What Is Antizionism? The Ideological Front: Tracing Antizionism from Soviet Propaganda to Modern hate
As Israel navigates physical threats on its borders, a parallel war is being waged globally against the very concept of Jewish sovereignty and Jerusalem as its capital. For Israelis watching the surge in hostility abroad, the vitriol can feel like an unprecedented wave. However, a recent inaugural symposium on antizionism presented a different reality: the current global movement is neither new nor organically grass-roots, but a highly orchestrated, institutionalized mutation of historical Jew-hatred.
Gathering intellectuals, historians, and policy experts, the conference sought to deconstruct the mechanics of antizionism, tracing its roots from Cold War-era Soviet propaganda to its current hold on Western institutions and the United Nations.
Here is a breakdown of the central frameworks and historical realities presented at the symposium.
The "Three Eras" of Historical Hatred
A central thesis of the conference, building on the work of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, is that hatred toward Jews does not disappear; it mutates to violate the moral compass of any given era.
Speakers outlined a "three era framework":
* Anti-Judaism: During periods when religion defined societal morality, Jews were persecuted as the ultimate religious violators ("Christ killers").
* Antisemitism: During the Enlightenment and the rise of "rationalism" and race science, Jews were targeted as violators of racial purity.
* Antizionism: In the modern era, the ultimate moral standard is human rights. Consequently, the Jewish state is cast as the ultimate violator of human rights, facing accusations of genocide, apartheid, and colonialism.
Because modern antizionism masquerades as a human rights campaign, it functions as a "virtuous hatred." Its adherents on college campuses and in international NGOs often genuinely believe they are rescuing the world, effectively code-switching ancient animosity into modern political vernacular.
The 3D Test: Distinguishing Critique from Libel
To separate legitimate political criticism of Israeli government policies from antizionism, speakers pointed to the "3D Test" formulated 25 years ago. When criticism of Israel involves Delegitimization (denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state), Demonization (deploying modern blood libels), or Double Standards (applying rules to Israel that are expected of no other democracy), it ceases to be legitimate critique and becomes antisemitism.
The Soviet Playbook and UN Capture
A factual highlight of the symposium was the deep dive into how the modern language of antizionism was manufactured. According to Ben Cohen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the rhetoric heard at modern protests was scripted decades ago in Moscow.
Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviet Union launched a vehement demonization campaign against Israel to court the developing world. Recognizing that overt antisemitism was unpalatable post-Holocaust, the Soviets wetted their propaganda with a new, political gloss. They pioneered the specific libels that Zionism is a weapon of imperialism and akin to apartheid—a campaign that culminated in the infamous 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution declaring "Zionism is racism."
Furthermore, Cohen detailed how the UN structurally institutionalized antizionism through a unique refugee exceptionalism. In 1949, the UN created UNRWA for Arabs displaced by the 1948 war, and shortly after, the UNHCR for all other global refugees. Because the Arab states lobbied to prevent the absorption of UNRWA into UNHCR, this specific refugee status became uniquely inheritable across generations, establishing a permanent structural barrier to normalization and peace.
The Toll on Local Arab Populations
From an Israeli perspective, perhaps the most piercing analysis came from former Knesset member and Israeli intellectual Dr. Anat Wilf. She argued that the ideological capture of antizionism has been a multi-generational disaster for local Arab populations in the region.
According to Wilf, the organizing collective identity for Arabs in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria has historically been anchored in antizionism—prioritizing the destruction of Jewish sovereignty over building a constructive, functional society for themselves. In this ideology, the real catastrophe (*Nakba*) is simply that Israel exists. Wilf asserted that the international community has done local populations no favors by funding and enabling this antizionist obsession. True progress, she argued, will only come when Gazans and the wider Arab world let go of the drive to destroy Israel and choose a constructive, positive vision for their own future.
Naming the Threat
The conference concluded with a call for a paradigm shift in how the Jewish world and its allies address the current climate. The era of classical antisemitism has been replaced by the era of antizionism. For those on the front lines of diplomacy, advocacy, and campus life, understanding and naming this specific variant is the mandatory first step in dismantling it.
