faq

why not just say “antisemitism”?

Because the term antisemitism does not fully capture how hostility toward Jews operates today. Historically, “antisemitism” referred to an ideology that framed Jews as infiltrators of European nation-states. Before that, religious-based libels accused Jews wickedness based on their rejection of Jesus or Mohammed.

In the twenty-first century, new libels—colonizer, apartheid, genocide—emerge in the language of anti-colonial virtue, focused on Israel and those perceived to be associated with it. Antizionism performs the same social function as its predecessor ideologies—casting Jews as the unique obstacle to global justice—but in a form adapted to contemporary sensibilities about power, race, and colonialism.

Continuing to rely exclusively on “antisemitism” implies that the problem is static, when in fact it has evolved. Naming antizionism as distinct allows us to identify the current iteration of an old pattern: the targeting of Jewish existence in whatever moral register a society finds acceptable at the time.

Please also see our section on “Is Antizionism Antisemitism?”

But what about zionism?

This project is not an inquiry into Zionism or an analysis of the State of Israel. Those subjects already have a vast body of scholarship, institutions, and debate devoted to them. Our focus is different: to study the antizionist complex—its logic, its effects, and its mechanisms across social, political, and cultural contexts. The “Zionism” invoked by contemporary antizionists is not a faithful representation of Jewish history or political thought, but a rhetorical construct, engineered to stand in for the Jewish people as the object of collective blame. To center that construct would be to accept its terms and to return once again to the cycle of Jewish self-explanation, where legitimacy must be endlessly reargued rather than assumed. Our task is not to defend or reinterpret Zionism, but to examine antizionism as a hate movement, sustained by its own ideological machinery.

Why no hyphen in antizionism?

Because the anti- construction itself is fraudulent: it implies a real, stable counterpart that does not exist in the way antizionists claim. No serious thinker still treats “anti-Semitism” as literal opposition to a coherent thing called “Semitism.” We understand that the term acted as a pseudo-scientific fig leaf for older hatreds. The same is true here. Antizionism is not the negation of a concrete ideology but the latest rhetorical form through which hostility toward Jews legitimizes itself as moral critique. Removing the hyphen signals that antizionism is not a debate with “Zionism” but a coherent hate movement and ideology.

what about antizionist jews?

Please see our section on antizionist Jews here.

what about palestinians?

Antizionism harms Palestinians. Antizionist regimes and militias — Houthis, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Iranian regime and others — colonize whole regions and submit their populations to an endless war machine. These groups run authoritarian and repressive regimes that oppress their citizens denying them basic rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion, gender equality, and other universal human rights. Ending antizionism is the condition for Palestinian dignity and peace.

Is it islamophobic?

Fighting Islamophobia requires fighting antizionism. When antizionism is denied and erased from the discourse, it appears as if the Jew-hatred emanating from left wing and non-European contexts can be reduced to “Islam as such.” It’s essential to show, on the contrary, that antizionism is a specific bigotry that can appear in numerous contexts and at the intersection of different ideologies. Antizionism is not essential to Islamic civilization. The Movement Against Antizionism (MAAZ) opposes Islamophobia, antizionism, and all forms of bigotry and racism.

are you partisan?

This movement transcends political affiliation and ideological boundaries. Antizionism emerged as a left-coded anti-Jewish bigotry, but it manifests across the political spectrum, from the progressive left to the far right. Antizionism is not essential to progressivism or to the left. Our work is rooted in universal moral principles and in the understanding that anti-Jewish hatred is not only a Jewish concern but a social pathology that undermines the foundations of justice. We seek to safeguard that justice from the corrosive influence of antizionism wherever it emerges.

can non-jews participate in your movement?

Yes, and their participation is essential! Because antizionism operates primarily within non-Jewish societies, those societies bear the responsibility for dismantling it. Jewish voices can describe or give testimony; non-Jewish allies must help transform the culture that permits it. Joining this work does not require uniformity of thought on Israeli policy or Jewish theology—it requires a principled commitment to oppose scapegoating, reject moral hierarchies that single out Jews, and affirm a shared human obligation to justice and truth.