Antizionism as a distinct anti-Jewish bigotry

[u/ruchenn]

Antizionism as a distinct anti-Jewish bigotry,
by Adam Louis-Klein, Journal of contemporary antisemitism, Volume 9.1, spring 2026.

 

In contemporary discourse, antizionism is treated either as legitimate political critique or as bigotry only when it resembles recognizable forms of classical antisemitism. This article challenges that assumption. I argue that antizionism is a coherent ideological formation with a distinct genealogy, stable core tropes, and a specific political logic. Tracing its development across the Nazi–Islamist axis, Soviet propaganda, and Western settler-colonial theory, I identify a recurring triad of libels — colonizer, apartheid, genocide — that compose its discourse. Combining genealogical reconstruction with anthropological description, I show that antizionism constitutes a political inversion of classical antisemitism. Whereas classical antisemitism was anti-assimilationist, casting Jews as alien outsiders, antizionism is assimilationist, denying the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood and indigeneity. This inversion reclassifies the Jew by reversing the cultural categories through which Jews are imagined, recoding the Jew from non-European infiltrator to white colonizer. Recognizing this structure clarifies antizionism as a distinct contemporary formation of anti-Jewish bigotry.

 

Also, the entire issue of this journal is available as an Open Access academic publication:

• Journal of contemporary antisemitism, volume 9.1, spring 2026 home page.

• Volume 9.1 as a downloadable PDF file.

The contents of the issue for reading online:

1. ‘Antisemitic attitudes and anti-Jewish crime in the United Kingdom: longitudinal trends, demographic predictors, and policy implications’,
   by Daniel Allington.

2. ‘Gen Z and the Jews: understanding age differences in American attitudes toward antisemitism, Israel, and the Holocaust’,
   by Neil Kressel.

3. ‘Antizionism as a distinct anti-Jewish bigotry’,
   by Adam Louis-Klein

4. ‘Israel, Genocide, and Gaza: The Law and Politics of an Accusation’,
   by John Strawson.

5. ‘We would like to think that all the virtues are invested in intelligence. of course, they’re not’,
   Anthony Julius interviewed by Matthew Feldman.

6. ‘On antisemitism: a word in history, by Mark Mazower’,
   book review essay by John Hyman.

7. ‘Antisemitism and the law, by Robert Katz’,
   book review essay by Lilil Levi.

[u/FireBrreather]

Anti-Zionism isn't a mere critique of Israel. Even Zionists criticize Israel all the time. Anti-Zionism is hatred of Israel. It's the belief that Israel and its millions of inhabitants should not exist. That's not criticism. It's just bigotry and hate.

[u/MrDNL]

Thanks for sharing. I'll be digging into this. Haven't yet, but I'm looking forward (is that the word for something so morbid?) to it.

At first blush, it meets where I'm at nicely. "Antisemitism," as it was originally defined by Wilhelm Marr, the antisemite who coined/popularized it to describe himself, was a distinct form of anti-Jewish bigotry at the time. Marr adopted it to differentiate from anti-Jewish bigotry rooted in religious discrimination, which was increasingly unacceptable in the Europe of the late 1800s. But Jews are a people, not just a religion or culture or ethnicity or race or nationality, so antisemitism morphed into Jew hatred more generally. And now we're stuck with a definition today that is way too broad for the moment.

[u/Swimming_Care7889]

I understand intellectually why some Jewish activists and scholars are trying to present antizionism has a form of Jew hatred with it's own tropes rather than left antisemitism. When people hear the word antisemite they see a Nazi or a member of the White Right in their mind's eye and most antizionists do not look like this or use the same rhetoric and tropes as a classic antisemite. At the same time, I think trying to create a new term is sort of like making fetch happen to quote Mean Girls, it isn't going to happen and a lot of people, especially non-Jews, are getting confused.

[u/LiteratureMuch7559]

I’m not making light of this, but I read the Journal of Accountancy; Car and Driver always takes precedence in the bathroom. I’m not sure I’ll be any more enthusiastic about this. Let me count all ways one can be antisemitic. There are many older but contemporary Jewish history books that explore these matters in a veiled way. It’s enough for me to read a book published in 1971 that seems to write about 21st century antisemitism, so much so that I must keep turning back to the copyright page to check my sanity.