Transcript text :
Dear friends, I want to welcome all of you the participants of this very important conference, the first conference on anti-Zionism.
And I want to express our gratitude to NA and Irene for this initiative.
Today antisemitism is on the rise and it comes from all the directions from the left from the right from progressive Christians from Islamists from activists of woke and even from male communists and all of them are united in the belief that Jews, Judaism, Israel are the evil which stands on the way of reforming the world in accordance with their ideology. But the most aggressive, the most dangerous type of antisemitism today is anti-Zionism because anti-Zionism denies the most important part of Jewish identity today. Anti-Zionism weakens Jewish people and most important anti-Zionism can be easily hidden under the pretext of the legitimate criticism of Israel.
In the Soviet Union, connection between antisemitism and the anti-Zionism was obvious to everybody. The cartoons reminding us Nazi past and presenting Jews controlling the world always had the signs of the state of Israel. And if there was another campaign against Zionist state, everybody knew that their Jewish neighbors are in trouble. And whenever there was another campaign against cosmopolit campaign against Zionist state of the 7th of October reminded us that those who are fighting against the state of Israel in the end will be killing Jews and those so-called liberals who will be supporting the fight against Israel will justify the killing, raping, and torturing Jews.
And nevertheless, even after all these atrocities, so-called legitimate criticism of Israel is the best shelter for antisemites.
In order to unmask this hypocrisy to show how anti-Zionism can turn into antisemitism, I proposed 25 years ago so-called 3D principles.
Delegitimization, double standard and demonization. These are the tools which were used for thousand years against Jews by antisemites.
And today if Israel is delegitimized, demonized and if the standard which is not applied to any other country in the world is applied to Israel, that is antisemitism.
And if you accept it, it means that demonstrations from the river to the sea are antisemitism.
If you accept it, it means that denial of Israel to exist as Jewish state, it's antisemitism.
It means that accusations, absurd accusations of Israel in genocide and apartheid which are as absurd as blood libels for the thousands of years.
That's antisemitism. Even if respectable international organizations like uh Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International are insisting on it they are antisemitic organizations.
When did we start losing in our battle against anti-Zionism?
We start losing in this battle when after Durban conference awful antisemitic conference that using uh Israel in apartheid young Jews in American universities were afraid to defend Israel because it can influence or harm their careers.
And when we started our counter attack, when young Jews in Columbia University and then many others start publicly insisting that they are Jews, they are Zionists. Zionism is part of their identity and they demand American administration to defend them in their identity.
will be even more effective in our struggle if we will attack antisemites in the parties, organizations, groups to which we belong. I want to send special greetings to Ben Shapiro. He is respectable and strong voice in the conservative circles of America.
And he didn't hesitate to attack antisemitism from the right.
Antisemitism in Republican party, antisemitism in conservative womb. There should be example for all of us.
We should insist that people in the organizations to which we belong will condemn antisemitism without any reservations.
They will recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state without any reservations. They will speak against [clears throat] new modern blood libels without any reservations.
This struggle will discover there are many friends because common sense is on our side and history is on our side.
Together we will make Israel high.
Zionism is racism. That is a slogan that was developed by Primakov in 1974 and what made its way into the United Nations. At once upon a time the Soviet Union had a great influence on many parts of the world but also on the United Nations and so it became a res it was a past resolution Zionism is racism.
[snorts] These people who are chanting Zionism is racism purge the Zionists. Israel is a genocidal state. Israel are Nazis. They think that they've come up with these statements organically. They've been scripted for them by the Soviet Union.
The subversion, it's unbelievable.
We're going to hear from Anat Wolf very soon, somebody I admire deeply and greatly. We don't need to run the experiments.
They have been run in the Soviet Union, in Poland, in the Middle East, where, this is her point, wherever anti-Zionism is allowed to fester, harm to Jews ensues. There's no need to run this experiment. We can What is anti-Zionism? Is it criticism? Does it cross the line? Is we need to stop with that. And to I want to introduce you to my three era framework.
In the year 2017, the great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks um he made a statement. He said that um antisemitism he says mutates and it [clears throat] mutates uh and uh changes form. I thought that's intriguing. I was intrigued by that because you see the Jew doesn't change.
