Why Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

On Hitchens, anti-Zionism, and the fundamentals of logic

Source: AFP

One of the greatest errors of judgment Christopher Hitchens ever made, and to be sure there weren’t many, was his opposition to Zionism. “I am an anti-Zionist,” he once explained. “I’m one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians.”

Except there would still be all the European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and African nations from which Jews fled slaughter or were forced into exile. Consider that in 1948, the year Israel was established, Algeria had about 140,000 Jews while Libya had roughly 38,000. Yet today there only about 50 Jews in Algeria and none in Libya. During World War II, Algeria was ruled by Nazi collaborationist France while Libya was ruled by Nazi Germany’s ally Italy. Jews in these countries were murdered, sent fleeing across the Sahara, or put in one of North Africa’s concentration camps such as the Im Fout camp in Morocco, the Djelfa camp in Algeria, or the camps of Giado, Buqbuq, and Sidi Azaz in Libya. Even after the successful Anglo-American invasion of French Morocco and Algeria, which ended in November 1942, it was years before the Allies shut down these camps and released their prisoners.

The population of Jews also collapsed in Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Turkey. This is because even after the war, Jews in these countries faced expulsion and massacre, or if they were allowed to stay they were banned from voting, their property was confiscated, and their synagogues were destroyed or turned into mosques.

“I think Zionism,” Hitchens once elaborated on Charlie Rose, “the idea of building a state of Jewish farmers on Arab land in the Middle East, is a stupid idea to begin with … I think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a messianic idea. I think it’s a superstitious idea.” But he added, “many states were founded on injustices or foolishness or bad ideas. It doesn’t mean that anyone can just come and evict or destroy them.”

And yes, Zionism is partly a messianic idea. It is partly a superstitious idea. But it is also, and arguably mostly, an existential idea. It is not about religion so much as refuge, not about the mashiach so much as mishpacha, and not about superstition so much as survival. No people in human history have faced as much persecution in as many places for as many centuries as the Jews. Anti-Zionism is therefore tantamount to saying, you can’t go anywhere else but you can’t stay here.