Introduction: From Infrastructure to Interpretation
By the end of the Cold War, the centre of gravity of antizionism shifted again. What had been developed through political systems and global infrastructure increasingly took root within intellectual ones.
As Part 2 demonstrated, this was not a simple matter of transmission. The persistence of antizionist frameworks depended on convergence: ideas developed in one context aligned with intellectual trends in another.
Within Western academia, a set of influential frameworks — postcolonial theory, settler-colonial analysis, and later intersectionality — provided new ways of interpreting political conflict. Applied to Israel, these frameworks did not merely describe events. They structured how those events could be understood.
The result was not the invention of antizionism, but its reinterpretation.
1. Postcolonial Theory and the Reframing of the Conflict
The emergence of postcolonial studies in the late 20th century marked a major intellectual shift. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) exposed how Western knowledge production could reinforce systems of domination, and his later work extended this critique to the Arab–Israeli conflict.1
This scholarship was neither trivial nor ideologically narrow. It offered a powerful lens for understanding empire, representation, and historical asymmetry.
However, when applied to Israel, one strand of this framework recast the conflict as an extension of European colonialism. In this reading, Israel becomes a settler project and Palestinians an indigenous population subjected to external domination.2
This interpretation highlights real asymmetries, but it also requires compression. It foregrounds colonial analogy while backgrounding elements that do not fit easily within it: the continuous Jewish presence in cities such as Jerusalem, Safed, and Hebron; the role of persecution-driven migration; and the absence of a distant imperial metropole directing Jewish settlement.3
These are themselves contested claims within the scholarly literature. But they are sufficiently substantial to preclude treating the colonial analogy as self-evidently applicable.
The issue, therefore, is not that the framework is without value. It is that, applied in this way, it can narrow the field of interpretation. The conflict is not analysed through multiple lenses; it is absorbed into one. This can be seen, for example, in academic settings where Israel is presented exclusively as a European colonial extension, with little or no engagement with competing historical interpretations or the question of Jewish indigeneity.
2. The Settler-Colonial Framework and Its Limits
The concept of settler colonialism, most clearly articulated by Patrick Wolfe, describes a structure in which settlers seek to replace indigenous populations, typically under the protection of an external imperial power.4
Applied to cases such as North America or Australia, the framework has considerable explanatory power.
Applied to Israel, its use is more contested.
The analogy rests on identifying Jewish immigration as analogous to European settlement. Yet key elements differ: Jewish migration was not directed by a metropole, was often driven by displacement and persecution, and occurred in a territory with an existing historical and cultural connection to the migrating population. Scholars including Derek J. Penslar have argued that Zionism does not fit neatly within classical settler-colonial models, instead occupying a more complex and context-dependent position within that framework. 5
These differences do not resolve the conflict. But they complicate the analogy.
The analytical problem arises when the framework ceases to be a tool and becomes a premise. If Israel is defined as settler-colonial at the outset, then its legitimacy is already in question.
When applied as a premise rather than a tool, the argument is resolved before it is made.
3. From Power Analysis to Interpretive Closure
A broader intellectual shift reinforced this pattern. Late 20th-century theory increasingly emphasised the relationship between knowledge and power — not only what is true, but how truth claims are shaped by underlying structures.6
Applied carefully, this approach can illuminate hidden assumptions and asymmetries. Applied rigidly, it can produce interpretive closure: outcomes are inferred from positional categories rather than tested against competing evidence.
In practice, this can be observed where classification precedes evaluation. When a conflict is framed primarily through power asymmetry, the categorisation of actors can determine the interpretation of their actions.
This dynamic is visible, for example, in institutional analyses that begin from a structural classification and proceed to interpret empirical findings within it — a pattern discussed further in Section 5.
4. Intersectionality and the Organisation of Moral Claims
The development of intersectionality, introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, added a further layer. Her foundational essay, “Mapping the Margins” (1991), conceptualised overlapping systems of discrimination affecting marginalised groups.7
In its original formulation, intersectionality was a tool for analysing overlapping forms of discrimination. In broader activist use, it has sometimes evolved into a framework for organising political claims according to relative vulnerability.
