What is anti-Semitism today? Who is anti-Semitic and what makes them such? As a matter of fact, defining anti-Semitism is not easy, as evidenced by the fact that over the last ten years, in an effort to fight against it, there has been a rush to come up with somehow “official” definitions. The most well-known of said definitions is that of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance), adopted by 43 countries, including Italy, and drawn up in 2016, according to which “anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”.
Examples provided to clarify this definition included a majority of cases referred to Israel, and only a few ones regarding the classic types of anti-Semitism, i.e. those of a racist nature and linked to Nazism. Therefore, according to this definition, anti-Semitism today has several characteristics in common with anti-Zionism, and mainly applies to rejection, or perceived rejection, of the State of Israel and its policies. IHRA definition sought to avoid characterising all criticism of Israeli policy and the Israeli government as anti-Semitic in its entirety, but even so, the link proposed between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism was so close that it prompted the creation of more definitions, including 2021 Jerusalem definition, issued by Israeli and American academics, which criticised IHRA definition precisely because of the possibility it offered to interpret most criticism of the State of Israel as anti-Semitic.
But what does anti-Zionism mean? In the early 20th century, most Jews in the diaspora were anti-Zionist, and this did not mean in any way that they were anti-Semitic. Leading rabbis, intellectuals, not to mention ordinary people, considered it as a mistake to emigrate from their countries to set up a homeland in what would become Palestine after the First World War. It was the Shoah, and then the birth of the State, that multiplied the number of “pro-Zionists” and, in the long term, meant that no Jew in the diaspora felt that they did not have a special relationship with Israel, or that they could legitimately call themselves “non-Zionist”.
But who is anti-Zionist today? Beyond slogans shouted at demonstrations and in the media, what do we mean today when we talk about anti-Zionism, and how can this term be defined as anti-Semitic? In general terms, those who define themselves as anti-Zionist do not have in mind the Zionist ideology as such, the one that emerged in the second half of the 19th century aimed at giving Jews a homeland. They rather have in mind the politics of the State of Israel. This leads to erasing the numerous aspects that this ideology has taken on over time, to the point that we now speak of “Zionisms” in the plural and not of one “Zionism”. The word “Zionism” has become a banner waved by one side or the other, one to attack it as colonial and genocidal, the other to defend it unconditionally. Yet it should be obvious that the only sense in which anti-Zionism can be defined as anti-Semitic is the one used by those who try to destroy the very existence of the State. Everything else is political criticism, albeit harsh.
A very recent example regarding the Jewish world: dozens of members of British Jewish institutions published a letter in the Financial Times calling for peace, an end to the massacres in Gaza and the return of hostages, and saying they did not want to lose their soul. In its explicit condemnation of the destruction of Gaza, this letter was stronger than appeals for an end to the war made in the last few weeks in Israel by several sections of the army and civil society, which Netanyahu belittled as “anarchists and communists”. Essentially, in this context, anti-Semites.
Will he also label the appeal made by British Jews, and the UN, the UNRWA and the whole world, as anti-Semitic? By defining any criticism of his policies as anti-Semitic, Netanyahu is actually fuelling anti-Semitism, allowing political criticism to be permeated with anti-Jewish hostility and isolating Israel from the rest of the world. To fight against anti-Semitism, he is rallying the supporters or heirs of actual anti-Semitism: Orban, Le Pen, to name but a few, who are supposedly the true “friends of Israel”. This is a dangerous and highly charged argument, as in essence it means erasing the memory of the Shoah, declaring oneself akin to those who, like the Hungarians or the fascists of Salò, were willing accomplices of Hitler in the deportation of the Jews, and insinuating that only anti-Semites or those who are linked to the anti-Semitic world can be allies of Israel. This is a complete reversal of the operation through which, by trying Eichmann, Ben Gurion repaired the rift between the diaspora and the new State of Israel and made the memory of the Shoah the ethical foundation of the State.
Restoring the different meanings of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism today, and avoiding confusion of the two, means fighting against anti-Semitism, not helping it spread. Anti-Semitism spreads through images of the massacres in Gaza and attacks by settlers in the West Bank, not by denouncing them. And it spreads by claiming that the whole world is anti-Semitic in that it attacks Netanyahu’s policies and by calling on the worst anti-Semites in Europe to support this doctrine, without distinguishing between anti-Semitism and the so-called anti-Zionism. That is why we need to speak out, loudly, our heads held high and our souls intact. So as not to be confused with actual anti-Semites.
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Cover Photo Credits: WikimediaCommons/Alisdare Hickson
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