Anti-Zionism as a Morality Play

Anti-Zionism casts itself as a cause of justice. In this post-October 7 world it has shed politics, ideology, and context until all that remains is the performance of virtue and the targeting of Jews. 

This is the key insight Eva Ilouz, Director of Studies at France’s School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, brings to the table in Time to Unmask the Imposture of Anti-Zionism, (Fathom Journal – July 2025). By pulling apart the claim that anti-Zionism is just principled criticism of a government or a political movement she shows how it has deeper, more troubling origins, bringing clarity to a conversation many find overwhelming and confusing.

Ilouz walks us through history. She shows how the Soviet Union weaponized the term “Zionism” to isolate Soviet Jews by framing Jewish peoplehood as inherently racist and thus counter-revolutionary. This framing migrated into Western progressive spaces and fused with post-colonial critical theories that took on the moral glow of justice work. But behind the glow, she argues, is something else, something we’ve seen before.

The goal anti-Zionists set out for themselves, of course, is not to build Israeli-Palestinian peace or improve policy. Rather, it is to brand the Jewish state itself as a crime. From this starting point, no action by Israel can ever be justified, not even self-defense, and no expression of Jewish national identity can ever be innocent. This has become profoundly self-evident in October 7’s aftermath.

This is not just a double standard. It is a fundamental refusal to see Jewish peoplehood as legitimate. That is her core insight and is why we are no longer dealing with politics, but with hate.

Ilouz analyzes how language is used in this context. Terms like “colonial” and “apartheid” are not just descriptive but accusatory, designed to shut down discussion. When people use these terms as blanket one-dimensional labels for Israel, they are calling into question Israel’s moral right to existence.

By extension, Jews who support Zionism (which is to say most Jews) are thus cast as moral pariahs, while those who reject it are welcomed as beloved allies. This morality play in which “good” Jews and “bad” Jews are identified is what we’ve seen on college campuses, in social movements, in cultural spaces, and in the broader political world. (See my TOI blog The Good Jew Trap)

Ilouz’s key insight is to point out the most glaring inconsistency in anti-Zionist ideology. If racism, homophobia or sexism can be embedded in language and institutions, then it should be obvious that antisemitism works in similar ways.After all, “if discrimination or racial hatred profits one group to the detriment of another, we cannot let the profiting group judge how harmful its own behaviour is.

And yet, when it comes to Jews this kind of analysis by anti-Zionists is oddly absent. Jews aren’t allowed to define their own lived experience of oppression as other historically marginalized groups do. When Jews call out antisemitism when it is present in anti-Zionist discourse, the reaction isn’t to engage with Jews. Rather, Jews are accused of “playing the victim card” to “shut down any and all criticism” of Israeli policies.

The irony lost on anti-Zionists is how this “reproduc(es) the antisemitic trope of Jews as scheming, manipulative, and destructive agents.”

Ilouz makes her case with precision and restraint. She is not hysterical or accusatory. She is thoughtful and focused. She is herself critical Israeli policies, demonstrating how to be critical without without saying to Jews, “talk to the hand because the face won’t listen.”

She wants readers to think more clearly and to ask themselves hard questions. Why is it that Jewish nationhood is treated as uniquely suspect? Why is Israel’s existence debated in ways no other country’s is?

And here, I believe, is her key question: why do so many of the symbols, stories, and charges used against Israel mirror those used against Jews for centuries?

This article is important not because it settles every debate, but because it re-centers the conversation. It reminds us that anti-Zionism, in its dominant organized forms today, is not really about peace or justice. It is about erasing Jewish peoplehood by turning Jewish national identity into a penultimate moral crime. And in doing so, it repeats patterns that history should have taught us to recognize and resist.

Ilouz is clearly not asking for blind support of Israel. The opposite. She believes intra-Zionist self-criticism is essential for Israel’s long term social health.

But she is asking for fairness, honesty, and consistency. She is calling attention to the ways that anti-Zionist rhetoric isolates Jews and denies them the right to participate in the conversation on equal footing. Her article gives readers a much-needed framework for understanding what has gone wrong in the way Israel and Zionism are discussed, and why it matters so deeply to so many people.

Read the article. It is a piece that stays with you, not because it is loud, but because it rings true.