The argument has become almost mechanical. “I am not an antisemite. I am anti-Zionist.” It is repeated so often, with such confidence, that it has begun to function like a shield. Like a linguistic escape hatch, a way to redirect the charge without confronting the substance.
For years, the response has been to push back and insist that the distinction is false, and to argue that anti-Zionism is simply the latest form of antisemitism. But the debate has grown tired, circular and strangely disconnected from what is actually happening in the world.
So perhaps it is time to stop arguing. Perhaps it’s time to agree. Let us retire the word antisemitism. Let us adopt their language and call it anti-Zionism.
After all, we are searching for a term that captures something very specific: hostility toward Jews. Not an abstract linguistic category. Not an academic definition. A real, lived phenomenon.
Anti-Jewish hatred.
And if anti-Zionists insist that their animus is directed at Zion, then let the word stand. Let it carry the full weight of what is being done in its name. Because once we do that, the clarity is devastating.
Start with the semantics.
We are told that “semite” is a broad term and that it includes many people of Middle Eastern origin. Arabs are Semites. Others are Semites. The word, we are told, is imprecise. Why use a term that seems to imply hatred of an entire linguistic family when the target is supposedly narrower?
Fine. Let us grant the point. Let us abandon the term. But then we must ask: What does “anti-Zionism” actually describe in practice?
Don’t look at the slogans, but the victims.
Jews massacred on a beach in Bondi. Synagogues attacked in Melbourne and Michigan. The list, sadly, goes on and on. And just recently, Jewish ambulances firebombed in London.
Why? Because Israel is destroying the system and the apparatus created to murder and terrorize the region, even targeting its own Iranian citizens. Therefore, somehow, the logical response is to attack Jewish emergency vehicles in Britain, created to save lives.
Synagogues are not embassies. Chanukah celebrations are not military installations. Museums are not government offices. These are Jews, living their lives, thousands of miles from Israel. Jews murdered in the name of anti-Zionism.
If this is anti-Zionism, then anti-Zionism does not stay in Israel. It does not confine itself to policy debates or territorial disputes. It follows Jews wherever they are. It attaches itself to Jewish identity itself.
At that point, the distinction collapses. Anti-Zionist, in practice, means anti-Jewish. And there is a deeper reason for that, one that goes beyond contemporary politics.
“Zion” is not merely the name of a modern state. The prophet Isaiah records God’s words: “And I say to Zion: You are My people.” Zion is not just a place. Zion is a people. And so, anti-Zionist, according to the Bible, means anti-Jewish. Tragically, it is almost unsurprising when Jews are attacked across the globe in the name of anti-Zionism.
So let us stop pretending. Let us stop arguing over whether anti-Zionism is or is not antisemitism. Let us simply call it what they call it: anti-Zionism.
Let it include every Jew who has been targeted, harassed, attacked or murdered under the banner of opposition to Zion.
Because if anti-Zionism consistently manifests as hostility toward Jews, if it repeatedly finds its targets not in government offices but in Jewish communities, if it aligns itself with violence against Jews across continents, then it has already answered the question.
We were looking for a word that means anti-Jewish. They have given us one.
If changing the label from antisemitism to anti-Zionism helps expose the scope and nature of what is happening, then perhaps it is a worthwhile exercise. Not because it resolves the debate, but because it sharpens it.
In the end, the question is not what we call the hatred. The question is whether we are willing to see it clearly. Words matter, but reality matters more.
Call it antisemitism. Call it anti-Zionism. The victims know no difference. And neither, it seems, do those who target them.
