Anti-Zionism as Antisemitism: How Anti-Zionist Language from the Left and Right Vilifies Jews

It is an unfortunate fact that seven decades after Israel’s founding, some criticism of the country continues to promote age-old antisemitic tropes. Even before Israel was founded, conversations about the Zionist movement and the creation of the State of Israel at times included explicit anti-Jewish animus or espoused ideas historically wielded against Jewish communities (e.g., the claim that a “cabal” is manipulating political affairs). Today, many anti-Zionist activists continue to perpetuate this language.

While anti-Zionism is indeed antisemitism, anti-Zionism is much more socially acceptable than classic antisemitism. The result is that many anti-Zionist activists can embed historic antisemitic tropes in their criticism of Israel without significant pushback. This report attempts to explicate how this troubling issue manifests in the United States and provides numerous examples of anti-Zionists who espouse classic antisemitic themes in their rhetoric.

This dynamic persists in a variety of ways. In some cases, longtime and vociferous Jew-haters like David Duke and Louis Farrakhan may use the language of anti-Zionism for tactical purposes while expressing their antisemitic beliefs. For example, they may swap out the word “Jew” and replace it with “Zionist” in order to avoid censorship by social media companies whose terms prohibit antisemitism, or to appeal to those who might be disgusted by overt attacks on Jews but have fewer compunctions about anti-Zionism. 

In other cases, some anti-Israel activists and ideologues who would normally recoil from overt antisemitism may incorporate classic antisemitic themes into their attacks on Israel and its supporters.

The propagation of antisemitic themes by individuals and organizations across the political spectrum has likely worsened in recent years, as ideas once on the fringe have entered the mainstream; antisemites have become emboldened; and large swaths of the population have become less inclined to seriously examine perspectives different from their own.

To be sure, one can harshly criticize Israel’s leaders and actions without being antisemitic. But accusing “Zionists,” or anyone who supports the existence of the State of Israel, of behavior commonly associated with age-old tropes about Jews (such as greed, bloodthirstiness and power) is antisemitic. Additionally, this rhetoric villainizes the vast majority of Jews around the world who identify with Zionism or feel a connection or kinship with Israel (regardless of their individual views on Israeli policies).

Such language also has an immensely negative impact on the quest to promote understanding, engagement and, ultimately, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to fanning the flames of violence, injecting bigotry and antisemitic conspiracy theories into the discourse on the conflict erodes the trust necessary to reach a negotiated agreement.

Several antisemitic themes percolate in some anti-Israel spaces, including: Zionists are disloyal to the United States; Zionists control the media; Zionists control the government; Zionists or Israel perpetrated 9/11; Zionists are ideologically akin to Nazis and collaborated with them on the extermination of European Jewry; Zionism and Zionists cannot be authentically Jewish; Zionists are greedy; and Zionists are bloodthirsty.

The sections below provide an overview of some of the rhetoric on Israel and Zionism from across the political spectrum that employs classical or blatant antisemitic tropes or themes. The number of examples included from each ideological orientation is not intended to reflect the relative frequency of their occurrence.

1) Theme: Zionists are Disloyal

For millennia, Jews have been accused of having greater loyalty to fellow Jews, Jewish priorities, political movements, value systems or to Israel (since it was established in 1948) than to the countries where they live.  It is true that most Jews across the world indeed feel some sort of affinity with Israel or Jewish nationhood, but this is no different from numerous communities across the globe (such as Chinese Americans and French Moroccans) who feel both a deep connection to their ancestral homelands and a deep commitment and allegiance to their country of residence.  

Perhaps the most important historical point of reference is Christian Europe, where for centuries Jews were viewed as a separate national unit incompatible with broader society and a potentially disruptive force. By the Middle Ages, the disloyalty trope had been wielded to subjugate, persecute and massacre Jews. Some in the Arab and Muslim world have been suspicious of Jewish double-dealing and deceit for centuries, which at times has led to violence, persecution and killings (in particular after Israel’s founding). 

Many anti-Zionists use the disloyalty trope to peel away public support for Israel by casting doubt on the commitment of Jews, Zionists and pro-Israel activists to the interests of their home countries. Others, typically on the extreme right, wield the theme to attack the American Jewish community, which they view as inherently treacherous.

