The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
"Antizionists" Show Their Genocidal Colors
(Two background notes. (1)Nick Riemer is a very prominent Australian "progressive" "antizionist" and his views expressed here are relatively moderate compared to those who are celebrated Hamas' "act of resistance" though less moderate than those engaging in "both sideism"; (2) Everyone knows that the slaughter, rape, kidnapping, and so on of hundreds of Israelis is precisely what Hamas would do to the entire Jewish population of Israel if it had the power to do so. So, with that said…)
There has been too much pointless debate over whether those who call for Israel's destruction are necessarily antisemitic. The important point is that such people know that the end of Israel most likely means genocide for 7.5 million Israeli Jews, and they are okay with that.
Whether they are motivated by Islamism, leftist bs "anticolonialism," hostility to the West with Israel as their first target, or pure hatred of Jews is immaterial, it's much worse than mere antisemitism. Most antisemites aren't full-on Nazis, and as much as they dislike Jews would object to mass murder (just like most people who have racist opinions of black people would object to mass murder). The so-called antizionists do not, and therefore are much worse.
It's a weird tic of American progressivism to worry more about people's expressed moral intentions than their actions, which explains why, for example, moderate liberals are more likely to ally with radical anti-liberal leftists than with moderate conservatives--they think the former but not the latter are "well-meaning.") I really don't care if someone doesn't like Jews. But someone who claims and may sincerely think that they have nothing against Jews, but is content to see my friends and relatives in Israel murdered in the name of some idiotic ideology, that's a real problem.
Here's a test, which in my experience almost all leftist "antizionists" fail. Most of them will claim that they have some solution in mind to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will protect the rights of what would become the Jewish minority in an imagined future "Palestine." So you ask them, "well, what if it turns out as a practical matter that your one-state solution, if implemented, will likely result in the murder/ expulsion/oppression of the 7.5 million Jews in Israel. Would you still support it?" This should be an easy question to answer, especially given that it's a pure hypothetical, the answer to which could not be binding. I've asked this many times to "antizionists," and I've never received an unequivocal "no." They are ok with genocide.
(A slightly different version of this post was cross-posted at Instapundit)
