism and equating it with racism and apartheid during the early 1970s. This culminated in the passing by the United Nations General Assembly of Resolution 3379 in November 1975, which declared that "Zionism is a form of racism."

The decision was revoked on 16 December 1991, when the General Assembly passed Resolution 4686, repealing resolution 3379, by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions and 17 delegations absent. Thirteen out of the 19 Arab countries, including those engaged in negotiations with Israel, voted against the repeal, another six were absent. No Arab country voted for repeal. The Palestine Liberation Organisation denounced the vote. All of the ex-communist countries and most of the African countries who had supported Resolution 3379 voted to repeal it. Only three non-Muslim countries voted against the resolution: Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. The rest abstained (including Turkey) or absented themselves.

African-American

After Israel occupied Palestinian territory following the 1967 Six-Day War, some African-Americans supported the Palestinians and criticized Israel's actions, for example by publicly supporting Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Immediately after the war, the black power organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee published a newsletter criticizing Israel, and asserting that the war was an effort to regain Palestinian land and that during the 1948 war, "Zionists conquered the Arab homes and land through terror, force, and massacres". In 1993, philosopher Cornel West wrote: "Jews will not comprehend what the symbolic predicament and literal plight of Palestinans in Israel means to blacks.... Blacks often perceive the Jewish defense of the state of Israel as a second instance of naked group interest, and, again, an abandonment of substantive moral deliberation." African-American support of Palestinians is frequently due to the consideration of Palestinians as people of color – political scientist Andrew Hacker writes: "The presence of Israel in the Middle East is perceived as thwarting the rightful status of people of color. Some blacks view Israel as essentially a white and European power, supported from the outside, and occupying space that rightfully belongs to the original inhabitants of Palestine."

Jewish anti-Zionism

Interpretations of Aliyah

Hope for return to the land of Israel is embodied in the content of the Jewish religion (see Kibbutz Galuyot.) Aliyah, the Hebrew word meaning "ascending" or "going up" is the word used to describe religious Jewish return to Israel, and has been used since ancient times. From the Middle Ages and onwards, many famous rabbis and often their followers, returned to the land of Israel. These have included Nahmanides, Yechiel of Paris, Isaac Luria, Yosef Karo, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk among others. For Jews in the Diaspora Eretz Israel was revered in a religious sense. They prayed, and thought of the return, as being fulfilled in a messianic age. Return remained a recurring theme for generations, particularly in Passover and Yom Kippur prayers which traditionally concluded with, "Next year in Jerusalem", as well as the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer).

Following Jewish Enlightenment however, Reform Judaism dropped many traditional beliefs, including aliyah, as incompatible with modern life within the Diaspora. Later, Zionism re-kindled the concept of aliyah in an ideological and political sense, parallel with traditional religious belief; it was used to increase Jewish population in the Holy Land by immigration and it remains a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. Support for aliyah does not always equal immigration however, as a majority of the world Jewish population remains within the Diaspora. Support for the modern Zionist movement is not universal and as a result, some religious Jews as well as some secular Jews, do not support Zionism. non-Zionist Jews are not necessarily anti-Zionists, although some are. Generally however, Zionism does have the support of the majority of the Jewish religious organizations, with support from segments of the Orthodox movement, and all of the Conservative, and more recently, the Reform movement.

Many Hasidic rabbis oppose the creation of a Jewish state. The leader of the Satmar Hasidic group, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum's book, VaYoel Moshe, published in 1958, expounds one Orthodox position on Zionism, based on a literal form of midrash (biblical interpretation). Citing to Tractate Kesubos 111a of the Talmud Teitelbaum states that God and the Jewish people exchanged three oaths at the time of the Jews' exile from ancient Israel, forbidding the Jewish people from massively immigrating to the Land of Israel, and from rebelling against the nations of the world.