Examples include:

• “By putting tribal allegiance to Israel over fundamental commitment to universal human rights, however, Zionist Jewish organizations in the US and the West in general consciously abet in propagating the racist, indeed anti-Semitic, myth that Israel speaks on behalf of the entire world Jewry and that it is entitled to do so. Reducing Jews to a monolithic group that thinks alike and that is automatically expected to ignore suffering by other humans when the oppressors are themselves Jewish is not only anti-semitic [sic]; it is categorically false and deceptive.” 
  • Omar Barghouti (co-founder of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement), August 2011 

 

• “It is undoubtedly and obviously true that many ‘Jewish citizens’ are ‘more loyal to Israel’ and to the ‘priorities of Jews worldwide’ than than[sic] they are to ‘the interests of their own nations.’”
  • Tobias Langdon (in the white nationalist Occidental Observer), February 2018

 

• “#Zionism is a sign of dual loyalty at best, at worst you are actually paid agents working for a foreign, racist government.” 
  • Miko Peled (anti-Zionist activist), April 2019  

 

• “Just last week Ron Coleman was playing dumb with me as if he doesn’t know what a dual loyalty Ziocon [pejorative term for one who is Zionist and neoconservative] is…now he’s defending Zionist warhawk Dan Crenshaw. You love to see it!”
  • Nick Fuentes (white supremacist), June 2019

 

• “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty [to Israel].”
• “In my opinion, you [Jewish people] vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.” 
  • Former President Donald Trump, 2019

 

• “...how quickly Jewish leaders forgot that I was the best, by far, President for Israel. They should be ashamed of themselves. This lack of loyalty to their greatest friends and allies is why large numbers in Congress, and so many others, have stopped giving support to Israel.
  • Former President Donald Trump, 2022

 

• “What I’m fearful of — because Rashida and I are Muslim — that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim … it’s almost as if, every single time we say something regardless of what it is we say…we get to be labeled something. And that ends the discussion. Because we end up defending that and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of what is happening with Palestine. So for me, I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country [Israel].”  
  • Rep. Ilhan Omar, February 2019 

 

• “The government of America is owned lock stock and barrel by those Zionists that love Israel above the United States of America.”  
  • Louis Farrakhan, Saviours' Day speech, Chicago, Illinois, February 2012

 

• “…Zionist figures who hold an American passport and American citizenship but who suffer from a syndrome called double loyalty, where they put the Israeli agenda the Israeli interests ahead of the American agenda.” 
  • Dr. Osama Abuirshaid (Executive Director of American Muslims for Palestine), December 2016 

 

• “I discovered that the U.S. was top-heavy with Jews who sat in the most important and strategic positions within the government. Most of them, I suspected, had a greater allegiance to Israel than to the U.S. This was only confirmed when I learned of the favorable policies and preferential treatment given to Israel by the federal government, including the stranglehold that Israel has over almost all of Congress.”
  • RockaBoatus, (white supremacist Occidental Observer), April 2022

 

• “…some folks who masquerade as progressives but always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech.”
  • Linda Sarsour (social justice and anti-Israel activist), November 2018

2) Theme: Zionists Control the Media

For many years, Jews have been accused of controlling the media or of having inordinate influence over it.  While there are several Jewish individuals who own or hold leadership positions within prominent media companies, the same can be said for other religious, ethnic and racial communities (in various professions). Further, an individual’s identity as Jewish is not evidence that person is promoting a “Jewish” or somehow “un-American” agenda.

Accusing Jews of inordinate control over the media became a frequent antisemitic allegation during the Enlightenment era in Europe (roughly the 17th and 18th centuries), during which Jews were considered full citizens and allowed to hold the full spectrum of jobs, including in journalism. The trope has permeated societies throughout the world. 

Today, some anti-Zionists accuse “Zionists,” and at times Jews outright, of controlling the media to promulgate a pro-Israel narrative. The underlying argument is that Zionists are preventing the full extent of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians from being disseminated to the general public or are manipulating the available information. On the extreme right, the trope is deployed as further “evidence” that Jews are irredeemably nefarious actors who control major institutions and engineer reporting on a range of topics to further their own political, social or religious agendas.

