Talk:Anti-Zionism

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 October 2023

The link to the article on Jewish Communists in the Early Jewish anti-Zionism section in the last paragraph sends you to an article about Jewish Bolshevism, an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. Change Jewish Communism to Jewish left. Ballincat43 (talk) 13:27, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for drawing attention to this. I have removed the inappropriate link, but have not added a link to Jewish left, as you suggested, because this also includes sections on left Zionists. RolandR (talk) 20:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Section is not encyclopedic

Subsection "Equating and correlating anti-Zionism with antisemitism" of the section "Anti-Zionism and antisemitism" is written like a series of testimonials, not an encyclopedic synthesis of information. Many of these are also restating the same claims. ElasticSnake (talk) 05:41, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Opinion (not fact) under “Islamism”

This sentence seems to be an opinion, not fact:

“The anti-Zionism of Hamas is indistinguishable from the group's antipathy for Judaism.”

According to whom is it “indistinguishable”? Seems a clear statement of opinion, far from an undisputed fact.

additionally, the citation links to an article from 2005. Hamas has since (2017) updated the language in its charter to officially state it does NOT oppose Judaism (Hamas Charter). So this sentence is not up to date.

I can’t edit this article but hopefully someone care remove or elaborate on this sentence. 23.93.184.149 (talk) 07:41, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The article is missing reference to contemporary notable Jewish anti-Zionist individuals & organisations like Jewish Voice for Peace

The only contemporary notable Jewish anti-Zionist that's mentioned is Noam Chomsky.

I think the article should also mention:

Gabor Mate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph9XF39yjgU

Norman Finkelstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF3EE3g8COI

Ilan Pappé: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqFo8BBaC9c

And Jewish Voice for Peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I7W99OVcjo&t=45s MathewMunro (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Possible content fork

The article Calls for the destruction of Israel may be a fork of this article Anti-Zionism. Both articles cover opposing Israel's right to exist. Please give your opinion here and at the AfD.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

These are two separate concepts. Unfortunately, the meaning of "anti-Zionism" in today's political discourse has been bastardized. Calls for the destruction of Israel is destructive: the elimination or annihilation of the State of Israel as a political entity. Anti-Zionism, in the non-politicized definition, is the opposition to Zionism, the self-determination of the Jewish people or the creation of the State of Israel. Longhornsg (talk) 02:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

A New York Times article defines anti-zionism as "the elimination of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jews". How is that different from calling for the destruction of Israel? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The American Jewish Committee says "Today, Zionism refers to support for the continued existence of Israel, in the face of regular calls for its destruction or dissolution. Anti-Zionism is opposition to Jews having a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland." The AJC uses anti-Zionism interchangeably with "calls for its [Israel's] destruction". VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

• Requesting input from everyone who has contributed to this page in the past 12 months (Longhornsg—MathewMunro—ElasticSnake—Dimadick—Tollens—RolandR—Ballincat43—Zero0000—Solun12—Selfstudier), more (Basedpalestine—SkyWarrior—Sorindc—Rosguill—TetrahedronX8—Nishidani—Lightoil—Jurteggenn—Avraham).VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:35, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Longhornsg is correct. Anti-Zionism and Calls for the destruction of Israel are two different things historically, whatever fuckwit sources may say about the former. 'fuckwit' sources because anti-Zionism preceded the creation of the state of Israel and therefore cannot have called for the destruction of what did not exist. 'Calls for the destruction of Israel', a title that discourages me from reading it and subjecting my boredom threshold to any more stresses than reading the newspapers every day causes, seems to collapse everything - as if calls to overthrow the Jewish ethnocracy that is Israel were identical to calls for the physical destruction of that state. This is not an area where logical clarity and verbal finesse ever find much of a toehold.Nishidani (talk) 04:05, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani but would you consider "calls to overthrow the Jewish ethnocracy that is Israel" to be synonymous with post-1949 anti-Zionism? Even if they are different topics, knowing the exact difference helps define the scope of each article. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "Israel's right to exist" is a propagandistic slogan. On the one hand, the right to national sovereignty or self-determination is a legitimate right, and the Jews of Palestine, certainly by 1946, and arguably as early as 1930, were an embryonic nation. However, there is no such thing as the right to occupy or annex another state or ethnic group's land. Nor is there any such thing as the right to establish an ethnostate or apartheid state. Nor does a genocidal war criminal state have a right to exist. Apartheid South Africa didn't have a right to exist. Nazi Germany didn't have a right to exist. And Israel doesn't have a right to exist *in its current form*.

