Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism… What are the definitions behind these words? A historian’s answers

“Anti-Zionism today is the modern form of anti-Semitism.” said the journalist Anne Sinclair Monday April 29 on France 5 when she was invited to respond to pro-Palestinian student demonstrations, particularly at Sciences Po. “I never thought that all these young people would be so anti-Semitic”stated on his part Élisabeth Badinter on April 26 on France 5 always about the mobilization of Sciences Po students. But what exactly do the terms anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism mean? Are we talking about the same thing? Franceinfo interviewed Dominique Vidal, journalist and historian, author of Anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism?.

franceinfo: What is the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?

Dominique Vidal: Anti-Semitism is racism against Jews. There are significant roots in France historically, as this is the actual motivation for the Dreyfus affair. Anti-Zionism is the refusal or criticism of Theodor Herzl’s 1896 idea to campaign for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. If we look at history, the vast majority of anti-Zionists until 1939 were Jews. In fact, anti-Zionism is a Jewish movement that opposes Zionism. There are several reasons for this. Most important is the idea that Judaism is primarily a religion and that a religion is not a nation, not a people. For the ultra-Orthodox, there can be no Jewish state until the Messiah arrives.

Has there been an evolution of anti-Zionism over the years?

Of course. The change is not new. It dates back to the Second World War, where the terrible genocide organized by the Nazis created a completely new situation, including in Palestine, because the Zionist movement clearly found a tragic legitimacy there, which at the time prompted the United Nations to vote on a partition plan. That is why we must vote for a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine. We know what happened next: the Jewish state was born, but not the Arab state, and its territory was divided. So from an international perspective the situation was different. There was support from the international community for the idea of creating not just one Jewish state, but two states.

Then there is something very important that should not be overlooked, and that is the fact that at the time there were approximately 300,000 Holocaust survivors grouped in the so-called camps. “displaced people”. Most of them were unwilling or unable to return to their countries, especially to Poland and Central Europe, where anti-Semitism remained extremely strong. They wanted to live in the United States, but the Americans had passed laws since the 1930s that severely restricted immigration. So most of these displaced people ultimately responded to the call of the Zionist organizations that brought them to Palestine and then to Israel.

That means that today, for example, we cannot say that the anti-Zionists as they exist are for the disappearance of the State of Israel. This is nonsense. They are for a transformation of the State of Israel, no longer into a state of the Jewish people, but into a state of all its citizens, so that all Israeli citizens can live in equality.

What do you think of the speeches claiming that being anti-Zionist is necessarily anti-Semitic?

It exists. But detecting this equality seems to me a form of historical illiteracy. As I said, anti-Zionism is primarily a Jewish movement and, in its harshest formulation, was developed up to World War II, but not after. It is dangerous to put an equal sign between the two, in the sense that in France, in French law, there is no violation of opinion. It does not exist. To condemn anti-Zionism is to create a violation of French constitutional law. Or we also condemn anti-communism or anti-Gaullism. It all makes no sense.

However, it is clear that we can criticize Israel’s policies, for example at the moment in Gaza, without necessarily saying that we are anti-Zionist. You don’t have to be an anti-Russian person to criticize Putin’s policies. I think we are in two different registers. On the other hand, there are obviously some people who are known for their anti-Semitic or negationist positions, I think of Alain Soral or Dieudonné, and who use the term “anti-Zionism” to hide their anti-Zionism. Semitism. This is a real problem that anyone who declares themselves an anti-Zionist must ask themselves. Of course there are anti-Semites who hide behind anti-Zionism.

But above all, there is a change in the nature of anti-Zionism. Until 1939, anti-Zionism was in the majority among the world’s Jews, on a large scale. Zionism was a very minority movement until the war. For example, at that time Sigmund Freud made comments and wrote anti-Zionist texts, that is, against the idea of creating a Jewish state. Albert Einstein is the same. This kind of thinking has clearly changed with the creation of the State of Israel, which is to say that no one, as far as I know, today proposes to dissolve the State of Israel. We can imagine imposing sanctions on the country for its violations of international law, but not destroying it. Today, anti-Zionism consists of advocating equality in national, individual and religious rights for all inhabitants of Palestine. I know people who may regret that the State of Israel came into being under the circumstances in which it came into being, that is, where there was no second state as planned – because all these conflicts are actually about the rights of the Palestinians – but we can of course be for the rights of the Palestinians without being against those of the Israelis.

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