{"id":714,"date":"2026-06-18T20:13:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:13:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:13:34","slug":"the-left-wing-case-against-antizionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In September 1948,<\/span> a prosperous Jewish businessman in Iraq was publicly hanged in front of a cheering crowd of 12,000. The following day, close-up images of Shafiq Ades\u2019s broken body ran on the front page of Iraqi newspapers in a triumphant and gruesome spectacle that celebrated the punishment of a \u201cZionist traitor.\u201d Iraq was losing the war that would create the state of Israel, a humiliation that challenged fantasies of Arab unity and conquest. A military tribunal accused Ades of selling arms to Israel, and he was convicted within days. The state determined that the execution would take place outside his own mansion in a public act of humiliation. Regardless of whether it was true that Ades was a Zionist, his murder was an act of anti-Zionist violence\u2014driven by a violent hatred of Israel and anyone associated with it.<\/p>\n

Read more Atlantic Reads: The Housewives Underground With Kaitlyn Tiffany<\/a><\/p>\n

The flight or expulsion of 850,000 Jews from countries across the Middle East is a story that still too often rests in silence, but even when it is told, the ideology that caused it is seldom named. The displacement of so many Jews from their ancient home becomes a kind of tit for tat\u2014a balancing act of victimhood against the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled during Israel\u2019s war of independence. The fact that accusations of \u201cZionism\u201d were what legitimized anti-Jewish violence\u2014whether during the Tripoli pogroms of 1945, 1948, and 1967; the 1947 pogrom in Aleppo, Syria, and synagogue bombings in Damascus and Aleppo in 1949; or the expulsion of Egyptian Jews in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser\u2014drops out of the calculus.<\/p>\n

How can it be that an ideology that has produced repeated acts of discrimination, dispossession, and violence now bears the mantle of progressivism in the West and has been normalized within the Democratic Party? Like Stalinism or the Khmer Rouge, anti-Zionism represents a wrong turn for the left. Anti-Zionism claims to be concerned with rights of minorities, opposition to racism, and universal justice. In truth, though, it has appropriated the language of anti-colonial liberation to justify oppression, transformed anti-racism into a racist accusation, and turned hatred of Israel into a global ritual.<\/p>\n

Anti-Zionism has hijacked the left, and it did so through exploiting the left\u2019s tendency toward internationalism and its skepticism of nation-states. It transformed Jewish peoplehood into a crime and charged that Jewish difference amounted to a claim of supremacy, even as it demanded that a persecuted minority submit to the dominance of the majority. Yet the public reckoning with anti-Zionism still awaits its moment.<\/p>\n

I am a Jew who supports women\u2019s rights, gay rights, and trans rights, and who believes that climate change will pose a major challenge to human society. Opposing anti-Zionism is, similarly, a natural extension of my concern for truth and equality. If the Democratic Party wants to maintain an authentic commitment to human rights, it must oppose the movement that seeks the elimination of Israel and the purging from civil society of those marked as Zionists.<\/p>\n

Decades before the creation<\/span> of the state of Israel, Vladimir Lenin laid the groundwork for anti-Zionism. In his early-20th-century polemics, Lenin cast Zionism, the movement to found a Jewish state, as a form of \u201cbourgeois nationalism,\u201d a scheme by privileged Jews to divide the working class. Either Jews should dissolve into the universal proletarian movement, he argued, or expect to be marked as class enemies. \u201cJewish national culture is the slogan of the rabbis and the bourgeoisie, the slogan of our enemies,\u201d he wrote. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Jewish section of the Communist Party, or Yevsektsiya, would systematically dismantle Jewish life, as synagogues and the Hebrew language itself were branded as Zionist.<\/p>\n

Once Israel was created, the Marxist-Leninist ideology that cast Zionism as bourgeois nationalism flowed into a more developed propaganda apparatus, which coded Israel as the center of Western imperialism while elevating other nationalisms as virtuous expressions of opposition to capitalist power. A new definition of Jews emerged, inverting the classical anti-Semitic claim that Jews were non-European race polluters to charge instead that Zionists were \u201cEuropean colonizers.\u201d As the 1956 Suez Crisis helped crystallize an alliance between Arab nationalists and the Soviet Union, this anti-Zionist ideology took root in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In 1965, Fayez Sayegh published Zionist Colonialism in Palestine<\/i>, an ahistorical argument that Jews are not truly from the Land of Israel, but an alien people. Jewish indigeneity is but a settler fabrication, he charged, a 19th-century construct in which biblical fundamentalists invented the notion that Jews see the Land of Israel as their origin and destiny. In Sayegh\u2019s work, and in that of his followers, Jewish history and belonging were erased, the truth of Jewish life made to dissolve in the face of a political project that cast elimination as justice.<\/p>\n

