Zionism
Accusation: Zionism is described as a racist and colonial ideology that dispossessed Palestinians, and critics insist that opposing Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism.
The Short Answer
Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self determination in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. It is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, not racism.
Israel is home to Jews of every color and to two million Arab citizens with equal rights. Denying Jews alone the right to a state is discrimination.
What Zionism Means
The word comes from Zion, a biblical name for Jerusalem. For nearly two thousand years of exile, Jews prayed toward Jerusalem three times a day and ended the Passover seder with the words “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Modern political Zionism took shape in the late 19th century. Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State in 1896 and gathered the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. Pogroms in Russia and the Dreyfus affair in France had shown that Jews were not safe as a stateless minority.
At its core, Zionism asks for one thing. The Jewish people, like the French, the Poles or the Palestinians, should have a state of their own where they can live freely and defend themselves.
Jews Are Indigenous to the Land of Israel
The Jewish connection to the land is more than three thousand years old. Hebrew was spoken there, the Bible was written there, and Jerusalem was the capital of Jewish kingdoms long before Rome or Islam existed.
Archaeology confirms it. The Tel Dan Stele mentions the “House of David.” Excavations in the City of David, coins from the Jewish revolts against Rome and ancient synagogues across the Galilee all tell the same story.
Even after the Roman conquest, Jews never fully left. Communities lived in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed and Hebron through the centuries, and Jews were again the largest group in Jerusalem by the second half of the 19th century.
Why Zionism Is Not Racism
Racism means believing one race is superior or denying people rights because of their race. Zionism does neither. It is a national movement, and the Jews are a people, not a race.
Israeli Jews come from Europe, Ethiopia, Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, India and dozens of other countries. Roughly half have roots in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab citizens, about one in five Israelis, vote, sit in the Knesset and serve as judges. Read more: Is Israel an Apartheid State?
In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling Zionism racism. In 1991 it revoked that resolution, one of the very few times the Assembly has ever repealed one of its own resolutions.
Is Anti Zionism Antisemitism?
Criticizing an Israeli government policy is not antisemitic. Israelis do it every day in their newspapers and in the Knesset.
Anti Zionism goes much further. It says that the Jewish people alone, among all the nations of the world, have no right to a state, and that the one Jewish state should be dismantled. Singling out Jews for that denial is discrimination.
The IHRA working definition of antisemitism, adopted by dozens of governments, lists denying the Jewish people their right to self determination as an example of antisemitism. In practice, “Zionist” is often used as a code word to target Jews. See also: Antisemitic Myths Debunked
Key Facts About Zionism
Zion is a biblical name for Jerusalem that appears more than 150 times in the Hebrew Bible.
Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897.
In 1947 the UN voted for the creation of a Jewish state in its partition plan, Resolution 181.
The UN revoked its “Zionism is racism” resolution in 1991.
Israel is home to more than seven million Jews and more than two million Arab citizens.
How to Respond
Ask: “Are the Jews a people? If so, why should they be the only people denied a homeland?”
Explain that Zionism simply means the Jewish people have a home. Ask which part of that they oppose.
Point to the diversity of Israeli society, with Jews of every color and Arab citizens holding full rights.
Remind them that the UN itself withdrew the claim that Zionism is racism.
Conclusion
Zionism is the story of an ancient people coming home after two thousand years of exile. It is a movement of liberation and survival, and Israel is its result. To reject Zionism is to reject the Jewish people's right to exist as a free nation in their own land.