Jewish Orthodox religious groups

In the early history of Zionism many traditional religious Jews opposed ideas of nationalism (Jewish or otherwise) which they regarded as a secular ideology, which some viewed as a violation of the Three Oaths. Key traditionalist opponents of Zionism included Isaac Breuer, Hillel Zeitlin, Aaron Shmuel Tamares, Elazar Shapiro (Muncatz), and Joel Teitelbaum, all waged ideological religious, as well as political, battles with Zionism each in their own way.

Most Orthodox religious groups have accepted and actively support the State of Israel, even if they have not adopted "Zionist" ideology. The World Agudath Israel party (founded in Poland) has at times participated in Israeli government coalitions. Most religious Zionists hold pro-Israel views from a right-wing viewpoint. The main exceptions are Hasidic groups such as Satmar Hasidim, which have about 100,000 adherents world wide, as well as numerous different, smaller Hasidic groups, unified in America in the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada and in Israel in the Edah HaChareidis.

Secular

The Jewish community is not a single united group and responses vary both between and within Jewish groups. One of the principal divisions is that between secular Jews and religious Jews. The reasons for secular opposition to the Zionist movement are very different from those of religious Jews.

Prior to the Second World War many Jews regarded Zionism as a fanciful and unrealistic movement. Many liberals during the European Enlightenment had argued that Jews should enjoy full equality only on the condition that they pledge their singular loyalty to their nation-state and entirely assimilate to the local national culture; they called for the "regeneration" of the Jewish people in exchange for rights. Those liberal Jews who accepted integration and/or assimilation principles saw Zionism as a threat to efforts to facilitate Jewish citizenship and equality within the European nation-state context.

The Jewish Anti-Zionist League, in Egypt, was a Communist-influenced anti-Zionist league in the years 1946–1947. In Israel, there are several Jewish anti-Zionist organisations and politicians, many of these are related to Matzpen.

Noam Chomsky has reported a change in the boundaries of what are considered Zionist and anti-Zionist views. In 1947, in his youth, Chomsky's support for a socialist binational state, in conjunction with his opposition to any semblance of a theocratic system of governance in Israel, was at the time considered well within the mainstream of secular Zionism; today, it lands him solidly in the anti-Zionist camp. Modern American groups such as J Street are taken as evidence of an "anomalous pattern of internal defection" created as a result of anti-Zionism.

Alvin H. Rosenfeld in his much discussed essay, Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism, claims that a "number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent antisemitism by questioning whether Israel should even exist." Rosenfeld's general claims are:

1. “At a time when the de-legitimization and, ultimately, the eradication of Israel is a goal being voiced with mounting fervor by the enemies of the Jewish state, it is more than disheartening to see Jews themselves adding to the vilification. That some do so in the name of Judaism itself makes the nature of their assault all the more grotesque.”
2. "Their contributions to what’s becoming normative discourse are toxic. They’re helping to make views about the Jewish state respectable – for example, that it’s a Nazi-like state, comparable to South African apartheid; that it engages in ethnic cleansing and genocide. These charges are not true and can have the effect of delegitimizing Israel."

Some Jewish organizations oppose Zionism as an integral part of their anti-imperialism. Some secular Jews today, particularly socialists and Marxists, continue to oppose the State of Israel on anti-imperialist and human rights grounds. Many oppose it as a form of nationalism, which they argue to be a product of capitalist societies. One secular anti-Zionist group today is the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, a socialist, anti-war, and anti-imperialist organization which calls for "the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine".

World War II and the creation of Israel

Attitudes changed during and following the war. In May, 1942, before the full revelation of the Holocaust, the Biltmore Program proclaimed a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy of a “homeland” with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." Opposition to official Zionism’s firm, unequivocal stand caused some prominent Zionists to establish their own party, Ichud (Unification), which advocated an Arab – Jewish Federation in Palestine. Opposition to the Biltmore Program also led to the founding of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism.

