Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
Until World War II, anti-Zionism was widespread among Jews for varying reasons. Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism on religious grounds, as preempting the Messiah, while many secular Jewish anti-Zionists identified more with ideals of the Enlightenment and saw Zionism as a reactionary ideology. Opposition to Zionism in the Jewish diaspora was surmounted only from the 1930s onward, as conditions for Jews deteriorated radically in Europe and, with the Second World War, the sheer scale of the Holocaust was felt. Thereafter, Jewish anti-Zionist groups generally either disintegrated or transformed into pro-Zionist organizations, though many small groups, and bodies like the American Council for Judaism, conserved an earlier Reform tradition of rejection of Zionism. Non-Jewish anti-Zionism likewise spanned communal and religious groups, with the Arab populace of Palestine largely opposed to what they considered the colonial dispossession of their homeland. Opposition to Zionism was, and continues to be, widespread in the Arab world, especially among Palestinians.
Anti-Zionism comes in various forms. Some anti-Zionists seek to replace Israel and its occupied territories with a single state that would putatively give Jews and Palestinians equal rights. These anti-Zionists have argued that a binational state would still realize Jewish self-determination, as self-determination need not imply a separate state. Some are anti-Zionist for religious reasons, such as Haredi Jews, and others seek instead the oppression or ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews, although this position was historically rare in Western countries. The relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is debated, with some academics and organizations rejecting the linkage as unfounded and a form of weaponization of antisemitism used to stifle criticism of Israel and its policies, including the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, while others, particularly supporters of Zionism, argue that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic or new antisemitism.
