by Wayne Besen • March 22, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Weekly Column • Comments (0) • 167

Antizionism is a Hate Movement That Must Be Defeated

It’s Not About Israel or Netanyahu—It’s About Hating Jews

I’m an American Jew who lived five decades and rarely heard the term “Zionism”. Suddenly, it’s everywhere, and the Internet is flooded with venomous antizionist propaganda. The word “Zionism” is very much employed in the same way the Religious Right uses “homosexual” or “homosexual agenda”, instead of “gay”, because the former sounds scarier.

In fact, the original pivot to Zionism was first cooked up by the Soviet Union in the 1960’s. Adam Louis-Klein, who unmasks the antizionist charade, explains:

Trofim Kichko’s Judaism Without Embellishment, filled with grotesque antisemitic caricatures, drew global outrage and humiliated Moscow. Open Jew-hatred had become untenable, so Soviet ideologues ordered a linguistic purge: attack “Zionism”, not Jews. By redefining Zionism as an act of “racist colonialism”, they gave prejudice moral camouflage. Antizionism was reborn, ready for export to the decolonizing world.

In the past year, simply for supporting Israel’s existence, I’ve been attacked online by lunatics and fanatics—on both the left and right—as “Zionist Scum” and “Zio-Boy”, often with defamatory accusations of supporting genocide.

Speaking of which, one can’t talk about opposing ethnic cleansing and genocide unless the antizionism movement is included in the conversation. Zionism began as a 19^th Century academic idea and a political movement to keep Jews safe from deadly European antisemitism.

Zionism was fulfilled, and effectively ended, in 1948 when Jews returned home, and Israel became an internationally recognized state. Zionism, the idea, was replaced by Israel, the country, which is the size of New Jersey and now has a population of 10 million people.

To identify as antizionist in 2026 is to embrace a lazy philosophy, promote an intellectual absurdity and engage in political farce. It’s the equivalent of a person saying they are anti-Louisiana Purchase, against the Russian Revolution or being outspokenly pro-Whig. It’s a pitiable attempt at preventing a peaceful future by deliberately wallowing in the past, while delusionally pretending historical events never occurred.

You might not like that Israel was created and that is your prerogative. But whether you like it or not, Israel has been a highly functioning, technologically advanced, socially liberal democracy for 78 years. Unless you have a secret Time Machine that transports us back to 1947, you’re almost eight decades too late to have a say in Zionism.