We Jews we don't change. So what changes? And I kind of sat with that for a few maybe weeks, months, and I thought to myself, what changes is how society understands morality. Because in each era, we are constructed as a demon, as a villain, a cosmic villain. No, not just any villain, a villain that violates the morality of its time. There are three distinct eras of Jew hatred.
anti-Judaism, antisemitism and anti-Zionism. In each era, we are cast as violators of the moral tenets of that time. So in the era of anti-Judaism, Christianity was the moral compass. So we were literally Christ killers, the killers of the morality. Well, post enlightenment, the world evolves. There's a new kind of rational rationalism.
um race science develops and Jews are once again cast in the role of villain this time violating the purity of race.
I argue in one of my essays that it took a massive catastrophe i.e. the Holocaust to compel another moral realignment.
And if you ask anyone really in the west what is morality? How do you understand morality? They'll say it's human rights. But how do you violate human rights?
genocide, racism, colonialism, apartheid. The Jew once again it was recast as violating the tenets of his time. The deeper question which we may not be able to get to today is why does the world need the Jew to fulfill that role? Why? What is about us? Because I do argue and believe that actually Jew hatred is necessary. There is a purpose for it. In many ways, I believe that each era reveals a corrupted morality.
We have idealized human rights, social justice. That's sweet.
It is a very difficult hate to confront. I call Jew hatred a virtuous hatred.
No person, unless they're sociopaths, wakes up in the morning and says, "I'm going to go and kill me some this group of people."
My dissertation was on Babi Yar and the Holocaust. Um, I was more examining the Soviet uh understanding of how the Soviets suppressed Holocaust memory. But one of the most understudied uh periods and undertaught periods is Hitler comes to power in 1933. The systemic murder, I always tell my students, the systemic murder of Jews begins in 1941. So what's happening for eight years? It's a very critical 8-year period. It's a cycle of libels. Each era has its own libels. So in the era of anti-Judaism, we are and libels are the delivery mechanisms. They are the ones that help to construct the demon out of the Jew. So in the era of anti-Judaism, it's Christ killer, blood libel. In the era of antisemitism, it is race polluters, globalist, traitors. And today because human rights is what we think is moral, we the violation is genocide, apartheid, um, ethnic cleansing, racism. And so it is a virtuous hatred.
The the people who buy into these demonizing narratives believe that they are rescuing the world. They really, really do.
I'm about to welcome on stage Mr. Ben Cohen and Dr. Anat Wolf from Israel. Very excited. But before I do, I want to spend a few moments on the Soviet Union.
I cannot give you an entire lecture on Soviet genealogy.
But what's important for you to know is that after [clears throat] the six-day war, there was a vehement turn. the Soviets turned vehemently and began to um could you know they began a demonization campaign, an anti-Zionist campaign. I want to mention that uh one of the most important scholars working on this is Izabella Tabarovsky. Um and this is from an article that she wrote for Tablet, but this is an actual picture from a Mayday parade. I'm going to deconstruct that with you right now.
This is from a Mayday parade in 1972. If you could see the children are are are happy and they're floating, but you see that ugly Jew Jewish spider. Do you all see that? Yeah. And you go, "Wait, wait, Dr. Lac, what do you why are you calling this anti-Zionism? This looks like classical antisemitism." And you'd be right. But what you don't see are the words behind. So I'm going to tell it says imperialism, which means Zionism is the weapon of imperialism. And this is very clever. The Soviets were terrible at running their country, but they were brilliant at manufacturing propaganda narrative. They understood that there was an emerging worldview after World War II in which human rights were enshrined. And of course, the United Nations was like the it became the church, if you're following my example. What they did there is they kind of testing the market. They wetted this ugly Jewish spider with this new gloss, this veneer, this seemingly just criticism, political criticism type speech. And in that way, they got away with it.
The other way that they got away with it is code switching.
The the wily Jew hater code switches all the time. The uh the person who coined the term antisemitism is Wilhelm Marr.
When I learned about this, I I thought to myself, well, why did somebody have to create a new word for something that already exists, Judenhass in German or anti-Judaism. Why do that? Well, he was very clever. He was very wily. Um, he needed to sell this old hatred in a gloss.
