Europe: Understanding antisemitism to understand anti-Zionism

Daniel Robert Krygier

Daniel Robert Krygier writes @ The Times of Israel blogs:

Anti-Zionists tend to react with indignation at any hint of accusations of anti-Semitism. This is understandable, since anti-Zionists view themselves as spearheads against racism and injustice. How can they possibly be anti-Semites when some of their “best friends” are Jews? Let us ignore that these “Jewish friends” constitute a tiny minority of world Jewry and their supposedly “Jewish identity” is mainly manifested through their opposition to anything Jewish, especially a tiny sliver of land on the eastern Mediterranean known as Israel.[...]

Anti-Zionists weep while watching Schindler’s List and commemorate the Holocaust, while warning that Israel is committing “genocide” against Gaza and threatening humanity. Never mind that unlike the Jews of Europe, the population of Gaza has quadrupled — to a large degree due to continuous infusion of cruel Zionist humanitarian aid, food and health care. Math was never the anti-Zionists’ strong subject in school.   [...]

Anti-Zionists often feel misunderstood and their hobby vilified. Their ideological ancestor, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr felt the same way. Like today’s anti-Zionists, Marr denied that he was a Jew-hater, a term that he considered unsophisticated and rather crude. Instead, he rebranded his hobby in 1879 as “anti-Semitism”, which gave it an aura of supposed science and respectability.  More.