Examples include:

• “Framing is everything and the Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent. Thus, they are able to craft a narrative of necessary ‘self-defense’ and ‘security’ by making it seem like Palestinians are the perpetrators and suppressing evidence of their own violence, occupation, and dehumanization.”  
  • NYU Law Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), April 2022 

 

• “In addition to immense financial influence, Zionism’s hammerlock over the United States is rooted in its grip over the major media. Through media control the powers-that-be can shape a population’s worldview. The mass media is an indispensable tool for war propaganda.” 
  • Brandon Martinez (right-wing extremist), 2014

 

• “There still is a kind of liberal Zionist control over the discourse on Israel and Palestine.” 
  • Academic and activist Richard Falk, interview with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), April 2021 

 

• “Brothers and sisters, you’ve gotta stop being guided by the controlled media that is owned by Zionist forces that want to make you pawns in the struggle of Israel and Zionism.”  
  • Louis Farrakhan, Speech at the “Millions March in Harlem” event, New York, New York, August 2011

 

• “The collapsing American geopolitical power and influence is not organic – it's orchestrated by the cabal and elites, then magnified by the Zionist controlled media.”
  • Southeast Texas Proud Boys, September 2021

 

• “We understand that the implementation of an academic or economic boycott will be a slow and difficult process in this country. We believe, nonetheless, that in face of the extraordinary stranglehold on the media that sympathizers of Israel have maintained over the decades, merely to make the notion of ending Israel’s impunity and its ‘special relationship’ with the US speakable and discussable in public would constitute a major achievement.” 
  • U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) FAQs

 

• “The New York Times launched a vicious attack on Tulsi Gabbard because she dared to be a voice for peace rather than for endless was[sic] for Israel and Zionist Globalists that control our media and politics.”
  • David Duke, October 2019

 

• “...you had to deal with the Jewish control of the media so that nobody knew, Americans didn’t really know anything about Palestine, because you couldn’t write anything critical of Israel, the so-called democracy.” 
  • Prof. Bill Strickland, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, (anti-Zionist academic), May 2020

 

• “Because we are, we're living in a Zionist matrix in this country. They control the media. They control the social media. They control major portions of the U.S. government. And our country has been taken over. What we need in this country is a good old fashioned American revolution to break the back of the Zionists.”
  • Rick Wiles (Founder of TruNews, a far right conspiracist media outlet; pastor), August 2021 Zionists control the government

3) Theme: Zionists control the government

The roots of this antisemitic idea, like many others, can be traced to post-emancipatory Europe. Not long after Jews gained citizenship in their respective countries, they were subjected to a litany of accusations from antisemites who claimed that Jewish communities had gained too much influence.

Today, many anti-Zionists bemoan alleged Zionist control or undue influence over the U.S. government or foreign policy, which they view as too favorable to Israel. They are convinced that were it not for a “Zionist lobby” or “Israel lobby,” the U.S. government would drastically decrease its support for Israel. Others are more explicit and use the words “Zionist” and “Jew” interchangeably or discuss “Zionist control” to denote an alleged “Jewish agenda.” On the extreme right, many use the term “ZOG,” or “Zionist Occupied Government,” on issues completely unrelated to Israel:

• “For decades now, Americans have allowed the Jews to drag them into one war after another, all of which were fought with Israel’s interests in mind. The Israelis and their Jewish supporters are eager to hold America’s coat while we beat up Israel’s enemies. 
  • E. Michael Jones (antisemitic writer), August 2022 UNZ Review Article 

 

• “the Zionist state department did this on purpose. The U.S. state department is under the control of Zionists. Mr. Biden-His handlers are Zionists. When people talk about who they, who controlled Mr. Biden, tell him what to say, who are they? It's the Zionists in the white house. In the State Department. They orchestrated a debacle in Afghanistan, and it was on purpose. This is part of a greater scheme that the Zionists have for the middle east.” 
  • Rick Wiles, TruNews Stream, August 2021

 

• “Just how powerful is the Israel lobby? My answer is that the lobby controls U.S. policy with respect to Israeli persecution of Palestinians."
  •  Philip Weiss (anti-Zionist journalist and activist), September 2022

 

