So where did the use of “anti-Zionist” as a codename for anti-Semitism- or for forms of anti-Semitism that would otherwise be illegitimate- actually come from?
Like many anti-Semitic innovations, it came from Germany. More than ten years ago I directed and presented a documentary (HATE) for the Israeli Channel 10 about the rise of anti-Semitism, then mostly in Europe. Unfortunately, that film has proven timely for everything that has happened since.
In one scene, I interview a former neo-Nazi, Felix Benneckenstein. Right in the opening, he shows me footage from the days when he was a popular singer in Germany’s neo-Nazi heavy-rock scene. He points to a T-shirt that says “Anti-Zionist.” Why that word? He explains that in Germany, open expressions of anti-Semitism or racism are illegal. German law treats freedom of speech differently from the U.S., based on the conclusions they drew from the Holocaust. Hate speech is forbidden.
So, as Benneckenstein tells me, “anti-Zionist” became a code neo-Nazis used so they wouldn’t openly say they were anti-Semites. It was a loophole. A way to signal the same hatred without violating the law.
There were Jews who were anti-Zionist long before the State of Israel existed. The Bund in Eastern Europe, for example, was as powerful as the Zionist movement at certain points in the early 20th Century. They were not anti-Semites.
But the debate before the formation of the State of Israel and the debate after it are not the same. Before 1948, anti-Zionism was an argument about the future. After the establishment of the state, denying Jews a right to a state of their own means legitimizing the destruction or delegitimization of an existing country. That carries an inherently violent outcome.
It does matter that the “anti-Zionist” code emerged in neo-Nazi circles decades ago. That trick came from them, and now ia being used by people whi describe themselves as progressives.
