Organisations urged to unite against antizionism

Two of the world’s leading thinkers and writers on antizionism spoke to a packed house on Friday, August 14 in Sydney.

Visiting US academic Dr Naya Lekht, Founder of Stop Antizionism joined Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU) executive director Joshua Dabelstein for a panel discussion titled “United Against Antizionism” with the Zionist Council of NSW and facilitated by host and moderator Andrew Klein.

The speakers presented the history of antizionism through Soviet propaganda and pseudo-academia from the 1960s onwards. Lekht was born in the former Soviet Union and grew up hearing her parents’ stories of antizionism permeating schools, universities, workplaces, and the media. Alongside her parents’ experiences, she also carries the legacy of her grandfather, a Holocaust survivor whose younger brother was burned alive in a synagogue in Poland, and whose older brother was shot in a ghetto.

Dabelstein spoke of university indoctrination, and the allure of antizionist rhetoric, emphasising that, despite presenting as hate, that all bigotry considers itself a social justice initiative. While classically antisemitic race-based targeting of Jews has been rendered socially unacceptable for decades, the pair argued that antizionism is not only socially permissible, but fashionable. Antizionism now launders classically antisemitic tropes—tropes considered impermissible prior to the explosion of antizionism after October 7. This makes it crucial to diagnose and treat antizionism as the vehicle for today’s anti-Jewish hate.

Lekht and Dabelstein’s primary, shared contention is that antizionism stigmatises Jews worldwide through a “moral” instinct that operates distinctly to prior centuries’ religion-based or ethnicity-based anti-Jewish sentiments. Merely saying “antizionism is antisemitic” is a failed strategy, and is often contradicted by statements like, “antizionism can cross over into antisemitism.”

Their work demonstrates that antizionism’s obsession is not with Israel’s actions, but with its perceived uniquely illegitimate and evil existence. This obsession casts all who may be connected to the Jewish state as party to its malevolence. It is not a “mask” for antisemitism, and it is mutually exclusive with “political criticism”.

The speakers instructed that anti-Jewish libels and conspiracies are institutionalised through our highest intellectual and moral authorities every century. Today, the “Zionist” is seen to embody genocide, apartheid, colonialism, and infanticide.

They invited the Jewish community and organisations to prioritise further education and action on antizionism.

The Zionist Council of NSW has established its own Committee to Combat Antizionism. Its representative outlined having grown up in a family of Holocaust survivors, with his father a survivor speaker at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He emphasised that whilst Holocaust education is very important – “It is not working. What we hear in the streets and in the media is: The Jews are committing genocide. Kill the genocidal Jews”.

The topic of legal protections was also examined.

After Andrew Klein closed the Q&A, a large crowd swamped the speakers wanting more information and asking about how to get involved. MAAZ AU runs fortnightly talks, live events, and bespoke trainings for organisations, institutions, and schools.

More info: linktr.ee/maaz.aus