Understanding Zionism, Antizionism and the Antizionist Litmus Tests on the Left

In conducting candidate evaluations, Jewish Community & Friends for Democracy (Congressional District 7) found more misunderstanding and confusion as to what Zionism is and how antizionist litmus tests had taken hold in many circles on the Left. Several candidates who are favorable toward Israel's right of self-defense did not offer a clear definition and asked us to help them understand Zionism and antizionism. We believe that both Zionism and antizionism must be understood in order for the democracy movement and democratic candidates to avoid division and hate within their own ranks.

Fortunately, there are many resources available to address this issue and groups that are addressing the issue of antizionist hate on the left. Rational and fact-based criticism of government action, including Israel's, need to be separated from rhetoric that demonizes those who call themselves Zionists and spurs hate against Israel and Israelis for the actions of a government they may not support themselves.

What Is Zionism?

Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination in a portion of their Biblical homeland. (Jewish Center for Justice: What is Zionism?) The right of national self-determination in a national homeland includes the right of self-defense within that homeland.

Such a fundamental human rights belief—one that is endorsed for people across the globe—should not be controversial.

Yet "Zionist" is a label that is deeply misunderstood. Indeed, as Mimi Kravetz notes in a recent article for the Jewish Telegraph Agency, even though 9 out of 10 Jews feel a strong connection to Israel and Israelis, and believe in the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in Israel, the majority of Jews don't call themselves "Zionists" (though only 7% of Jews will refer to themselves as antizionists; 14% of younger Jews, ages 18–24, now call themselves "antizionists").

Zionism and Zionists also have been the victim of a long disinformation campaign, including a Soviet-led campaign to equate Zionism with racism. In the hands of enemies of Jews and Israelis, it has become a slur, a litmus test used to keep Jews out of movements in which they have long participated and even led. Jewish Community and Friends for Democracy (Illinois Congressional District 7) originated from the efforts of its founding members to prevent antizionism from driving wedges into the Democratic party and its strong base of Jewish voters.

A new national Movement Against Antizionism, founded by anthropologist Adam Louis Klein and launched in October 2025, takes direct aim at antizionism, calling it a hate movement that is a virulent, distinct and increasingly prevalent form of antisemitism that needs to be specifically identified and understood. Some leaders in the fight against antisemitism agree that antizionism can be and often is antisemitic, but they disagree with Louis Klein as to whether it is a distinct or separate strain, and some, like Deborah Lipstadt, worry that the new label will let Jew-haters "off the hook" for antisemitism.

Yet there is no doubt that the hate that Klein experienced in his own academic anthropologist circle was real and deeply hurtful, nor that an antizionist litmus test is prevalent in many academic and social justice circles today, operating as discrimination against and silencing of Jewish voices unless Jews renounce Zionism. Immediately after Hamas's terrorist attack in southern Israel, Klein experienced antizionist hate himself when he was shunned by his entire peer group in his academic program upon completing field work (concerning an indigenous Amazon tribe which itself considered itself God's chosen people). In response to his ostracism and based on his deep study of indigenous cultures, he became a prolific writer on topics related to Zionism and antisemitism, and the MAAZ website is full of resources that refute antizionist claims about Israel as a "settler colonialist" "apartheid" state and which equate Zionism with racism—all tropes that have been prevalent in recent years on the Left and in many academic circles.

Movements within the Broader "Zionist" Label

There are movements within Zionism that stress various aspects of national self-determination:

Zionism is not a colonial movement—it was long considered an anti-colonial movement. As British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers' general opposition to their cause. "Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists."

Zionism is not racism. For the "best speech ever given at the United Nations," see how Daniel Patrick Moynihan skewers the notion that Zionism is racism—given that other persecuted minorities have pursued the same aspirations of national liberation.

Most Jews Are Zionists

Jews are the "People of Zion," and references to Zion and the Jewish Biblical homeland are engrained in Judaism and Jewish history.

A 2021 Pew Research Center study found 82% of American Jews considered Israel essential or important to them as Jews. The number of antizionist Jews is believed to be a very small though vocal contingent. However, there is deep confusion about the definition of Zionism and antizionism which makes it difficult to determine their prevalence.

As Zioness founder Amanda Berman has stated, it is literally impossible to extricate Zionism from Judaism. Each year at the Passover Seder, we recite "Next Year in Jerusalem," to express the Jewish people's closeness to the land of Israel/Zion as our national homeland. Love of Israel, for Jews, is also tied to love of family, since so many Jews around the world, including those who are Americans, also have family ties to Jews in Israel (approximately 55% of American Jews do).

Despite Zionism's proud history as a national movement seeking self-determination for one of the world's most persecuted minority groups, the word "Zionist" or "Zio" has become a slur in many circles on the Left and on the Far Right as well. This slur's antisemitic overtones long predate the creation of the State of Israel. The terms "Jew" and "Zionist" and other derogatory language were used interchangeably in Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Antizionism

Just as Zionism has multiple definitions, so does antizionism. Criticism of the Israeli government in power is not antizionist, nor is it antisemitic, though it can be both, especially since antizionism is fueled by tropes that are antisemitic. Denying the right of the State of Israel to exist or denying the right of the Jewish people to have a national homeland are antizionist positions. So too is promoting a "one state solution" under which Israel would no longer exist as a homeland of the Jewish people.