The full knowledge of the Holocaust altered the views of many who critiqued Zionism before 1948, including the British journalist Isaac Deutscher, a socialist and lifelong atheist who nevertheless emphasised the importance of his Jewish heritage. Before World War II, Deutscher opposed Zionism as economically retrograde and harmful to the cause of international socialism, but in the aftermath of the Holocaust he regretted his pre-war views, arguing for Israel's establishment as a "historic necessity" to provide a refuge for the surviving Jews of Europe. In the 1960s, Deutscher renewed his criticism of Zionism, scrutinizing Israel for its failure to recognise the dispossession of the Palestinians.

Anti-Zionist conspiracy theories

Claims that the Zionist movement controls world history or seeks to achieve world domination are roughly as old as the Zionist movement. The most influential of these claims is the Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which remains popular.

In 1939, the Nazi German paper Volkischer Beobachter, justified the German occupation of Czechoslovakia with the headline: "In Prague Jewry is in power". In 1968, the East German communist paper Neues Deutschland justified the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia with the headline "In Prague Zionism is in power". Simon Wiesenthal subsequently found 39 formerly influential Nazi party members working in the East German press and now directing their campaigns at Zionists.

From the 1960s, the Soviet Union promoted the allegation of secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist leadership. This included claims that the Zionist movement inflated or faked the impact of the Holocaust. The thesis of 1982 doctoral dissertation of Mahmoud Abbas (a co-founder of Fatah and president of the Palestinian Authority who earned his PhD in history at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, with Yevgeny Primakov as thesis advisor) was The Secret Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement. In his 1983 book The Other Face: The Secret Connection Between the Nazis and the Zionist Movement, based on the dissertation, Abbas wrote:

It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."

A different version of this conspiracy theory claims that Nazis and Zionists had a shared interest or even cooperated in the extermination of Europe's Jewry, as persecution would force them to flee to Palestine, then under British administration. Similar claims are occasionally made by Hezbollah or Hamas sources.

In 1995, William Korey released a work entitled Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology of Zionism. Korey's central argument is that the Soviet Union promoted an "official Judeophobic propaganda campaign" under the guise of anti-Zionism from 1967 to 1986; after this program was shut down by Mikhail Gorbachev, a populist and chauvinist group called Pamyat emerged in the more open climate of Glasnost to promote an openly anti-Semitic message. Korey also argues that much official late-period Soviet anti-Semitism may be traced back to the influence of Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He notes, for instance, that a 1977 Soviet work entitled International Zionism: History and Politics contains the allegation that most major Wall Street financial institutions are "large financial-industrial Jewish monopolies" exercising control over many countries in the world. Russian antisemitism was reviewed by Robert O. Freedman in the Slavic Review; while he concurs with the book's central thesis, Freedman nevertheless writes that the actual extent of Soviet anti-Semitism may have been less than Korey suggests.

Before the Second World War many prominent Britons maintained that the tension between Germany and Britain was the result of Jewish warmongering. In 1935 the British Union of Fascists mounted a "peace campaign" against war, claiming an alliance of international financiers and Jews were leading Britain to war with Germany. However by 1938 the public mood had changed and Admiral Domville wrote "it is interesting to see how permeated these people are with the war germ. Israel has done its work well." Similar accusations have been made regarding Zionism and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Sudanese government has alleged that the Darfur uprising (in which some 500,000 have been killed) is part of a wider Zionist conspiracy. Egyptian media have alleged that the Zionist movement deliberately spreads HIV in Egypt.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Neo-Nazi and radical Muslim groups allege the US government is controlled by Jews, describing it as the "Zionist Occupation Government".

Article 22 of the 1988 Hamas charter claims that the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, colonialism and both world wars were created by the Zionists or forces supportive of Zionism. Article 32 alleges that the Zionist movement seeks to create an Empire stretching from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates river in Iraq.