Within some applications, this produces a hierarchy in which groups are positioned according to perceived power. In this context, Jews — particularly in relation to Israel — may be situated outside the category of marginalised groups, while Palestinians are positioned within it. Scholars such as David Schraub have examined the tensions this creates for Jewish inclusion within intersectional frameworks.8
This is not universal, nor uncontested. There is active debate within progressive movements about how antisemitism and Jewish identity fit within intersectional frameworks.
However, where this configuration takes hold, it can produce a specific outcome: support for Israel becomes disqualifying, not because of specific policies, but because of how Zionism is categorised within the framework.
This dynamic can be observed, for example, in campus or activist coalitions where participation is conditioned – formally or informally – on adopting an antizionist position, placing some Jewish students or organisations in a position of exclusion.
5. From Scholarship to Institutional Practice
Academic frameworks do not remain confined to seminar rooms.
Graduates trained within them move into journalism, NGOs, and international institutions, carrying their conceptual assumptions into new domains. In this process, academic categories are translated into institutional language.
This can be observed in reports such as those produced by Human Rights Watch (2021) and Amnesty International (2022), which characterise Israel using the term “apartheid.”9
The subsequent adoption of this terminology in media coverage and student activism illustrates how analytical frameworks can move from academic discourse into wider public language, reinforcing the underlying classification.
These analyses draw on conceptual frameworks developed within academic discourse.
The question is not whether these reports are sincere. It is how their conclusions are structured.
When analysis begins from a framework that presupposes a particular classification, empirical findings are interpreted within that frame. The result is not fabrication, but constraint.
This produces a feedback loop: academic theory informs institutional reporting, and institutional reporting reinforces the legitimacy of the underlying framework.
6. Campus Expression and the Question of Exclusion
These dynamics are most visible on university campuses.
Student activism often draws directly on academic language: “colonialism,” “decolonisation,” “apartheid.” These terms reflect an intellectual inheritance rather than spontaneous formulation.
Within this environment, Jewish students who identify with Israel may encounter a particular tension. In some reported cases, participation in broader coalitions has been conditioned — formally or informally — on adopting a critical stance toward Zionism.10
This does not reflect a single coordinated policy. It reflects the interaction between frameworks and practice.
At this point, the central argument of the series becomes directly applicable. If a framework consistently produces outcomes in which Jewish self-determination is treated as uniquely illegitimate — regardless of the intent of those applying it — then it functions in the way Part 1 described.
The question is not what participants believe they are doing. It is what the framework does.
Conclusion: Frameworks and Accountability
The transformation of antizionism in Western academia is not reducible to propaganda, nor to bad faith. It reflects the convergence of intellectual traditions, historical narratives, and institutional incentives.
Its power lies in its structure.
Frameworks do not determine conclusions, but they shape what conclusions appear reasonable. When a single framework dominates interpretation, alternative readings become harder to sustain.
The significance of this is not that it resolves the debate. It does not.
But it does establish a requirement: that the frameworks through which the conflict is understood be subject to the same scrutiny as the conclusions they produce.
If those frameworks are historically contingent — and Parts 1 and 2 have shown that they are — then they are open to examination.
And if they are open to examination, then the discussion can proceed on grounds that are not only more honest, but more accountable.
References
- Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).
- Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books, 1979).
- Anita Shapira, Israel: A History (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012).
- Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409.
- Derek J. Penslar, Zionism: An Emotional State (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023).
- Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980).
- Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–1299.
- David Schraub, “White Jews: An Intersectional Approach,” AJS Review 43, no. 2 (2019): 379–407.
- Human Rights Watch, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2021); Amnesty International, Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity (London: Amnesty International, 2022).
- AMCHA Initiative, Academic Agitators: How Anti-Zionist Faculty Escalate Campus Antisemitism (Santa Cruz: AMCHA Initiative, March 2024); Anti-Defamation League, Campus Antisemitism Report Card (New York: ADL, April 2024), https://www.adl.org/campus-antisemitism-report-card.