Formulations of antizionism may include making Israel's right to exist contingent on it achieving an impossible ideal of equal rights to all, holding Israel up to a double standard and demonizing it, and delegitimizing Israeli national identity (see Natan Sharansky's "3 D's of antisemitism toward Israel"). Indeed, the United States itself would have "no right to exist" if such a standard were applied to it, nor would any other Western democracy meet the standard that antizionists propound as to Israel and Israel alone. (See also Jewish Demographics & Israel for demographic information showing that Israel is the only multicultural democracy in the Middle East.)

Antizionist Hate and Propaganda Against Zionists Is Not New

Roots in Nazi, Soviet-Era, and Earlier Antisemitic Agendas

As historian Steven Norwood has documented in an excellent essay on the history of left-wing antisemitism, the equation of Zionism with capitalism (resting on antisemitic tropes) traces to early Marxism, and continued with the branding of Zionism as "counterrevolutionary" in the 1920s.

A more direct campaign to equate Zionism with racism was instigated by the former Soviet Union in an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy following the embarrassing defeat of the Arab states, backed by the Soviet Union, that had attacked Israel in 1967. (See related research.) Previously, the Soviet Union had backed the creation of the State of Israel; however, it shifted its alliances in the 1950s. This campaign succeeded with the passage of a resolution by the United Nations in 1975 that equated Zionism with racism.

The Soviet-initiated antizionist and deeply antisemitic campaign was prosecuted with great success at the United Nations Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001 (complete with literature stating, "if only Hitler had won").

Definitions that treat Zionism as a form of colonialism, Jewish supremacy, or racism need to be challenged. While a mantra on the left is that persecuted people should be allowed to define their own movements for liberation, it is remarkable that Zionism—a liberation movement for the Jewish people—has been defined by its opponents. See for example the contested definition and debate regarding Wikipedia's definition of Zionism as a "colonial" movement.

How Antizionist Litmus Tests Are Harming Social Justice Movements

After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Jewish Zionists experienced an upsurge in exclusion on the left. "No Zionists welcome here" encampments were created on college campuses. (LA Times: Checkpoints at UCLA encampment.) Protesters ordered Zionists to leave subways in New York. Violent rape of Israeli women was denied by advocates for "believe the women." (The Atlantic: October 7 Sexual Assault.)

The exclusion of Zionists from progressive social justice movements is not new with October 7, however. The same exclusions of Jewish Zionist voices on the left in 2018 caused the demise of the Women's March that strongly challenged the Trump administration's anti-democracy, anti-civil rights agenda in the first Trump term.

Other exclusions predate and set the stage for the demonization of Zionists and the exclusion of Jewish voices in groups on the Left:

• The Sunrise Movement's broadside against Jewish groups
• Zioness, an avowedly Progressive and avowedly Zionist organization, was created following the 2017 Slutwalk in Chicago, where Amanda Berman and fellow LGBTQ activists were asked to leave because they came to the march carrying a rainbow flag that had a Jewish star in the middle.

This sort of exclusion of Jewish Zionist voices in progressive advocacy is increasingly prevalent and presents a deep concern for democracy advocacy. Members of our group have experienced this exclusion personally, including in our efforts to participate actively in the democracy movement itself.

Encampments and Antizionist Activism on College Campuses

Following the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war, encampments of anti-Israel activists formed on many campuses throughout the United States. Despite attention to microaggressions against other minorities, university leaders at leading institutions were unable to denounce calls for genocide against Jews as hate speech.

Antizionist and anti-Israel demonization that occurred in these encampments has been both prevalent and exploited cynically by the Trump administration.

For a compelling account by a Black Stanford pre-med student of her indoctrination against Zionism and Israel in the encampment at Stanford University, including widespread misinformation regarding the Hamas attack on Israel, the mischaracterization of Hamas's victims as all soldiers, and how she came to a new appreciation of the importance of restoring Black-Jewish ties after she attended the Nova Exhibit in Los Angeles and was ostracized for visiting Israel, see this testimony.

The encampments and widely reported antizionist and anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses have been exploited by the Trump administration. "Some Jewish senators have accused Trump of exploiting antisemitism to target U.S. universities, making reference to his threats to defund certain schools following pro-Palestinian campus protests. In April 2025, five Jewish Democratic senators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, accused the Trump Administration of using 'a real crisis as a pretext to attack people and institutions who do not agree with you.'" (TIME)

Numerous antizionist and anti-Israeli tenure and academic promotion cases as well as complaints by Jewish students regarding antizionist indoctrination on campuses have been cited in news articles and essays. For a leading source covering activities at UIC in Congressional District 7, see Cary Nelson (retired University of Illinois English Professor and former president of the American Association of University Professors).

Direct educational programming and ensuring open and unbiased discourse on related topics in classrooms are required to keep campuses safe for their Jewish students.