In April 2010, Abd Al-Azim Al-Maghrabi, the Deputy Head of Egyptian Arab Lawyers Union, stated in an interview with Al-Manar TV (as translated by MEMRI) that the Hepatitis C virus was produced by "the Zionists" and that "this virus is now spreading in Egypt like wildfire." He also called for it to be "classified as one of the war crimes perpetrated by the Zionist enemy."

In June 2010, Egyptian cleric Mus’id Anwar gave a speech which aired on Al-Rahma TV (as translated by MEMRI) in which he alleged that the game of soccer (as well as swimming, bullfighting and tennis) was in fact a Zionist conspiracy, stating that:

As you know, the Jews, or the Zionists, have The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Over 100 years ago, they formulated a plan to rule the world, and they are implementing this plan. One of the protocols says: “Keep the preoccupied with songs, soccer, and movies.” Is it or isn’t it happening? It is...The Zionists manage to generate animosity among Muslims, and even between Muslim countries, by means of soccer.

See also

• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Post-Zionism
• Neo-Zionism
• Non-Zionism
• Anti-globalization and antisemitism
• History of Palestine
• Israel and the apartheid analogy
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel
• Jewish assimilation
• Jews Against Zionism (book)

References

1. Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary, ("Zionism")
2. Rosenfeld, Alvin H. (2006). "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" (PDF). American Jewish Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 March 2010. Retrieved 11 March 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
3. {{cite web |url=http://www.meforum.org/185/post-zionism-and-israeli-politics |title=Post-Zionism and Israeli Politics: A briefing by Limor Livnat |month=August |year=2000 |Address to the Middle East Forum}
4. Raffaella A. Del Sarto, Israel’s Contested Identity and the Mediterranean, The territorial-political axis: Eretz Israel versus Medinat Israel, p.8

   Reflecting the traditional divisions within the Zionist movement, this axis invokes two concepts, namely Eretz Israel, i.e. the biblical ‘Land of Israel’, and Medinat Israel, i.e. the Jewish and democratic State of Israel. While the concept of Medinat Israel dominated the first decades of statehood in accordance with the aspirations of Labour Zionism, the 1967 conquest of land that was part of ‘biblical Israel’ provided a material basis for the ascent of the concept of Eretz Israel. Expressing the perception of rightful Jewish claims on ‘biblical land’, the construction of Jewish settlements in the conquered territories intensified after the 1977 elections, which ended the dominance of the Labour Party. Yet as the first Intifada made disturbingly visible, Israel’s de facto rule over the Palestinian population created a dilemma of democracy versus Jewish majority in the long run. With the beginning of Oslo and the option of territorial compromise, the rift between supporters of Eretz Israel and Medinat Israel deepened to an unprecedented degree, the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in November 1995 being the most dramatic evidence.

5. Klug, Brian (3 December 2003.). "No, anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism". The Guardian. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. ^ Wistrich, Robert S. (2004). "Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism". Jewish Political Studies Review. 16 (3–4). Retrieved 26 February 2007. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
   