And you know what else he did? He distanced himself from Judenhass. He said, "I don't hate the Jews for their religion. I don't think they killed Christ. I'm a man of reason." No. No. Oh, there's something else going on with the Jews. It's their race that's the problem. That's exactly what happened when I was an undergraduate.
Speaker after speaker would come up stage and they would say, "I denounce antisemitism. There is not an antisemitic racist bone in my body. I am an anti-Zionist." And I remember I was like, "What's going on there? Why are they doing that rhetorical move? Why do that?" Well, it's very clever because you denounce something bad and then you say, "Look, I'm giving you something else. I'm not that bad thing." We, the reason I'm calling this symposium historic is that anti-Zionism has been terrorizing the West since at least two decades.
I firmly believe in language. I also believe in freedom of speech because I understand how um sacred it is. So, I'm not here to police anybody's speech. But the goal of the symposium is for our community, both Jewish and not, to start using the word anti-Zionism.
We are in the anti-Zionist era. We're not in the antisemitism era. So when when when we go to college campuses and say, "Oh my god, they're chanting globalize the intifada. This is antisemitic." The administrator doesn't quite understand why. They have been taught because of Holocaust education. Holocaust education has really taught us well to understand the second era. They have been taught that you know de how do you demonize Jews with you know Hitler swastikas race polluter they don't understand it is our duty it is on us to have a paradigm shift they call themselves anti-Zionists that is the name of this disease this is the variant that we are in the longer we don't name them the more they're going to get away with it we must start naming this anti-Zionism and with that I'd like to welcome on stage my friend Ben Cohen. Uh let me say a few words about Ben.
Let me say a few words about Ben.
Ben is from the uh FDD from the uh uh Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
He's the director of rapid response there. His work focuses on global antisemitism and anti-Zionism, European Union relations with the Middle East, and the condition of religious and national minorities in the region.
Joining us virtually is my hero Dr. Anat Wolf, an Israeli intellectual author and former member, former member of the Knesset, known for her work on Zionism, um, foreign policy, education in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Dr. Wolf recently launched a new Israeli party called O O um the party emerged after October 7th and reflects many of the ideas that she has been developing publicly over the last few years about sovereignty education and what she calls the need for Israel to move beyond an exile mentality. So with that let's begin Uh oh, there we go. One, two. Hi, Ben.
Hi, Noa. Good to see you. Thank you for generous introduction. You know, uh Ben joined me on my show.
Don't know much about um to talk about what he's going to talk to you about in just a minute. Do we know if Dr. Anat Wolf is with us as well?
She is. All right. Amazing. So, the first question is for you, Ben. Um I came across your work because of a report that you published for FDD on um anti-Zionism in the United Nations. I want to ask you how did anti-Zionism capture it's an ideological capture.
It's a worldview. How well first of all how do you understand anti-Zionism and how did it come to the United Nations?
So I think Noa firstly you gave a wonderful and very cogent introduction as to what anti-Zionism is. Um what I what what I would add is that I think you can't really understand anti-Zionism unless you predicate that on antisemitism. Uh without antisemitism anti-Zionism has no real uh content to it. And I think that um many of the tropes of antisemitism and anti-Judaism and all the phases of Jew hatred through history repeat themselves in anti-Zionism. Uh most of all the idea uh in German uh "die Juden sind unser Unglück" the Jews are our misfortune. That was the banner headline on uh Der Stürmer newspaper in in Nazi Germany. Uh the idea as well that Jews uh are disloyal or are vulnerable to dual loyalty. Uh the idea that Jews are are deceitful that they are thieves. All these themes these broad themes have informed uh anti-Zionism.
uh and as you point out I think anti-Zionism is the incarnation of antisemitism after the Shoah and it has a much more on the surface uh political uh uh appearance and that's really where you get the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union.
Well, let me let me challenge you a little. Um Sure. What do you think about this idea of the three era framework and kind of distinguishing these three distinct forms of Jew hatred because I in your response the way that you are talking you seem to still believe that it's antisemitism that's informing anti-Zionism. So I want to kind of talk about that. No, I think I think they're compatible.
