Olga Kirschbaum issues a stark warning: the thesis that Zionism is a source of evil is a deadly distraction for all people everywhere today. ‘We simply do not have time to lose with such a pointless projection’ she argues. ‘Our young people deserve a world where they can breathe, earn a living, and flourish. We cannot get back the time and energy lost sitting on campus lawns, walking the streets, and scrolling on phones calling for the destruction of the only Jewish state. We need this time and energy for the real problems we face.’
The Problem
We live in an age in which millions of people are exposed daily to some variant of the argument that the challenges of the world they live in are best explained in terms of ‘Israel.’ – David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking, 2013.
Nirenberg was right. Over the course of this past year we have seen a mobilisation for Gaza in Europe, North America, and Oceania that could not be mustered for any of the pressing problems of our age: the destruction of our environment, the exploitation of working people, and the preventable death and impoverishment of citizens. These issues affect millions locally and billions around the world. Yet, in these countries, despite growing consciousness of the urgency of these problems, campuses and streets have been filled day after day, week after week for the ‘liberation’ of Palestine ‘from the river to the sea’. To give but a micro example, the forest fires in Canada in 2023 produced nearly four times the amount of CO2 emissions as global aviation, and yet, while there have been protests, there have been no widespread demonstrations, sit ins, or mobilization for forest fire prevention as they raged again in 2024. Naomi Klein has spilt more journalist ink on Gaza this year, according to her website, than on Canada’s forest fires, though her area of expertise is environmental justice. No, the magnitude of this mobilisation for Gaza cannot be explained by the magnitude of Gaza as a global problem, unless one believes that Zionism is a global evil. And that, of course, is exactly the message pushed by both the far-left and the Islamists. How to counter the appeal of that lie is our challenge.
The far-left and Islamist activists who are heading these sit ins, marches, and media platforms in non-Muslim countries in the name of global justice focus on Israel/Zionism as the source of global problems. The thesis is as follows: ‘Israel’, or ‘Global Zionism’, is at the centre of and exports every kind of injustice: racism, capitalism, colonialism, environmental destruction, war, and military and carceral technologies. This idea is expressed in local far-left media and parties, in the academy, as well as in Islamist media outlets in English like Al Jazeera, Islamic Republic News Agency, and Daily Sabah (Turkey). For millions of young people who want a better world, this discourse is galvanising. Faced with such urgent and overwhelming ‘challenges of the world’ and being offered a clear solution to those challenges – which in its crudest version says the Zionists, meaning the majority of Israel’s citizens, the majority of the global Jewish, community, and Israel’s supporters and allies around the world are malign and they control the world and that’s why it’s all going wrong – one can perhaps even understand why so many people are attracted, especially if they know little about the history of the Middle East and antisemitism.
Since 7 October many people in Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, young and old, are becoming, slowly and not so slowly, persuaded by the thesis that Israel is somehow to blame for everything, and that its replacement with an Arab Palestine would bring relief not only to Palestinian civilians in the current war, but to the region, and even to the world. If you think that claim is true, is one not obliged to act on it?
This thesis is very difficult to counter among those who have embraced it. As great observers of the last wave of conspiratorial antisemitism in the West (the 1930s and 1940s in Europe) like Theodor Adorno or Jean-Paul Sartre have written, once a person becomes convinced of an antisemitic thesis, they are usually not persuaded by logic. There is ample documentation of this thesis in the academy by scholars of antisemitism. Many concerned academics have had conversations with scholars of Asian or Africa history for example, who know that Islamism is killing Asians and Africans and destabilising entire regions on both continents, but who are still persuaded that Zionism is the force of global evil. This is also true of course for Middle Eastern history itself: Islamist groups are illegal in a number of Muslim states because of their destructive power, yet many scholars in the field are focused on the evils of Zionism. This should not be surprising. Many great minds in all fields in 1930s Europe, from poets, to doctors, to fashion designers, from British Isles to Russia, subscribed to antisemitic ideas. Today, most of the people on campuses today who support the thesis of Zionism as a source of global evil will not even engage in a conversation about their singular focus, or talk to a Zionist.
What many of us have observed since 7 October is that intellectuals, thought leaders, and artists are ushering people who admire them on other topics into the thesis of Zionism as a global evil. Many seem to think: if these figures are valiant environmentalists, inspiring psychiatrists, great poets, talented musicians, or dynamic actors and they think Zionism/Israel is the problem, then maybe it is.
What is to be done?
How can we pull left-wing people back from this conspiracy theory about ‘Israel’? Here are a few options after a year of thinking about this topic.
Truth
For those people who are on the left and committed to the truth, the first option is to show that the litany of current claims against Israel are empirically false. There are literally thousands of videos, articles, and books by academics and ordinary citizens from around the world showing that Israel is a functioning multi-party democracy with a national culture that respects minority rights (religion, schooling, education, language, movement) unlike an apartheid state, a settler colony, or a supremacist entity. Likewise, there are a similar number of sources that situate the Zionist movement in its context of national self-determination for peoples around the world and place its policies in comparative context. In addition, we have an abundant literature that discusses the current Israel military occupation of parts of the West Bank, and the blockade in Gaza, even when taking a critical stance, in its context of the now more than seventy-year war between Arab League and Israel since the partition resolution in 1947 and the more than forty-year war between Iran and Israel. There are also hundreds of articles and books by academics of all backgrounds discussing the phenomenon of antisemitism with its tell-tale characteristic of a double standard for Jews, and now Israel, the nation state of the Jews, and a belief in their malevolence even when evidence points to the contrary.
Logic
A second option is to walk them through the anti-Zionist thesis to its logical conclusion. What would happen if the international community succeeded in destroying Israel militarily (through an arms embargo or direct attack) and bringing about an Arab majority and creating an Arab Palestine. Or even if they managed to persuade all Israeli Jews to voluntarily hand over their political power to Palestinians and/or to emigrate leading to an Arab-ruled Arab-majority state in Israel. Would this end the production of military and surveillance technology in the world? Would it end the mass incarceration of black and Native American men in the US? Would it slow down the financialization of our economy and weaken the power of CEOs in the United States and elsewhere. Would it lead to peace in the Middle East, the fall of Islamism? Would it bring about a green revolution? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no. If antisemites succeeded destroying the Jewish state, by whatever means, there would still be white supremacists groups in the Americas and Europe, there would still be libertarians and company bosses around the world willing to burn the planet for a buck, there would still be wars among Islamists, different Muslim countries, and democrats in the Middle East, there would still be injustice, war, environmental destruction, and exploitation because there are countless people involved in these activities who have no connection to Israel and will continue doing what they do whatever Israel’s fate. Further, the destruction of Israel would also likely lead to an increase in Islamist and Arab imperialist violence elsewhere in the Middle East, as a defeat of Zionism would be seen as a sign from God vindicating Islamic and Arab power.
Projections: A History
Yet another option is to explain the nature and appeal of antisemitism as a projection based on false claims and imbued with false redemptive promises as the reason why obvious lies about Jews and Israel are accepted and even promoted by clever people. As the Frankfurt School among other scholars have convincingly argued antisemitism is a projection. Far-left/Islamist anti-Zionism and far-right antisemitism share the same dynamic: they project what they think is evil onto ‘Global Zionism’ or ‘the Jews’ and claim therefore that the destruction of the Jews or the Zionist entity/Israel is a key measure for ‘redemption’ or ‘justice’. This is why their projections look different but function in the same way. In the 1930s the far right projected everything they detested onto the Jews as a race: cowardice, greed, pollution etc and sought to destroy Jewish men women and children across Europe as well as the Jewish community in Palestine (yes the Nazis were anti-Zionist too). Today the far-left projects everything they hate onto the Jewish state: colonialism, capitalist exploitation, incarceration etc., and call for the destruction of Israel. Islamist antisemitism is likewise a projection of what Islamists hate the most heresy, godlessness, etc. Their solution: the destruction of Israel and Judaism. The left’s focus on the Jewish state, rather than the Jewish race explains why Jews can join the ranks of left-wing antisemitic organizations or even lead them, but could not and cannot join those on the far right. In each case the projection is obvious for two simple reasons: its claims are contradicted by reality and the destruction of the Jews or Israel, as discussed above, can’t deliver on its redemptive promises precisely because they are baseless. Nevertheless, it’s power is such that even great artists, philosophers, and scientists are not only not immune to its pull, but have historically promoted it. Today there are thousands of left-wing artists and thinkers of stature who advance this conspiracy theory despite being denounced and called out by their peers.
Minority Influence
A third option is to point out the sizeable minority of left-wing thinkers who see Zionism as part of a project of global justice. One can refer people to the growing literature on left-wing antisemitism and anti-Israel conspiracy theories which shows how deep this conspiracy theory has spread in the left written by respected academics from around the world. But more to the point there are intellectuals, artists, musicians, politicians, writers who support environmental and labour protections, civil rights, and Jewish national self-determination. They have not only resisted the pull of antisemitism on the left, but actively view Israel as part of the solution not part of the problem. They support Zionism for what it is, the project of Jewish national self-determination in the Jewish historic homeland. They are people who understand that national sovereignty protects our global cultural diversity and therefore enriches our creative ability to deal with the problems we face. Pointing to such figures can help to expose the thesis that Zionism is the source of global evil as nothing more than antisemitic lies.
Political Company
For those on the left but who ostensibly oppose Islamism, one option is to point them to Iranian, Turkish, and Qatari state websites in English. Most of these websites – whether the Daily Sabah (Turkish state media), The Islamic Republic News Agency (Iranian state media), or Al Jazeera (Qatari state media) – have almost identical messaging with far-left media in the US and around the world. In addition to funding Hamas to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, these states are Islamist powers that brutally oppress national minorities, have appalling environmental records, have launched proxy-wars around the world, and seek to destabilise democratic countries and spread Islamism abroad.
Proper Peacebuilding as Alternative
A final option is show how, in contrast to antisemites, constructive observers and actors in the Israeli/Palestinian/regional conflict tend to focus on the policies that will move the different groups towards living together and respecting each other. They see the larger picture: the post-WWI order of national self-determination for peoples across Europe and the Middle East required imperial rollback and compromise. Romanian national self-determination did come at the cost of a Greater Hungary, Finnish independence was a loss for the Swedish state. Kurdish national self-determination would have limited the size of the Turkish, Iranian, and Arab states had it succeeded. In the levant, the Zionist, Assyrian, and Maronite Christian national movements did require local Arabs to lose part of the land they wished to control in a unified Arab state encompassing Syria, Jordan, and Palestine. This gain for some was the loss for others, but it could not have been otherwise if the national self-determination of different peoples was and is to be respected. However, such acceptance and compromise has been and is possible. Peacebuilders also look at the actions and ideologies of all actors involved in the conflict. They criticise parties and politicians but with the objective of improvement, even when drawing boundaries and red lines. Above all they seek to build a future for all the peoples of the region through historic national and religious reconciliation.
Conclusion
If one thinks in terms of conventional power and interests – amassing territory, wealth, defeating a military opponent – the destruction of two-thirds of European Jewry was a totally absurd endeavour for Nazi Germany. If, however, one sees the Holocaust as a projection of all evil onto the Jews, then it makes sense to those doing the projecting. Today, mutatis mutandis, this same narrative of redemptive anti-Zionism is being expressed across campuses and on far-left news outlets around the world, and is increasingly expanding in social democratic and liberal spaces. This is a clear deadly danger to Jews and must be stopped for this reason alone. However, the thesis that Zionism is a source of evil is also a deadly distraction for all people everywhere. We do not have time to lose with such a pointless projection that not only saps energy and time, but betrays our deepest humanity with its facile format. Our young people deserve a world where they can breathe, earn a living, and flourish, and more than that they deserve to learn that it can be built if we look at reality in the face, take responsibility, and work together with those who are open to doing so. We cannot get back the time and energy lost sitting on campus lawns, walking the streets, and scrolling on phones calling for the destruction of the only Jewish state. We need this time and energy for the real problems we face.
