In the years since the October 7, 2023 attacks, a familiar claim has echoed across campuses, media commentary, and political discourse: antizionism is not antisemitism. Critics insist that opposition to Zionism is merely a political position directed at the policies or existence of the State of Israel, not hostility toward Jews as Jews.
Yet events unfolding across North America and Europe reveal a troubling contradiction, beyond the simple observation that wishing for the end of the only Jewish state might be somewhat anti-Jewish.
In recent months, synagogues in Canada, the United States, and Europe have been vandalised, threatened, or attacked. Jewish schools and community centres have required heightened security. Congregations have been forced to cancel services or gather behind police barriers. In many cases, those responsible have justified their actions not by citing theology or ancient prejudice, but by invoking Israel.
The message is unmistakable: Jews are being targeted because of the actions or existence of the Jewish state.
This contradiction exposes the flaw at the heart of the “antizionism is not antisemitism” claim. If Zionism were truly unrelated to Jewish identity, Jews would not be held collectively responsible for it. Synagogues would not be attacked. Jewish institutions would not be threatened. And Jewish individuals would not be expected to answer for the policies of a state thousands of kilometres away.
Yet that is precisely what we are witnessing.
This pattern reveals something deeper than mere political protest. It reflects a longstanding antisemitic impulse – the collective attribution of guilt to Jews as a people. Historically, Jews were blamed for plagues, economic crises, and wars. Today, many Jews find themselves blamed for Israel.
The mechanism is the same even if the language has changed.
To be clear, criticism of Israeli policies (like criticism of any democratic government) is legitimate and often vigorous within Israel itself. Israeli citizens debate their government intensely. Jewish communities around the world hold a wide spectrum of views about Israeli politics. None of this constitutes antisemitism.
But something fundamentally different occurs when Jews everywhere are treated as representatives of Israel, or when Jewish religious institutions become targets of anger directed at the Israeli state.
A synagogue is not an embassy. A Jewish school is not a military installation. A congregation at prayer is not the government of Israel.
Yet when mobs attack Jewish institutions while chanting about Israel, the political argument collapses into ethnic hostility.
This phenomenon is precisely why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism identifies “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel” as a contemporary form of antisemitism. The principle is simple – Jews should not be punished, threatened, or attacked for events over which they have no control.
In theory, many who identify as antizionist insist they oppose antisemitism and condemn attacks on Jewish communities. In practice, however, the rhetoric of antizionism frequently creates the moral atmosphere in which such attacks become thinkable.
When Israel is portrayed not merely as a state but as a uniquely malevolent force — a “genocidal,” “racist,” or “illegitimate” entity — it becomes easier for extremists to extend that condemnation to Jews who are perceived as connected to it. The line between opposing Israel and targeting Jews becomes blurred.
History has shown repeatedly how easily that line can disappear altogether.
In the late nineteenth century, mobs attacked Jewish communities in Europe after accusations of political conspiracies. In the twentieth century, Jews were collectively punished for imagined global influence. In the twenty-first century, Jews are again threatened or attacked because they are assumed to support Israel.
The language has evolved. The pattern has not.
Those who genuinely wish to distinguish anti-Zionism from antisemitism must confront this contradiction honestly. If opposition to Zionism is truly about politics rather than hostility toward Jews, then Jewish communities must not become targets when Israel is in the headlines.
When synagogues are attacked in the name of opposing Israel, that distinction collapses.
The safety of Jewish communities cannot depend on geopolitical developments thousands of kilometres away. Jews should not have to fear for their places of worship because of events in the Middle East. No other minority group is expected to bear collective responsibility for the real or imagined actions of a distant state.
Jews should not be either.
The recent attacks in Canada, the United States, and Europe remind us that antisemitism rarely announces itself openly at first. It often begins with language that appears political or ideological, before gradually expanding to encompass Jews as a whole.
When anger at Israel becomes justification for targeting synagogues, the reality becomes impossible to ignore.
At that point, the claim that anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.
Because when Jews are attacked for Israel, the target is no longer Zionism. It is Jews.