I think you I agree with you that there are different phases historically in how this hatred manifests. But I'm saying that there's no clean break between each one in the sense that you have thematic consistencies. Um, and I would say, you know, one of the things, uh, one of the episodes actually of of Jewish persecution that I personally find fascinating is pre-Christian is the, uh, riot in Alexandria in the year 38. Uh, where you have, and this, remember, there's actually still a Jewish state in Eretz Israel at this time. There's still a temple in Eretz Israel, but there is a growing Jewish diaspora um in Alexandria, which is a major trading city. And at that point, um this is I think in the year 66. Um the emperor Caligula uh wants to put his statues in all houses of worship in Alexandria. The Jews refuse and the Greeks riot. and Philo who was a great Jewish writer of the time he talks about in some ways it's a bit like reading about October II when you when you read about what happened in Alexandria at that time but what was the problem here the fundamental problem was the Jews being separate the Jews being distinctive the Jews refusing to be part of the collective and the universal by putting these statues of the Roman Emperor in their synagogues so I'm saying these are the sorts of themes that you know travel have traveled across two two millennia Wonderful. Um, so let's get let me So how did anti-Zionism come into the UN?
Okay. So I think that that's really the critical question to to address for for this panel. I'd say that there are two um key points to make here. Uh the first is the aftermath of the Israeli war of independence of 1947 uh 1948.
um that close that obviously creates um uh a refugee problem. Um and the United Nations in 1949 as a temporary measure sets up the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA. Um initially UNRWA actually caters to both Jews and Arabs displaced by the fighting. But by the early 1950s, the Israeli government says to the UN, "We're going to take responsibility for our displaced people." The Arabs of course leave their displaced people, their refugees, uh, in the rubric of UNRWA. 1950, the UN creates another refugee agency, the High Commissioner for Refugees.
And both, there's a huge difference between UNRWA and UNHCR. UNRWA preserves the refugee status of Palestinian Arabs and allows them to transfer it from generation to generation. UNHCR focuses on absorption of refugees in the countries that they've gone to. They do talk about if you know voluntary repatriation, if you can go back to your home, we'll help you. But the assumption is we're going to help you where you've landed, not where you think you you should be. So why isn't UNRWA incorporated into UNHCR? Basically because the Arab states lobby against it at the UN. They want to preserve this refugee status. So they create a kind of Palestinian exceptionalism.
And then when you have the negotiations, I think in 1951 on the refugee convention, the Arabs managed to assert insert a clause there that says if you're a refugee receiving services from one UN agency, you are not eligible to receive services from another UN agency.
So what this means this creates a really a hard barrier between any absorption of UNRWA into UNHCR and so therefore it establishes this principle of Palestinian exceptionalism that still plagues the UN today. So that's that's the first pillar on which this is built.
The second pillar is the the Soviet Union and I don't want to I mean Noa gave such a fantastic and detailed introduction. I don't want to repeat any of that. So what I want to look at very briefly is how the Soviets incorporate anti-Zionism as an operating principle into their foreign policy. Um so you first see it in 1965.
This is two years before the six-day war, two years before the IDF takes control of Judea and Samaria. So there's no quote unquote occupation at this point. Israel is still very much within the 1949 arm. Mr. Slides, the Soviet in 1965, there are negotiations going on at the UN on the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. And the Soviet delegates come up with a formula that we have to condemn anti-Zionism, I'm sorry, antisemitism, Nazism, neo-Nazism, and Zionism. So, Zionism gets demonized.
uh you know on the world stage by the Soviet Union at the UN in 1965.
I think what happens after that is that actually the the Zionist Nazi comparison which we see so much today funnily enough it doesn't really work for the Soviets. It doesn't really uh mobilize the allies their allies in the developing world. So they shift focus, right? Nazism is something that's already happened. Hitler is defeated.
It's in the past. What do we have today? Apartheid.