Sayegh and other Arab nationalists believed that Zionism dismembered Arab unity and violated the universal norms of the post\u2013World War II international order. These writers transformed theological polemics against the \u201cchosen people\u201d and accusations of \u201cJewish superiority\u201d into the claim that \u201cZionism is racism.\u201d Jewish nationhood was inherently \u201cexclusivist,\u201d whereas Arab nationalism could be framed as emancipatory, part of a global struggle against oppression.<\/p>\n

Read more If Only Trump Knew What Vance Is Doing<\/a><\/p>\n

Anti-Zionism recoded the left\u2019s concern with abuses of state power and the rights of minorities into a hatred of the Jewish state, just as the classical anti-Semitism of the 19th century recoded right-wing concern with the integrity of the nation and foreign influence into a hatred of Jews as a dispersed, stateless minority. But the internationalism that transformed Israel into a beacon of \u201cultranationalism\u201d and \u201cfascism\u201d\u2014the Soviets reveled in Holocaust inversion and in the depiction of Israelis as Nazis\u2014would itself become a global system of oppression, subjecting one small state to an endless trial of elimination.<\/p>\n

Discussions of whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism obscure the fact that anti-Zionism, as it actually exists, remains genocidal in intent, demanding the erasure of a national group that is protected under international law. The Genocide Convention protects all national groups, including those based on shared citizenship. Discrimination against Israelis qua Israelis\u2014and the \u201cZionists\u201d who appear as their proxies\u2014is a moral wrong.<\/p>\n

The left\u2019s internationalism\u2014once the calling card of progress\u2014has hardened into hostility to Israel, across academia, NGOs, mainstream-media outlets, and the United Nations. The constant accusations that circulate across these networks of authority are not normal critiques of a state, but claims that cast Israel as the exemplar of the three great sins of the postwar international order\u2014colonialism, apartheid, and genocide\u2014a \u201crogue state\u201d said to violate the very fabric of the world.<\/p>\n

The progressive case against anti-Zionism recognizes the freedom of Israelis to choose the nature of the society they want to live under. It recognizes that Israel may be becoming more like other Middle Eastern countries\u2014that its increased religiosity in recent years is partially driven by the Mizrahisegment of its population, those who were expelled from other countries in the region. And it seeks to extend to Israel the same allowance that progressives extend to other nations in the region, an acknowledgment that societies can differ from secular Western ideals.<\/p>\n

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, which resulted in the emergence of the messianic Gush Emunim movement and the planting of settlements in the West Bank, changes within Israeli society have alienated many American Jews, as well as secular, left-wing Israelis. Religiosity and nationalism have fused, displacing cosmopolitanism. The language of leftist universalism now seems ever more remote from Israel\u2019s reality.<\/p>\n

But the left must adhere to its own standards, irrespective of changes within Israel. It needs to acknowledge the harms caused by anti-Zionism\u2014the forced exodus of MizrahiJews across the Middle East, the cultural erasure of Jews under the Soviet Union, and the anti-Jewish violence and purging happening in the West today. And it needs to address them.<\/p>\n

The brokenness that anti-Zionism sees in the world, as a vast oppressive conspiracy that sustains the existence of Israel\u2014the system that Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, claimed is \u201cthe enemy of humanity\u201d\u2014is a brokenness that anti-Zionism brings into the world. The oppressive system is anti-Zionism itself. It\u2019s a brokenness that, it just so happens, Jewish tradition tasks the Jewish people\u2014and all of humanity\u2014to repair.<\/p>\n

Read more Iran Has Humiliated Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discrimination against Israelis qua Israelis\u2014and the \u201cZionists\u201d who appear as their proxies\u2014is a moral wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Discrimination against Israelis qua Israelis\u2014and the \u201cZionists\u201d who appear as their proxies\u2014is a moral wrong.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714\"},\"wordCount\":1411,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ideas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714\",\"name\":\"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":625},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=714#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros","og_description":"Discrimination against Israelis qua Israelis\u2014and the \u201cZionists\u201d who appear as their proxies\u2014is a moral wrong.","og_url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714","og_site_name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","article_published_time":"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"headline":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism","datePublished":"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714"},"wordCount":1411,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif","articleSection":["Ideas"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714","name":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism - Commercial Relocation Pros","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif","datePublished":"2026-06-18T20:13:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1986287b9db29017a6bd0b44c0bbd386.avif","width":1200,"height":625},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=714#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Left-Wing Case Against Antizionism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/","name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com"],"url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}