7. ^ Said, Edward (2000). "America's Last Taboo". New Left Review. 6: 45–53. Retrieved 26 February 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |quotes= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
8. ^ Zipperstein, Steven J. (2005). "Historical Reflections on Contemporary Antisemitism". In Derek J. Penslar, Michael R. Marrus, and Janice Gross Stein, eds. (ed.). Contemporary antisemitism: Canada and the world. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. pp. 60–61. ISBN 978-0-8020-3931-6. LCCN 2005277647. OCLC 56531591. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |editor= has generic name (help); |format= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
9. ^ Feiler, Dror (13 October 2005). "Letter sent to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia concerning the Working Definition of Antisemitism". European Jews for a Just Peace. Retrieved 26 February 2007.
10. "Working Definition of Antisemitism" (PDF). EUMC. 2005. Retrieved 10 May 2010. "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish and non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." In addition, such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
11. The Washington Post, 4 September 2007, Denis MacShane, The New Anti-Semitism
12. Yes, it's anti-Semitism by Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 7 January 2009
13. Taguieff, Pierre-André. Rising From the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe. Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
14. ^ Klug, Brian. The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism. The Nation, posted 15 January 2004 (2 February 2004 issue), accessed 9 January 2006; and Lerner, Michael. There Is No New Anti-Semitism, posted 5 February 2007, accessed 6 February 2007.
15. Andrei S. Markovits, "Uncouth Nation," Princeton University Press 2007, pp. xiii-xiv.
16. Marcus, Kenneth L. (2007). "Anti-Zionism as Racism: Campus Anti-Semitism and the Civil Rights Act of 1964". William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 15 (3): 837–891Template:Inconsistent citations{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
17. Coder, Irwin (16 Feb. 2004). "Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness". FrontPage Mag. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
18. ^ Wistrich, Robert S. (2004). "Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism". Jewish Political Studies Review. 16 (3–4). Retrieved 26 February 2007. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Cite error: The named reference "Wist2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
19. Lipstadt, Deborah E. (2005). "Strategic Responses to Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism". In Deborah E. Lipstadt; et al. (eds.). American Jewry and the college campus: best of times or worst of times?. AJC. pp. 5, 23Template:Inconsistent citations {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
20. All-party parliamentary group against antisemitism (2006). "Report of the all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism" (Document). Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism Foundation (PCAAF)Template:Inconsistent citations {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link):

    "Anti-Zionist discourse that has become polluted by antisemitic themes or content is also difficult to identify because it is often based on at least partial truths which have become inflated or exaggerated to the point that they are held to be typical of all Jews or demonstrative of an antisemitic Jewish stereotype.... An example of this would be remarks about the Israel lobby.... n some quarters this be-comes inflated to the point where discourse about the 'lobby' resembles discourse about a world Jewish conspiracy."

21. United States Commission on Civil Rights (2006). "Findings and recommendations of the United States Commission on Civil Rights regarding campus anti-Semitism" (Document). United States GovernmentTemplate:Inconsistent citations {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link) On p. 1: "Anti-Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism."
22. Jacob Rader Marcus, The Jew in the American World: A Source Book, pp. 199–203. Wayne State University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8143-2548-3
23. Kaplan, Edward H.; Small, Charles A. (2006). "Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 50 (548)Template:Inconsistent citations{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
24. Dina Porat, Defining Anti-Semitism, http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2003-4/porat.htm#_edn23 Retrieved 15 November 2008 See also Emanuele Ottolenghi http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/29/comment
25. Ben-Dror Yemini, בן-דרור, תרגיע, nrg Maariv, 28.4.2010.
26. "accessed Nov 2008". Wiesenthal.com. 17 July 2001. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
27. Chomsky, 1989 "Necessary Illusions",
28. Michael Neumann, What is antisemitism?, Counterpunch, 4 June 2002.
29. Poll of Arab-Israelis
30. Neusner, Jacob (1999). Comparing Religions Through Law: Judaism and Islam. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-19487-3. p. 201
31. Merkley, Paul Charles (2001). Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 0-7735-2188-7. p.122
32. Akbarzadeh, Shahram (2005). Islam And the West: Reflections from Australia. UNSW Press. ISBN 0-86840-679-1. p. 4
33. "People Who Mattered: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad". Time. 16 December 2006. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
34. "Nazis planned Holocaust in Palestine: historians < German news | Expatica Germany". Expatica.com. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
35. La condamnation de l'idéologie sioniste par l’Église catholique
36. Catholicism, France and Zionism: 1895–1904
37. Yeʼor, Bat (2002). slam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 377. ISBN 978-0-8386-3942-9. Retrieved 1 March 2009. Of all the currents that run through the ... World Council of Churches, anti-Zionism is the most powerful... he World Council of Churches officially condemned anti-Zionism as a criminal ideology advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth=, |chapterurl=, and |origdate= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
38. "חדשות NRG – "הם פשוט שונאי ישראל"". Nrg.co.il. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
39. Template:Ru icon Сионизм, Большая советская энциклопедия (Zionism. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition. 1969–1978)
40. Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 320. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
41. Dollinger, Mark, "African American-Jewish Relations" in Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Vol 1, 2005. p 4-5
42. Carson, Clayborne, (1984) "Blacks and Jews in the Civil Rights movement: the Case of SNCC", in Strangers & neighbors: relations between Blacks & Jews in the United States, (Adams, Maurianne, Ed.), 2000., p. 583
43. West, Cornel, Race Matters, 1993, p. 73-74
44. Hacker, Andrew (1999) "Jewish Racism, Black anti-Semitism", in Strangers & neighbors: relations between Blacks & Jews in the United States, Maurianne Adams (Ed.). Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1999, p. 20
45. Taylor, A.R., 1971, 'Vision and intent in Zionist Thought', p. 10,11
46. Rachael Gelfman, Religious Zionists believe that the Jewish return to Israel hastens the Messiah
47. Ehud Bandel – President, the Masorti Movement, Zionism
49. Shaul Magid, “In Search of a Critical Voice in the Jewish Diaspora: Homelessness and Home in Edward Said and Shalom Noah Barzofsky’s Netivot Shalom,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society n.s. 12, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2006), p.196
50. Jews Against Zionism website Retrieved on 2008-06-04.
51. Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, (Schocken Books, New York 1978, ISBN 0-8052-0523-0 ), pp385-6.
52. Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, p399.
53. Peck, James (ed.) (1987). Chomsky Reader. ISBN 0-394-75173-6. p.7