Nevertheless, regardless of the fallacy of Israel's "right to exist" as a genocidal expansionist ethnostate on territory that was recently Arab-majority land, and territory that was assigned to the Palestinian Arabs under the UN-approved 1947 partition plan, even the most radical elements of the Palestinian national liberation movement, such as Hamas, have expressed a pragmatic willingness to accept a Jewish state on all of historic Palestine except for Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, if there is a national consensus or a referendum among Palestinians backing the decision. For example, see https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf, a 2017 document titled 'A Document of General Principles & Policies', which was effectively an updated Hamas Charter, specifically point 20:

'... without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.'

I suggest reviewing this article (https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/11/11/in-defence-of-from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-will-be-free), which really teases out the nuances and evolution of the Palestinian national liberation movement's position on a one-state vs a two-state solution. MathewMunro (talk) 04:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

@MathewMunro Ok but what's your opinion on the question I asked at the top? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Calls to abolish Israel are a subset of broader anti-Zionism. All those who call for the abolition of Israel are anti-Zionists, but not all those who are/were anti-Zionists call/called-for the abolition of Israel, and there's diversity of opinion regarding in what way Israel should be "abolished", or if instead, it should be transformed, democratised, secularised, shrunk/borders-modified, and/or somewhat-disarmed, and indeed, there's a somewhat blurred line between some forms of transformation and abolition - it can be kind of subjective and contextual as to whether one considers it one or the other, what might be considered "transformation" by Arabs might be considered "abolishing Israel" by the vast majority of Israeli Jews and international Zionists.

And yes, I think the 'Calls for the destruction of Israel' article is a closely related article, and I think it would be fine to Wikilink to the 'Calls for the destruction of Israel' article or even use the "Main article" tag under the subsection 'Jewish right to a state' of this article, or some similar, new or renamed subsection, or to include it under the See Also section (under which it's already listed). MathewMunro (talk) 07:33, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

As Nishidani says above, obviously pre-1948 anti-Zionism couldn't have wanted to abolish or destroy Israel since Israel didn't exist back then. So I wonder if we have an article on "Calls for the destruction of Israel", then it should just be renamed Anti-Zionism (1949-present). VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

No. There are significant numbers of anti-Zionists or people branded as such who have never ever called for the 'destruction of Israel', from Chomsky and Uri David to Brant Rosen. The hasbara attempt to repackage anti-Zionism as interchangeable with calls for Israel's destruction (usually just the standard, vapid Arab /Iranian political rhetoric, devoid of any other function than to throw a sop to the respective masses) aspires to impress the public 'mind' with the idea that any opposition to a racist state or its apartheid and ethnocidal policies is a camouflaged reproduction of a Holocaust threat and confuses a very significant, predominantly Jewish intellectual tradition that repudiates nationalism as part of Jewish identity, with the cheap memes of political sloganeering often encouraged in Arab media. All these articles lend themselves to dumbdowning and caricature, and if you want to know what anti-Zionism is you go to the Timeline link, which embodies everything the article we have was manicured to obscure.Nishidani (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree on the merits of what Nishidani says (though I disagree with the characterization that groups like the ADL are claiming anti-Zionism = calls for Israel's destruction), and I'll hold up the example of the Satmars, the exemplar of ultra-Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionism. To the Satmars, any Jewish state -- especially a secular one -- prior to the messianic age–by the very nature of its human, natural, mundane provenance–undermines and denies the Torah and is against Jewish law. The Satmars do not seek to bring an end to the state of Israel (of course, they know what the alternative would mean for their fellow Satmars in Bnei Brak, Mea Shearim, and Meron). By comparison, a group like Neturei Karta seeking the "dismantling" of Israel and actively meets with entities like PIJ, Hamas, and the Iranian government that have the same goal, to the point that the Satmar Rebbe himself has even condemned NK for going too far ([1]). Good piece by Shaul Magid in Tablet explaining this: [2] Longhornsg (talk) 10:20, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

@Longhornsg So what do the Satmars seek? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 06:41, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani put it very well - the 'Calls for the destruction of Israel' article should not be renamed 'Anti-Zionism (1949-present)', because many prominent anti-Zionists have never called for the destruction of Israel. There are other reasons, but that alone is more than enough reason.

The pre-Israel anti-Zionists, which included most Arabs both inside and outside of Palestine, and a significant portion of pre-Zionist Jews of Palestine and their descendents undoubtedly mostly never imagined the full scale of the horrors Zionists had in store for the Palestinian Arabs until after the Zionists won the 29 Nov 1947 UN partition vote and no longer needed to pretend they weren't a threat to Palestinian Arabs.

The Arab states presented a number of arguments against the 1947 partition plan - one of them was self-determination - they argued that the majority of residents of Palestine - Jews, Arabs and Christians, did not want to partition Palestine, therefore it should not be partitioned, period, and I think most anti-Zionists would still agree that the UN had no right to partition Palestine against the will of the majority of residents. But with every defeat of the Arab states by Israel, it became ever more fanciful and even counterproductive to talk of abolishing Israel, even if morally, there's a case for it.

