What Do Antizionists Want?
What Do Antizionists Want?
Do antizionists oppose genocide? They always repeat that charge against Israel. Do they make that charge against any other country or organization? Do they make that charge against the enemies of Israel? Several organizations opposed to Israel (Hamas, the Iranian government, the Houthis) have clearly stated the goal of wiping Israel off the map, destroying Israeli culture, and killing or exiling the population of Israel. The organizations have also acted on those goals, killing civilians, launching missiles against civilian targets, taking hostages, torturing and killing hostages.
Do antizionists oppose ethnoreligious states? They always repeat the charge against Israel that it is a unique example of an ethnoreligious state, unworthy of the name democracy. Do antizionists ever make that charge against other ethnoreligious democracies, such as India? Do they ever make that charge against ethnoreligious non-democracies, such as the many Islamic republics?
Another thought about their supposed opposition to ethnoreligious states: Antizionists do not spell out too clearly the state that they want to see in place of Israel, but one feature of that state does come clear: It must fulfill the goal of self-determination for Palestinians. It must become an expression of Muslim Arab aspirations for self-governance, in other words, an ethnoreligious state.
Do antizionists oppose white settler colonial states? They repeat that charge against Israel. In many ways Israel does not fit into the classical definition of a white settler colonial state. Do antizionists also oppose real, classical white settler colonial states, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States of America, and those Central and South American states which fit that description neatly?
Democratic Socialists of America loudly applauded the actions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad on October 7, 2023. Hamas does not seem like a good example for those who love democracy. The Gazan voters elected Hamas in 2006, and Hamas subsequently executed supporters of the losing party, Fatah. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza without another election. It has periodically murdered the leaders of rival factions. Hamas also might not exemplify those who love socialism. The leaders of Hamas have reputedly become billionaires, living luxurious lives in Qatar and Turkey. So the attack on Israel by Hamas seems like an odd choice for approval by the Democratic Socialists of America. What made that attack so attractive to them, if it was not democracy or socialism?
Testing the charges raised by antizionists with Occam’s Razor, you see that antizionists generally do not apply their charges to any other situations on earth. The charges do not determine the antizionists’ commitments. Only one feature unites all these charges: Israel. Antizionists trumpet these charges, not because they believe in the charges, but because they want to destroy Israel, a real country where more than 7 million Jews, and more than 2 million non-Jews, currently live.
