History of Antizionism

Soviet Antizionism

Antizionism in the Soviet Union was never merely a critique of a foreign nationalist movement; it was a central tool in the ideological campaign to suppress Jewish identity. As early as 1916, Lenin derided Zionism as “bourgeois nationalism,” and by 1918, the Bolsheviks had established the Yevsektsiya, a Jewish section of the Communist Party tasked with dismantling Jewish communal life from within. Between 1918 and 1920, synagogues were shuttered, Hebrew schools closed, and Zionist activists imprisoned or exiled. Zionism was reframed as a counter-revolutionary force and, by extension, Jews who identified with their peoplehood were portrayed as threats to the socialist order.

This narrative persisted for decades. “Zionist” became a euphemism for “reactionary Jew,” a cipher used to justify purges, propaganda, and the severing of Jews from their religious and national roots. Antizionism allowed Soviet authorities to present their antisemitic policies as anti-colonial virtue. In reality, it was a form of ideological laundering — cloaking ethnic repression in revolutionary language.

Middle Eastern Antizionism

In the Middle East, antizionism long predated the creation of the State of Israel. Already in the 1920s, Jewish communities in Mandatory Palestine faced violent Arab uprisings, and by the 1930s, pogroms extended to Hebron, Safed, and beyond. In 1941, the Farhud in Baghdad — a state-sanctioned massacre that killed over 180 Jews — marked a decisive turn, fusing antisemitism with Arab nationalism under the banner of antizionism.

After 1948, antizionism became state policy in much of the Arab world. Zionism was reframed as a Western colonial conspiracy, and Jews — regardless of political position or generational presence — were recast as internal enemies. In a matter of decades, nearly 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced to flee from Arab and Muslim lands, including Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Property was seized, citizenship revoked, and histories erased. Antizionism provided the language through which antisemitic purges could be justified, not as hatred of Jews, but as resistance to “Zionist aggression.”

Western Antizionism

Western antizionism is the most recent and rhetorically sophisticated form of the phenomenon. Emerging in the 1960s within anti-imperialist and Marxist intellectual circles, it began as a critique of Israeli state policy but quickly evolved into a totalizing rejection of Jewish sovereignty. Unlike Soviet or Arab versions, Western antizionism couches itself in the language of human rights, decolonization, and progressive politics — but the underlying logic remains constant: Jews, uniquely, are denied the right to self-determination.

In universities, media institutions, and activist spaces, antizionism now functions as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism. Jews who do not publicly repudiate Zionism are often viewed with suspicion, excluded from coalitions, or accused of complicity in oppression. The charge of “Zionism” is levied not based on belief but on identity. This environment has produced conditions in which antisemitic harassment is normalized — rebranded as moral clarity — and Jewish belonging is made contingent upon political disavowal. The rhetoric has changed; the outcome has not.

This narrative persisted for decades. “Zionist” became a euphemism for “reactionary Jew,” a cipher used to justify purges, propaganda, and the severing of Jews from their religious and national roots. Antizionism allowed Soviet authorities to present their antisemitic policies as anti-colonial virtue. In reality, it was a form of ideological laundering — cloaking ethnic repression in revolutionary language.

Learn about antizionist tactics.