I'm probably just one of a few who think partition could've been OK for most Palestinians if adherence to partition borders and the security of those who remained on the wrong side of the border had been internationally guaranteed, for as long as it takes to find or build a house for everyone who ended up on the wrong side of the border after the partition, and if far fewer people were put on the wrong side of the partition in the first place, and if the land had been divided proportionally rather than giving the Jews roughly 2.5 times the per land given to the Palestinian Arabs, and if they hadn't put a ridiculously unfair ~50 times as many Arab homes on the Jewish side of the partition as the number of Jewish homes on the Arab side of the partition, and if there had been more cross-roads to better facilitate internal trade & travel, and shared access to the Gulf of Aqaba, and longer-term internationally administered & defended zones around shared sacred sites and large mixed and adjacent ethnic communities such as Jerusalem. I think partition could've been like pulling a bad tooth, reducing ongoing conflict by keeping the antagonists separated, but instead of being a relatively painless affair, it was butchered without anaesthetic. MathewMunro (talk) 17:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I would consider people who call for Israel's destruction to be a subset of opponents of Zionism. But there are people who have opposed Zionism and its racist ideas for other reasons and through other ways. Dimadick (talk) 10:06, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's just my personal view but I think proposals for the destruction of Israel as a topic is logically a subset or a fork of antisemitism, which is quite distinct from anti-Zionism Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think that's right, the desire to equate AZ = AS is the cause of a lot of the confusion. Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think that probably depends on whether the sources are talking about institutional abolition in the revolutionary sense or explicitly "destruction", i.e. disassembly of power structures or something altogether different in intent. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The word 'destruction' cannot avoid entailing the notion of obliteration, annihilation. Most if not all sources, being polemical, will comfortably play on that ambiguity in order to imply that any call for the destruction of Israel in revolutionary terms, the disassembly of its nature as an ethnic state, is tantamount to a demand Israel be wiped off the map, to urge a second Holocaust. That is why so much was made of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad statement in various farcical translations. Sources generally don't make that distinction surely. (Of course there are numerous sources referring to this, as many perhaps as prominent sources referring to its obverse: statements that a state for the Palestinian people will never exist. The parallel would be a page of the type, Calls for the non-existence of a Palestinian state.:) Nishidani (talk) 21:47, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Longhornsg and Nishidani are quite right - these are clearly distinct topics and require different articles. I have been an active anti-Zionist for half a century now, and have never called for "the destruction of Israel". Indeed, I am on record as opposing this both as a slogan and as a goal. What I, and most anti-Zionists I know or have worked with (including many Israeli Jews living in Israel), have called for is dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the Israeli state. Whether you agree or disagree with this formulation and aspiration, it should be evident that it is not a call for the destruction of Israel any more than the demand to end apartheid was a call for the destruction of South Africa.

Those calling for "the destruction of Israel" are not a subset of anti-Zionists. I suspect that many of them have no idea what anti-Zionism means, and just use the term as part of a propaganda rhetoric. Our article does not fall into this error, and I wish that some of those who bandy the term around would read it to get a better understanding of the issues involved. It would be a serious mistake to compromise the article by throwing into it the often ignorant or ill-informed comments of those who have no understanding of what Zionism means and why it should be opposed. RolandR (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Well said. Zero^talk 03:11, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@RolandR @Zero0000, @Nishidani you seem to be implying that anti-zionism is distinct from "calling for the destruction of Israel" because the latter necessarily entails something very violent, "a second Holocaust" as Nishidani puts it. But that's not how Calls for the destruction of Israel defines it. For example, that article lists Iran, yet Iran has not only never called for a Holocaust, it has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East (outside of Israel). Iran has of course called for a one-state solution, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state. But that's also effectively what anti-zionists advocate, right? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 06:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Who cares for what that shabby and incompetent wiki article states? The point is that there is a huge polemical output that, obedient to a legal smudging of distinctions pushed by the hasbara bandwagon, will tell anyone careless in their reading that anti-Zionism and the 'destruction of Israel' physically or otherwise, are coterminous or interchangeable. The only way to save that article from its own inanity would be to examine and rewrite the article strictly in terms of the extensive scholarly literature (which also has both the distinction and the denial of a distinction) and exclude rigorously all use of cheap newspaper or internet sources that more or less muddle this discourse.Nishidani (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh and the article Calls for the destruction of Israel also considers "From the River to the Sea" as an exemplifying the "destruction of Israel". So it is clear that that article is using "destruction of Israel" to mean opposition to Israel as a Jewish-majority state. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 06:46, 17 January 2024 (UTC)