So at that point uh from the late 1960s and and in the literature of Zionology which Noa was talking about these pamphlets and books that the Soviet Union churned out, they all have titles like Zionism and apartheid. So there's a very conscious effort by the late 1960s into the 1970s to connect the Zionist project with the institutionalized racism, the legalized racism uh in in South Africa. Obviously there are huge differences, not least the fact that in South Africa the 90% of the population that is composed of black people and other non-whites is ruled over by 10% of people who are whites. whereas in Israel there is a Jewish uh uh majority. So there's all sorts of reasons why that analogy doesn't work. But it basically establishes a route for the Soviet Union into the uh developing world. So throughout the early 1970s you have uh Soviet sponsored non-governmental organizations um and you have a series of UN branded conferences that start that basically keep making this connection. Zionism and apartheid are the same. You then get to the crowning moment in 1975, November the 10th, 1975, which is probably I mean there's many infamous days in the history of the United Nations, but this is certainly a candidate for most infamous. The UN General Assembly on November the 10th, 1975 passes resolution 3379.
And this declares Zionism to be a form of racism and racial discrimination. And the if you go and look at the text of the resolution, I'm going from memory here, but there's a line in there about the organic relationship between apartheid and Zionism. These are both alien colonial interloping regimes that have established themselves. And so at that point, I mean, you know, the the actual the day of the resolution, Chaim Herzog, the Israeli ambassador, uh he tears up the resolution at the podium.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American ambassador, talks about a new dark age for the United Nations. We're still living with that legacy 50 years later, and it becomes institutionalized.
Excellent. Thank you so much. I think what I'm getting what's really important for all of us here to to take stock of is that anti-Zionism has a life of its own. The libels have a history and you know our job is to expose them. I'm going to now move and invite Dr. Anat.
My question to you is that the first I can't hear you. So I'm thinking maybe write me the questions in the chat or something.
Okay. I'm going to write the question and whoever is in charge of Zoom can you please chat that question in. I'm wondering is the the ask should it really be that Gazans and Palestinian Arabs should be Zionists or should the ask me that they should reject anti-Zionism that's my question and is it possible so uh to the question of when I say that Gazans Arabs Muslims should be Zionists uh uh it makes an assumption which I think is definitely true now probably true for many years now is that there's there's no uh there's no neutral area. There's no kind of being non-Zionist anymore or something of the sort. You're either willing to accept the Jewish right to self-determination in the land of Israel, at least in part of it, or you're opposed to it. The idea that you could be neutral about this idea doesn't exist if it ever existed.
So when I'm arguing that Arabs, Gazans, Muslims can and should be Zionists, it means that they essentially let go of the obsessive anti-Zionism. They let go of uh organizing their identity around the notion that it is more important for them to devote their considerable talents and resources to the destruction of Jewish sovereignty than to build something for themselves. This is not something where you have neutral ground.
So either the obsession of anti-Zionism ceases to be the organizing principle of what I've come to call Palestinianism of the collective identity of the people in Gaza, in Judea, Samaria, Jordan, around the world, or it continues to be their organizing principle, but there's no neutral ground. As soon as it ceases to be their organizing principle, as soon as they become a people who have a positive vision for themselves, which means they want to achieve something constructive rather than prioritize the destruction of Jewish sovereignty, then in my book, they're Zionist. They might not accept the term. They might not embrace it. But in terms of how I define it, that's what it means to be an Arab or Gazan or Muslim Zionist. It means you have a constructive vision for your people and you no longer prioritize the destruction of Jewish sovereignty. So yes, I know it sounds provocative a bit intentionally, but it actually means something very simple. It just means that the people of Gaza begin to choose a constructive vision for themselves over organizing themselves, diverting all their resources to the destruction of Jewish sovereignty in the land.
Thank you. Uh thank you.
[applause] I is not still on with us. Yes. I really want to ask her this question for letting me know.
I really want to ask her a question and and whoever's um manning the Zoom, please please I'm curious to get your answer. Uh just a couple days ago, I went to UC San Diego medical school to do a training for the doctors on anti-Zionism. At the end of my talk, a woman stood up and said, "I'm Palestinian and I grew up in apartheid and you will not deny my lived experience." At that moment, I realized she was she has been captured by anti-Zionism. What would you tell her in that moment?
I'm not really sure how [snorts] teaching about anti-Zionism is about denying the Palestinian reality. Uh, as as I'm sure you know, I mean, I think anti-Zionism is the Palestinian reality.
