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Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism?

(New Yorker) ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt interviewed by Isaac Chotiner - Zionism is the right of Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. This right of self-determination, that many in the anti-Zionist camp want for Palestinians or would want for other peoples, they would deny to Jewish people. Unless you support denying the legitimacy of any national project from France to Ukraine, if you hold the idea that Zionism is the only form of nationalism that's wrong, that's discriminating against Jewish people. That's anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism is a new hue of a very old color. Jews have been delegitimized for centuries. For thousands of years, we have heard that Judaism isn't a real religion. The Jews aren't a real people. The Jews don't really deserve rights. Today, the subject of derision is the Jewish state, not the Jewish people. But it is an old practice. There's nothing wrong with having a passion for your homeland. Italian Americans have that, Irish Americans have that, Chinese American people have that. Zionism isn't something that David Ben-Gurion or Theodor Herzl came up with. It has been embedded in the faith and the traditions of Judaism for thousands of years. If you peel back the layers in anti-Zionism, it is a historic form of delegitimization targeting Jews. It's the same architecture of intolerance that's been there for centuries.
2022-05-12 00:00:00
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