• “Even though he's clearly going into cognitive decline, Biden is still competent enough to understand what he's doing. He's been a Zionist since he first started in politics (mid or late 20s, I forget) Both of them [Trump and Biden] are traitors to the highest degree. Nobody gets to be the figurehead for any ZOG [Zionist Occupied Government] puppet state without sacrificing their soul.”
  • Goyim Defense League (antisemitic group), October 2022

 

• “The wonderful thing about Zionists is they keep hijacking U.S. platforms including the government to shield them against their criminal activity. The more this is done, the more Americans are waking up to see for themselves how much Zionist Control exists in America. Keep going!”
  • Abbas Hamideh (anti-Zionist activist), August 2019

 

• “We live under a Zionist-occupied government. The entirety of its foreign policy is thus directed towards the ends of foreign interests, utilizing the blood and treasure of the American (White) nation as means to achieve its nefarious ends.”
  • National Revolutionary Movement (white supremacist), August 2022

 

• “The only warmongers I know are the Zionist Neocon Cabal that controls the U.S./NATO and, of course, their hirelings who will go anywhere a dollar is dropped. (Yes, some people are very happy about US nonstop wars against humanity.)”
  • Cynthia McKinney (conspiracy theorist), May 2022

 

• “I write about the control of U.S. Presidents by Jewish Zionist advisers…”
  • Anti-Zionist activist Rima Najjar, March 2018

4) Theme: Zionists Perpetrated 9/11

Some 9/11 conspiracy theorists across the ideological spectrum implicate Jewish people and Israel in the attacks, claiming: the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad either perpetrated or supported the attacks; the media intentionally manipulated the narrative of the events to place blame on Muslim individuals and nations and to deceive the American public; and that Jews or Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks and chose not to inform the U.S. government.

Often, conspiracy theorists will invoke the "Dancing Israelis,” which has become shorthand for the claim that five Israelis directed the September 11th attacks and then danced in celebration as they watched the Twin Towers collapse. Some activists and conspiracy theorists point to news reports that a group of Israelis were detained in New Jersey on 9/11, ignoring or giving no credibility to the fact that that all were released without charge.

In most cases, there is a qualitative difference between right-wing and left-wing propagators of this theme. Typically, those on the left refrain from outright accusations of Israel’s involvement in 9/11. Instead, they attempt to raise doubts over the official version of events while suggesting that Israel may have been involved, or had prior knowledge of the attack, and that more investigation is needed. While different from their right-wing counterparts, these insinuations can have the net effect of casting suspicion on the Jewish community:

• “The granddaddy of all false flags, the September 11, 2001 coup d'etat, which was a neoconservative Zionist coup d'etat orchestrated to hijack American policy and use the American military to destroy the countries around Israel in that region, in order to enable Israeli expansionism and create a whole new world in the Middle East.”
  • Antisemitic conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett, Interview on Press TV, September 2019  

 

• A 9/11 memorial at Michigan State University depicting an American flag and the words "Never Forget 2,977 Lives" was defaced by an unknown individual(s) to read "Israel Forget 2,977 Lives," evoking the conspiracy theory falsely blaming the terrorist attacks on Israel.
  • September 2021 (unknown perpetrator)

 

• “Shitsreal [Israel] and Al-Saud are officially military coalition partners. This makes their alliance on 9/11 that much more realistic.”
  • Anti-Israel activist Abbas Hamideh, September 2019

 

• “Israel’s fingerprints are all over the most deadly terrorist attack in American history!!”
  • David Duke, 2021 (headline of podcast)

 

• “What can be, at the very least, be deduced from this subsequent information and FBI records in this article, is that the Mossad had penetrated the ranks of those involved in the 9/11 operations...”
  • Jeff Blankfort (anti-Zionist activist), May 2019

 

• “There was massive and central involvement in 9/11 by Israeli government, military and intelligence operatives…”
  • David Icke (antisemitic conspiracy theorist), 2019

 

• “The ‘Dancing Israelis’ who turned out to be Israeli Mossad agents caught filming and celebrating the destruction of the Twin Towers. Arrested by police and released without investigation, they were not mentioned in the 911 Commission Report.  Later on Israeli TV they said they were sent to New York to film the destruction of the Twin Towers.  Allegedly, there was no advance warning of the event, but obviously the Israelis knew.”
  • Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (official in Reagan administration) in PressTV, September 2019