    "what was then called 'Zionist'....are now called 'anti-Zionist' (concerns and views)."

54. Peck, James (ed.) (1987). Chomsky Reader. ISBN 0-394-75173-6. p.7

    "I was interested in socialist, binationalist options for Palestine, and in the kibbutzim and the whole cooperative labor system that had developed in the Jewish settlement there (the Yishuv)...The vague ideas I had at the time were to go to Palestine, perhaps to a kibbutz, to try to become involved in efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework, opposed to the deeply antidemocratic concept of a Jewish state."

55. Wisse, Ruth R. (October 2008). "Forgetting Zion". Commentary. 126 (3): 30–35.
56. Alvin H. Rosenfeld. 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism. American Jewish Committee. 2006.
57. Patricia Cohen. Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor. New York Times. 31 January 2007. Retrieved 19 March 2007.
58. "The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering". Retrieved 17 September 2010.
59. "Not In Our Name . . Jewish voices opposing Zionism". Retrieved 17 September 2010.
60. "Jews Against Zionism". Retrieved 17 September 2010.
61. "International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network". Archived from the original on 5 September 2010. Retrieved 17 September 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
62. "Charter of the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network". International Jewish anti-Zionist Network. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
63. American Jewish Year Book Vol. 45 (1943–1944) Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp 206–214
64. American Jewish Year Book Vol. 45 (1943–1944), Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp 206–214
65. Simon Wiesenthal, Justice not Vengeance, Mandarin 1989 page 207
66. Was Abu Mazen a Holocaust Denier? By Brynn Malone (History News Network)
67. Abu Mazen: A Political Profile. Zionism and Holocaust Denial by Yael Yehoshua (MEMRI) 29 April 2003
68. A Holocaust-Denier as Prime Minister of "Palestine"? by Dr. Rafael Medoff (The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies)
69. Abu Mazen and the Holocaust by Tom Gross
70. PA Holocaust Denial by Itamar Marcus (Palestinian Media Watch)
71. William Korey, Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology of Zionism, Routledge, 1995, pp. ix–x.
72. William Korey, Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology of Zionism, Routledge, 1995, pp. 56–57.
73. Robert O. Freedman, review of William Korey, Russian antisemitism, Pamyat, and the demonology of Zionism, Slavic Review, Vol. 59 no. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 470–472.
74. Hurrah for the Blackshirts by Martin Pugh page 284, Pimlico 2006
75. http://www.zionism-israel.com/iraq_war_jews.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/03/worlddispatch.iraq
76. "The Website of Political Research Associates". PublicEye.org. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
77. "Iran Supports Khartoum policies in Darfur – Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan". Sudan Tribune. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
78. "Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media – Conspiracy Theories". Adl.org. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
79. "The Nation of Islam in 1996". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. 16 June 1996. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
80. "Hamas Covenant 1988". Yale.edu. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
81. Deputy Head of Egyptian Arab Lawyers Union Abd Al-Azim Al-Maghrabi: The Zionists Produced the Hepatitis C Virus and Injected 400 Prisoners with It, MEMRITV, Clip No. 2506, 21 April 2010.
82. Against the Backdrop of Soccer World Cup in South Africa, Egyptian Cleric Mus'id Anwar Blasts Soccer, Other "Harmful Sports", as a Means Prescribed by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Order to Rule the World, MEMRITV, Clip No. 2503, 6 June 2010.

