Member-only story
Why Zionists Love Identity Politics
The long history of deflecting criticism by insisting anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism
We should laugh when apologists for Israel’s right-wing government say it’s not sexist to criticize Hillary Clinton or racist to criticize Barack Obama, then turn around and insist it’s antisemitic to criticize Israeli expansionism. By their logic, World War 2 was fought in Italy by anti-Catholics, in Japan by anti-Shintoists, and in Germany by allied anti-Protestants and anti-Pagans. Anyone who made that claim about WW2 would be mocked and quickly silenced by the observation that the war was about deeds, not beliefs. Yet Zionists insist with a straight face that opposition to Zionism is about beliefs, not deeds.
Which is convenient for people who don’t want to talk about what Zionists have been doing since David Ben-Gurion launched Plan Dalet to drive Palestinians from their homes.
We don’t laugh at Zionist identitarians because it’s horribly true that Jews are among the world’s ethnic groups that have awful histories of oppression. But as any moral person knows, one injustice does not excuse another.
Since the birth of Israel, Zionists have deflected criticism by exploiting the left’s hatred of antisemitism. One of Israel’s first diplomats made that explicit:
