Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism

By Geoff Mirelowitz

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack and Israel’s brutal retaliatory invasion of Gaza, new challenges have been raised to the right to free speech. Across the United States, restrictions on the democratic right to express one’s views on the conflict in the Middle East center today on college campuses. But precedents set there will be extended, with dangerous consequences for free speech, if they are not answered and opposed.

After October 7, the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies department at Barnard College (part of Columbia University) posted a statement on its departmental website in support of the Palestinian people. Two days later, Barnard administrators took down the statement and links to supporting material.

The department put up a new web page stating it had been told by Barnard’s administration that its original post was “impermissible political speech.”

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The Barnard administration then went further.

According to the New York Times, “The Barnard administration… in late October and November, rewrote its policies on political activity, website governance and campus events, giving itself wide latitude to decide what was and was not permissible political speech on campus, as well as final say over everything posted on Barnard’s website.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) responded, writing to Barnard’s president that such policies are “incompatible with a sound understanding of academic freedom.” The NYCLU added, “Such a regime will inevitably serve as a license for censorship.”

Undeterred, on November 13 Barnard issued a new policy that further limits free expression by students and faculty. The New York Times described it this way, citing the policy, “Rather than just barring partisan activity like rallies from campus, the policy now defines it as ‘all written communications that comment on specific actions, statements, or positions taken by public officials or governmental bodies at local, state, federal, and international levels.’”

This is by no means the only example of such censorship.

The University of Pennsylvania administration denied permission to screen the documentary Israelism. The Philadelphia CBS News website describes the film as “a documentary by Jewish filmmakers, follows two Jewish Americans who observe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, leading them to reevaluate their engrained perspective of Israel.”

The student group Penn Chavurah showed the film despite the denial. Some students were threatened with university discipline.

“Some universities have received over 20,000 emails telling them to cancel our film,” said Erin Axelman, co-director of the documentary, “telling them our film is dangerous for Jewish students. Even though the majority of student groups and faculty organizing these screenings are Jewish. Our film is made by an almost entirely Jewish film team.”  She added, “There’s a groundswell of young Jewish people in America who have come to realize that we can both fight antisemitism while also fighting for Palestinian rights. ”

Brandeis University banned Students for Justice in Palestine on the basis of statements made by its national chapter.

The University of Vermont cancelled a meeting for Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd.

In December the deans of 18 schools at Columbia issued a Deans’ Message on Columbia and Community. Filled with platitudes, it did not mention the anti-democratic policies enacted at Barnard. Nor did it mention Columbia’s decision ordering chapters of two student groups —Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace — to disband for the rest of the fall semester.

The deans’ message called for acknowledging “that hearing chanted phrases such as ‘by any means necessary,’ ‘from the river to the sea,’ or calls for an ‘intifada’— irrespective of intentions and provenance — is experienced by many Jewish, Israeli, and other members of our community as antisemitic and deeply hurtful,” adding “that the fear of being labeled as antisemitic or as a supporter of terrorism for expressing anguish about the loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza or the West Bank makes people fearful for expressing their concerns.”

A ‘politics of feeling’

In response, Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia described in a recent New Yorker magazine article as the most prominent living historian of Palestine, addressed an open letter to the Columbia administration. Referring to the deans’ letter, Khalidi, who is Palestinian American, wrote:

They have thus unilaterally decided that no one should rise up [the actual meaning of “intifada”] against 56 years of illegal military occupation; that Palestine should remain unfree from the river to the sea; and that the oppressed should take permission from the oppressor as to the means to relieve their oppression.

They have come to this decision because hearing otherwise is “antisemitic and deeply hurtful” to some. In determining what speech is permissible and what is not, they have in effect banned the political, while acknowledging the humanitarian, such that expressing “anguish about the loss of Palestinian lives” does not make one antisemitic or a supporter of terrorism (which mouthing other words presumably does). There is no equivalence whatsoever between these two acknowledgements.

This statement amounts to a new norm that prohibits using or learning about these terms and their histories, in favor of the privileging of a politics of feeling. While perhaps appropriate to a kindergarten, it is hard to imagine an approach more contrary to the most basic idea of a university.

Behind these attacks on democratic rights is the false idea that support for Palestinian rights is antisemitic. The U.S. House of Representatives codified this view in a resolution it adopted in December. It “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

This is not a new claim, but it is absolutely wrong. More than 50 years ago, in 1972, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) leveled that charge against the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In a letter written by its presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley, the SWP^[1] demanded a retraction of the charge. The open letter said in part:

The views and record of the Socialist Workers Party [shows] that the SWP has always been a staunch opponent of anti-Semitism and of racism and bigotry of any kind. We have championed struggles against anti-Semitism wherever they have appeared – from the United States to the Soviet Union. Our European co-thinkers were in the forefront of the struggle against the anti-Semitic terror of Naziism. Many of them perished in Hitler’s death camps. In this country before World War II the SWP carried out a campaign demanding that U.S. borders be opened to Jewish refugees from Naziism.^[2]

Opposition to a specifically “Jewish” state in Palestine cannot be equated with anti-Semitism. Such an equation wrongly identifies the interests of Jews around the world with Israel and Zionism. We believe it is your identification of Zionist policies with the Jewish people that helps fuel anti-Semitism today.

At the time, the SWP won support from others. An open letter signed by Professor Noam Chomsky, writer Murray Kempton, literary critic Dwight Macdonald, Rabbi A. Bruce Goldman, and others demanded the ADL retract the charge. “While we do not necessarily agree with the program and policies of the Socialist Workers Party,” the letter said, “we believe that their opposition to Zionism cannot in any way be equated with anti-Semitism… We expect your immediate retraction of these charges.”

Socialists and the fight against Jew hatred

In early 1973 Peter Seidman wrote a series of articles in the Militant newspaper that were subsequently republished by Pathfinder Press in the pamphlet Socialists and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism: An Answer to the B’Nai B’Rith Anti-Defamation League. After keeping it in print for decades, Pathfinder no longer makes it available. Used copies, however, can be found online.

Seidman’s cogent arguments have stood the test of time. They are even more compelling now in light of another 50 years of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people and wars such as the one in Gaza today.

“The crux of the ADL argument,” Seidman wrote, “is that because Jews have been the victims of oppression, and because the Zionist movement believes that the only defense against that oppression is to be found in the state of Israel, anyone who disagrees with this policy is an anti-Semite and a threat to world Jewry.”

Seidman then pointed to “the fact that more than a million and a half Palestinians have been driven from their homes and land in order to clear the way for this Israeli ‘haven’ for the Jewish people.” He continued, “If in fact the very establishment of the state of Israel required the expulsion and exile of another nation, there are surely grounds to oppose Zionism without being anti-Semitic.”

Seidman then raised a question that is only posed more sharply today: “How can safe refuge be found in a state that must militarily conquer a nation of two and a half million people, occupy its land, and be in an endless war with the refugees it has created and with all the surrounding nations?”

World-Outlook readers may find some of these arguments familiar. Similar ideas were expressed in these two interviews published late last year: End Oppression of One People by Another and The Jewish Tragedy Finds in Israel a Dismal Sequel.

It is of course true that some opponents of Zionism are anti-Semitic and foster Jew hatred. In a recent article, World-Outlook explained, “From its inception, Hamas has chosen to incorporate Jew hatred into its program. Likewise, it has chosen to conflate Zionism and Judaism. Its actions are in pursuance of that program, not strictly in opposition to settler colonialism.”

It is also true that those who promulgate Jew hatred often do so by substituting the word “Zionist” when what is intended is “Jew.” Hamas offers just such an example in its charter, which states, “The Zionist plan is… embodied in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” That document is a notorious screed of Jew hatred.

But neither conflating Zionism with Judaism — as Jew haters falsely do, nor equating Zionism with the interests of Jews worldwide — as Israeli leaders and others constantly attempt to do, mean all opposition to Zionism is Jew hatred and bigotry.

Any criticism of Israel now a target

The recent assaults on democratic rights do not only target those who believe Zionism is an ineffective and reactionary answer to Jew hatred. Increasingly any criticism of Israel is branded antisemitic. That is clearly the intent of the recent Congressional resolution.

Derek J. Penslar, a widely respected scholar of Jewish studies, has recently come under attack at Harvard University. On January 19, Harvard’s interim president Alan Garber appointed Penslar as one of two co-chairs of a new Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism.

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers and Anti-Defamation League chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt attacked the appointment. Greenblatt declared on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that Penslar “libels the Jewish state and claims that ‘veins of hatred run through Jewish civilization.’” He denounced Penslar’s appointment as “absolutely inexcusable.”

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Republican leader on Capitol Hill, went even further. She claimed Penslar “is known for his despicable antisemitic views and statements.”

David N. Myers, who holds the Kahn Chair in Jewish History at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), answered these attacks in a Los Angeles Times column. Penslar, Myers wrote, “is a deeply committed Jew and outstanding scholar who…has developed a reputation as one of the leading historians of Zionism in the world.”

The real source of the opposition to Penslar, wrote Myers, is a result of “something he signed: the ‘Elephant in the Room’ letter.” This document “attracted the support of nearly 3,000 scholars and intellectuals. Drafted in August, well before Oct. 7,” Myers continued, “the letter called on Israel to make meaningful moves toward democracy by bringing an end to the occupation of Palestinian territory.”

It “referred to Israeli control over the West Bank as ‘a regime of apartheid,’” Myers explained. “While this is undeniably sharp language,” he wrote, “it captures the harsh and often brutal realities faced by Palestinians in the West Bank, who are denied access to the same rights, services and facilities as Israeli Jews who live there.

“The attacks on Derek Penslar that cast him as insufficiently attentive to antisemitism,” Myers warned, “show how far this movement is willing to go.”

Other opponents of this smear campaign have responded with a Letter from Scholars Supporting Derek J. Penslar. More  than 400 academics have signed it so far. Describing Penslar as a “pathbreaking scholar who has written extensively about the social and political histories of modern Jewish society and the State of Israel as well as questions related to antisemitism,” the letter added, “Prof. Penslar is perfectly suited to help lead Harvard’s new Task Force on Combating Antisemitism at this critical moment in Jewish history.”

Supporters of democratic rights must continue to answer all efforts to silence any critics of Israel and to defame those who oppose Jew hatred, but also oppose Zionism. Steps to restrict democratic rights on college campuses can grow over into wider restrictions.

Other attacks on free speech

It is also true that these restrictions on free expression of ideas have been preceded by others, often imposed by those who describe themselves as “progressive,” or who claim to be acting out of opposition to racism or sexism.

In a January 27 New Yorker essay, The Future of Academic Freedom, Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote, “As the Israel-Hamas war provokes claims about unacceptable speech, the ability to debate difficult subjects is in renewed peril.”

Gersen became the first Asian-American woman awarded tenure at Harvard Law School in 2010.

“Sometime in the twenty-tens,” Gersen wrote, “it became common for students to speak of feeling unsafe when they heard things that offended them. I’ve been a law professor at Harvard since 2006. The first piece I wrote for the New Yorker, in 2014, was about students’ suggestions (then shocking to me) that rape law should not be taught in the criminal-law course, because debates involving arguments for defendants, in addition to the prosecution, caused distress. At the very least, some students said, nobody should be asked in class to argue a side with which they disagree.

“Since then, students have asked me to excuse them from discussing or being examined on guns, gang violence, domestic violence, the death penalty, L.G.B.T.Q. issues, police brutality, kidnapping, suicide, and abortion. I have declined, because I believe the most important skill I teach is the ability to have rigorous exchanges on difficult topics, but professors across the country have agreed to similar requests.

“Over the years,” Gersen continued, “I learned that students had repeatedly attempted to file complaints about my classes, saying that my requiring students to articulate, or to hear classmates make, arguments they might abhor — for example, Justice Antonin Scalia saying there is no constitutional right to same-sex intimacy — was unacceptable. The administration at my law school would not allow such complaints to move forward to investigations because of its firm view that academic freedom protects reasonable pedagogical choices.

“But colleagues at other schools within Harvard and elsewhere feared that their administrators were using concepts of discrimination or harassment to cover classroom discussions that make someone uncomfortable. These colleagues become more and more unwilling to facilitate conversations on controversial topics, believing that university administrators might not distinguish between challenging discussions and discrimination or harassment. Even an investigation that ended with no finding of wrongdoing could eat up a year of one’s professional life and cost thousands of dollars in legal bills.”

One cannot read this account without thinking back to Rashid Khalidi’s letter to the Columbia administration. Khalidi aptly termed this kind of restriction of discussion a “politics of feeling.” He added, “While perhaps appropriate to a kindergarten, it is hard to imagine an approach more contrary to the most basic idea of a university.”

‘Our line is free speech’

In a letter written in 1960, James P. Cannon, a founder of the U.S. communist movement and the Socialist Workers Party, explained well why revolutionists defend the right to free speech. The impetus was a decision by New York City’s mayor Robert F. Wagner to deny a permit for a rally called by the American Nazi Party.

“We certainly didn’t win anything to sustain this right [to free speech] by Mayor Wagner’s decision,” Cannon wrote. “It sets a dangerous precedent. The reasons he gave for denying the constitutional rights of the American ‘Nazi’ screwballs, and his incitement to violence against them, can be applied just as well and just as logically to us or any other minority. We will be greatly handicapped in fighting against such discriminations if we give direct or even indirect sanction to this treatment of others. People who demand free speech and constitutional rights for themselves but want to deny it for others do not get much public sympathy when their own rights are denied. [Emphasis added.]

“As I see it,” Cannon continued, “our line is free speech. We have to fight for it and convince other people that we mean it. With truth on our side, we have the most to gain by freedom of discussion and the most to lose by its suppression. It is true that, as the class struggle develops, we will have to fight the fascists, and not only with words. But this will not be a fight to deprive the fascists of the right to speak and to meet, but a defensive fight to prevent them from interfering with the rights of the workers.”

NOTES

[1] Fifty-two years later the political stance of the SWP is quite different. An SWP statement printed in the October 23, 2023, issue of the Militant, the group’s newsweekly, now declares, “Israel had to be and has to be a refuge for the Jews.” A front-page headline in the paper’s November 13 edition announced, “Defend Israel’s right to exist! Call for cease-fire is support for Hamas.” Ironically the same organization that was once smeared as antisemitic, today smears the millions all over the world who are calling for a ceasefire to end the horrifying carnage inflicted by the Israeli Defense Forces on the people of Gaza.

[2] For the record of the fight to open U.S. borders to refugees from Hitler’s terror, see Socialists and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism: An Answer to the B’Nai B’Rith Anti-Defamation League. The pamphlet includes the entire text of the 1972 open letter to the ADL by Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley.

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