External links

• The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism – essays by members of Matzpen
• Stanley Aronowitz, "Setting the Record Straight: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Critics", Logos, Issue 3.3 (summer 2004)
• Lawrence Davidson , The Present State of Anti-Semitism, Logos, Issue 9.1, (Winter 2010)
• Dr Thomas Haury on Left-Wing anti-Semitism
• US Commission on Civil Rights, Public Education Campaign to End Campus Anti-Semitism
• Torah Jews Against Zionism
• Jews Confront Zionism by Daniel Lange/Levitsky, Monthly Review, June 2009

Works related to Zionism at Wikisource

v t e Zionism
Concepts	Zion Land of Israel Aliyah Yerida Homeland (proposals) Jewish state Law of Return Yishuv Territorialism Promised Land Gathering of Israel Settlement Negation of the Diaspora Revival of the Hebrew language Hebraization of surnames Judaization Zionism, race and genetics
Ideologies	General Labor Revisionist Reform Religious Cultural Federal Post-Zionism Proto-Zionism Neo-Zionism Non-Zionism Green Christian Canaanism Yiddishist Golus
Organizations	Histadrut Hovevei Zion Bilu World Zionist Organization Zionist General Council Zionist Federation of Germany Zionist Organization of America Zionist Organization of Canada Religious Zionists of America Jewish National Fund Poale Zion Jewish Agency for Israel Jewish National Council Mizrachi Bnei Akiva Habonim Dror Hashomer Hatzair Haganah HaNoar HaTzioni World Agudath Israel Irgun Betar Lehi Jewish Party (Czechoslovakia) Jewish Party (Romania) Jewish Resistance Movement Palmach Women's International Zionist Organization Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America Aytzim American Zionist Movement Am Yisrael Foundation Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland Institute for Zionist Strategies International Fellowship of Christians and Jews Nefesh B'Nefesh Birthright Israel
History and timelines	History of Israel Chronology of Aliyah History of Zionism Balfour Declaration UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86 Timeline of Zionism Israeli–Palestinian peace process Timeline of the Arab–Israeli conflict
Holidays	Yom HaZikaron Independence Day Jerusalem Day Yom HaAliyah Herzl Day Jabotinsky Day Ben-Gurion Day Rabin Day
Related topics	List of Zionists Anti-Zionism The Holocaust Antisemitism New antisemitism Not one inch Jewish Autonomism Jewish emancipation Jewish political movements Greater Israel Muscular Judaism Muslim supporters of Israel Progressive except Palestine Zionism as settler colonialism Zionist antisemitism Zionist political violence Zio (pejorative) Ulpan Conservatism in Israel Liberalism in Israel

Template:Cultural criticism

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• Anti-Zionism
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• Anti-national sentiment
• Zionism
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• Antisemitism
• Political theories