I mean, that is pretty much my main argument that the very definition of Palestinianism, what constructs the the collective and what has become the identity is anti-Zionism.
So, I'm not sure what in it is denying the reality. I'm I'm by no means or uh in the talk anyone denying that to pursue anti-Zionism as an organizing principle has been an absolute a total and continued disaster. That I am not even beginning to deny. In fact, this is my main argument. My main argument is that anti-Zionism has been a disaster, has been a tragedy.
It is always the ideology of failed societies that the world and even us did no favors to the Arabs by essentially allowing them I would say encouraging them, enabling them, funding them in their anti-Zionism. Uh and it has led to repeated disasters.
Uh so I'm by no means denying it. you know, we're a day after uh the the kind of the day that has uh been promoted in order to mark the indeed the disaster of the Arabs and the land in pursuing an anti-Zionist agenda in prioritizing the destruction of Jewish sovereignty over building for themselves. And yesterday I wrote a post about the fact that increasingly with the insertion of the playbook of the word Nakba disaster. Uh we see the word ongoing. We see it also with genocide ongoing. And and this is a way to basically say it doesn't matter what happens at any given moment. It's in many ways the very existence of Zionism of the Jewish state of Jewish sovereignty that is the ongoing disaster and that's actually true that is the tragedy of everyone that by organizing the what of Palestinianism by organizing an entire collective supported and funded by hundreds of millions of people in the region and around the world around anti-Zionism, we have created a multigenerational tragedy. So for me, this is exactly the opposite of denying the the Palestinian experience. It's about highlighting what a disaster, literally a disaster it's been to continuously pursue this horrific ideology. But it's exactly about highlighting how terrible that all is.
Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I agree with you wholeheartedly. The entire the entire I and I I just wrote an essay on this as well, but Nakba the catastrophe the entire catastrophe is that Israel exists. That's the catastrophe in the mind of the Palestinian Arab um Palestinian Arab. Okay. So, we are almost wrapping up. Final words from Ben and then we will break.
Okay. Um, so I just want to complete the thought that I started in that second question which is about the institutionalization of of anti-Zionism at the United Nations because on the same day that Zion the Zionism is racism resolution is passed. You also have a series of other resolutions relating to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. One of those resolutions creates the committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. So you actually now have within the UN's political bureaucracy a dedicated committee pushing the line that Zionism is racism and pushing the Palestinian cause in the corridors of the UN. This is uh an early example of the institutionalized discrimination against the state of Israel. um at the UN which is the necessary corollary of the Palestinian exceptionalism that I was talking about and that builds up over the years. So now for example you have at the um UN Commission on Human Rights every year a dedicated agenda item item seven looking at alleged Israeli abuses.
No other country, not not Iran, not North Korea, not China, none of the serial human rights abusers are subjected to this kind of scrutiny. Uh only Israel. Uh you also have within the network of special rapporteurs, you have the creation of a special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. Uh I know this one seems really bad, Francesca Albanese, but the ones before Richard Falk, Michael Lynk, they were all pretty awful as well. she just happens to have, you know, benefited from the timing of being the rapporteur after October the 7th. So, her profile has been bigger. So, in any case, um, we we have to wrap up. So, I never got really a chance to talk about how all these this structure needs to be dismantled, but it is absolutely a priority to dismantle this anti-Zionist infrastructure at the heart of the UN.
and it's something that we need US administration and all democratic countries engaged in. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh Ben joined me on don't know much about my podcast. So we spoke for over an hour and he really if you want to hear him more please uh listen to that. I one thing I don't want you all sitting here is thinking that you've you you're on a lecture with this theory. The theory has an application.
that we at Stop Anti-Zionism issued a declaration naming anti-Zionism as Jew hatred. You are going to walk out with so many things in your mind today. What is important? What's not? My, you know, somebody asked me, "What would you want everyone to know walking out?" I want everyone to I always tell my students, I wake you up in the middle of the night and you say, "What is anti-Zionism?" And you know, you are not confused that it is criticism, that it is politics, it is the third era of Jew hatred, it's demonization.