The campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
Although some acts of anti-Semitism are perpetrated under the guise of anti-Zionism, anti-Zionists, a group that includes some Israelis, are not anti-Semitic despite a definition of anti-Semitism being promoted by the International Alliance for Holocaust Remembrance and Israeli governments under Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli government’s campaign equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism has achieved considerable success. In May 2016, the International Alliance for Holocaust Remembrance (IHRA) decided to add “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” to its definition of anti-Semitism.
French President Emmanuel Macron made similar comments in 2017 and again on Feb. 21 of this year during a meeting with the leadership of CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France), the umbrella organization of the French Jewish community, as reported in Al-Monitor by Rina Bassist. Macron reiterated the identification of anti-Zionism with modern-day anti-Semitism and pledged that his government would define anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbin, leader of the Labor Party in the United Kingdom, came in for sharp criticism when his party initially refused to adopt the IHRA's definition, criticism that eventually led to a change in Labor’s position and adoption of the definition in September 2018.
