Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

It is important to emphasize that Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland. It is absurd to assert that a person can hate Israel and deny Israel's right to exist but not hate Jews. Further, the denial of a nation's right to exist is a unique form of hatred directed only at the Jewish State and not at any other nation no matter how heinous that nation's actions.

In To Break the 'Moral Spine' of the Jews, Eliot Kaufman discusses the recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi preventing UCLA from allowing protesters to deny access to the school's facilities to Jews who refuse to denounce Zionism. Kaufman notes that Judge Scarsi "focused on free exercise of religion," but Kaufman argues that "the marginalization of Jewish students demands our attention for other reasons." Kaufman describes what the UCLA protesters did:

They set up barriers and checkpoints, forcibly blocking students from parts of campus unless they deemed Israel guilty of the vilest crimes; rejected Zionism, or Israel's right to exist; and endorsed the protesters' political program. These are Red Guard tactics, anathema to the academic spirit. They call academia's bluff. What university that still believed in its mission would tolerate them?

Self-proclaimed "progressives" spew a lot of rhetoric about threats to democracy and threats to our freedoms, but the widespread, violent protests targeting Israel as well as individual Jews are a significant threat to democracy and our freedoms--and this hatred originates predominantly from a paradoxical yet toxic mixture of Leftist poshlost propaganda and Islamist ideology. It is disappointing that media outlets that purport to be bastions of democracy ignore or minimize the violence directed toward Jews on college campuses and elsewhere.

Fair criticism of specific Israeli policies is not anti-Zionist or antisemitic, but "fair" is an essential word in that phrase. It is demonstrably false to assert that Israel's conduct versus Hamas and Hezbollah violates international law, yet President Biden and Vice President Harris repeatedly imply--and sometimes overtly state--their disapproval of Israel's tactics, and both publicly clamor for a ceasefire that would represent a huge victory for Hamas while helping Hamas to fulfill its stated aim of repeating "again and again and again" the October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack. Denying Israel's right to self-defense against Hamas and Hezbollah--terrorist groups financed by Iran, a sworn enemy of both the United States and Israel--is anti-Zionist and antisemitic. It is apparently difficult for many lifelong Democrats to accept and understand the depths of the anti-Zionism that animate Biden's Mideast policies; don't be fooled by the agitators in Dearborn who assert that Biden is not sufficiently pro-Hamas: Biden loosened the financial shackles on Iran while also funding Palestinian Authority's "Pay for Slay" program that rewards Arabs for killing Jews. Those policies are not only anti-Zionist to the core, but they run counter to the United States' best interests.

It should also be noted that at a broader level beyond the anti-Israel policies enacted by the Biden Administration, Biden and Harris lack understanding of both military tactics and effective diplomacy, as demonstrated by--among other things--Biden's chaotic and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, a historically significant blunder that Harris recently endorsed as "courageous and right." It would be right to say that Biden's feckless foreign policy decisions gave Vladimir Putin the courage to believe that he could invade Ukraine without a serious U.S. response, and it would also be right to say that Biden's bumbling similarly emboldened Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah to attack Israel.

As is generally the case, a foreign policy grounded in anti-Israel thinking is not effective in any sphere, nor is such a policy beneficial for the United States' long term interests here and abroad. Democracies should be working together to curb the power and influence of totalitarian regimes such as China, Iran, and Russia. Biden's policies have strengthened those regimes--and Hamas and Hezbollah--resulting in a corresponding weakening of the United States and a heightened vulnerability for Americans around the world.