Is antizionism antisemitism? That’s no longer an intra-Jewish nor academic debate. Rather, it’s a question with legal and policy implications for all Americans, especially on college campuses.
Last October, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a case by the StandWithUs Centre for Legal Justice against MIT, which alleged that the university’s response to anti-Israel activism after October 7 “subject[ed] MIT’s Jewish and Israeli students to antisemitic harassment”. Among other reasons for the dismissal, the court rejected that the plaintiffs equated antizionism and antisemitism, noting an “absence of consensus” on the subject.
In contrast to the First Circuit’s decision, the National Jewish Advocacy Centre announced last Tuesday that the Superior Court of New Jersey was allowing a Jewish chaplain’s case involving antisemitism linked to antizionism to proceed to discovery. The case alleged “discrimination and retaliation” for criticising campus antisemitism, “including objecting to an event advocating for the destruction of Israel” at Fairleigh Dickinson University. And this question of whether antizionism is antisemitism was front and centre at the US Commission on Civil Rights’ hearing on campus Jew-hatred last Thursday.
But let’s step back and define antizionism. Carly Gammill, Director of Legal Policy & Litigation for StandWithUs Saidoff Law, explained, “Antizionism is opposition to Jewish self-determination in the land of Israel, the Jewish ancestral homeland.” It “singles out the world’s only Jewish nation for unique delegitimisation, demonisation, and application of double standards” and “seeks the destruction and elimination of Israel.”
“Antizionism, like all forms of antisemitism, is a conspiratorial worldview that blames ‘The Jews’ for all of the world’s problems,” Kenneth Marcus, Chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Centre, added. “In other words, antizionism views Israel as the ‘collective Jew’ or the ‘Jew among nations.’”
Naya Lekht, Founder of Stop Antizionism, underscored antizionism’s connection to Jewish individuals: Antizionism “target[s] the Jew as a national or political criminal.” While earlier iterations of Jew-hatred treated Jews as religious heretics or racial polluters, antizionism “relies on libels – apartheid, genocide, colonialism – to demonise the Jewish people through their nation-state. It is an assault on Jewish national origins, which is why Israel is central to it.” In short, “it really is the demonisation of Jews, using Israel as a demon.”
These concepts unfold in the real world. The American Jewish Committee’s new report, “The State of Antisemitism in America 2025,” found 47 per cent “of young American Jews say they were the personal target of antisemitism in the last year, compared to 28 per cent for those age 30 and over.” Hostility and discrimination remain particularly acute at universities, where antizionism prevails. “Forty-two per cent of American Jewish college students report experiencing antisemitism during their time on campus,” while 25 per cent “have felt or had been excluded from a group or an event on campus because they are Jewish.”
Most Jews understand that open Jew-hatred surged after October 7, frequently presenting as antizionism. Others need to too.
Gammill explained that the Federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) accepts as a given that for the vast majority of Jews, their connection to Israel is a fundamental part of their Jewish identity. So, OCR considers that factor when judging whether a Jewish student’s civil rights have been violated. However, Gammill said, “many academics, administrators, and now even federal courts,” instead “conclud[e] that antizionist forms of antisemitism are . . . political expression, even when such so-called expression includes harassment, exclusion, vandalism, threats and/or physical violence.”
That divide emerged at the Civil Rights Commission hearing, where those testifying disagreed about where speech protections end and civil rights protections begin. The Commissioners’ report is expected by this fall.
Meanwhile, Marcus recalled the Civil Rights Commission “caution[ed] that antisemitism is no less dangerous when camouflaged as antizionism” two decades ago. “After October 7, it is now so much more important for federal agencies to grasp that antizionism is a major threat not only to the Jewish people but to America as a whole. When campus antizionists announce that their goal is to destroy Western civilisation, they should be taken seriously.”
Meanwhile, Marcus recalled the Civil Rights Commission “caution[ed] that antisemitism is no less dangerous when camouflaged as antizionism” two decades ago. “After October 7, it is now so much more important for federal agencies to grasp that antizionism is a major threat not only to the Jewish people but to America as a whole. When campus antizionists announce that their goal is to destroy Western civilisation, they should be taken seriously.”
Threats are gathering simultaneously against Jews and America more broadly. Gammill warned, “Refusal or failure to recognise antizionist forms of antisemitism” as “attacks against a core component of mainstream Jewish identity … leaves the vast majority of the Jewish community … vulnerable to continued hostility and without legal recourse under civil rights law when such hostility escalates to unlawful discrimination.”
To guard against that, Lekht’s organisation posted an online declaration intended to establish consensus on antizionism; the public is invited to sign. “So no judge, as in the StandWithUs v. MIT case, can again claim there is disagreement about how antizionism demonises Jews,” Lekht commented.
Offence is the best defence. Jews must define antizionism for the public, teach how it manifests and is recognisable, and explain why it’s Jew-hatred. Jews’ civil rights won’t be ensured by law without educating Americans first.
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