 

• “Mossad did 9/11 Google ‘Dancing Israelis’”
  • Text of image shared by the neo-Nazi Nationalist Social Club, 2020

 

• “The final piece of the puzzle…Zionists did it”
  • Cynthia McKinney, June 2021 

 

• “For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little-known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called ‘High Fivers,’ or the ‘Dancing Israelis.’ However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the ‘Dancing Israelis,’ at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.”
  • Whitney Webb, MintPress News (conspiratorial anti-Zionist site), September 2019

 

• “Israel Did 9/11”
  • Goyim Defense League (antisemitic group), August 2021

 

• “Remembering the dancing Israelis who celebrated as the Towers burned and 2996 people died.”
  • Mary Hughes Thompson (co-founder of Free Gaza Movement), September 2018

5) Theme: Zionists Collaborated with the Nazis (and are ideologically connected)

The underlying (if not explicit) suggestion by promoters of this conspiracy theory is that “Zionists,” just like the Nazis, bear responsibility for the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust. Conspiracy theorists, some radical anti-Zionist activists, antisemites and right-wing extremists make various claims to “prove” that Zionism and Nazism were, and still are, ideologically congruent and natural allies. Many point to the Haavara Agreement, which was an anguished attempt by Zionist leaders in the 1930s to save German Jews by reaching an agreement with the Third Reich that allowed Jews to keep some of their property as they were transferred from Germany to Mandatory Palestine. Others refer to Lenni Brenner’s 1983 book Zionism in the Age of Dictators, which argues along the same lines.

Some also might point to Lehi's (far-right pre-State of Israel paramilitary Zionist group) desperate outreach to Nazis or the Kastner-Eichmann negotiations (which were intensely controversial in Israel and led to Kastner’s assassination). Soviet state propaganda, which continues to exert influence, claims there is an affinity between Zionists and Nazis.

The idea that Zionists collaborated with or are ideologically connected to Nazis has several variants. Referenced above, some people (usually right-wing extremists), claim that “Zionists” helped Nazis exterminate European Jewry because they thought it would help establish the state of Israel. A segment of left-wing anti-Zionists, on the other hand, weaponize the Haavara Agreement to make sweeping declarations about persistent communication and ideological cohesion between the Nazis and the Zionist movement throughout World War II. Other anti-Zionists simply allege a parallel between Zionists and Nazis without reference to historical developments, but mostly to express their disgust with Israel.

Examples include:

• “While the Nazis put Jews in the camps, the Big Zionist Jews made a point of hindering and obstructing anything that would alleviate Jewish suffering and death in the camps. For this reason, Big Zionist Jews are at least -- if not more -- responsible than the Nazis are for Jewish suffering and death in the concentration camps and, more broadly, in the Jewish holocaust itself.” 
  • Vaughn Klingenberg in Veterans Today (conspiracy site), July 2021

 

• “’Israel wants to be recognized as a Jewish state. Hitler too wanted an exclusivist state w/o Jews. Funny how Nazis and Zionists are similar”
  • Anti-Zionist activist Abbas Hamideh, March 2014

 

• " The Nazis and Zionists handpicked select Jews to survive and those who would perish... Zionist Jews planned the Transfer Agreement some 38 years before they installed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. It did not arise spontaneously as a reaction to Hitler.”
  • Christopher Bjerknes (in conspiratorial and antisemitic site henrymakow.com), March 2020

 

• “I don’t care who this offends they have completely internalized the ways of the nazis.”
  • Palestinian anti-Israel activist Mohammed El-Kurd, May 2021

 

• “Unfortunately, I have to disappoint your hopes, Adolf Hitler was the greatest traitor to the people, his party (NSDAP) was financed by the Zionists, the World War was a plan and served to get Israel.  Adolf Hitler lived in South America for many more years.  The Nazis were brought into being by the Zionists and funded them to achieve their goal.  Unfortunately, this is the truth and can be proven with authentic documents, at least as far as the financing of the NSDAP by the Zionists is concerned!”
  • User “RS 1776” posted in extremist TruthNow7 Telegram chat, October 2022

 

• “We ask the university: if there were Nazis, white nationalists, and KKK members on campus, would their identity have to accepted and respected? Then why would we respect the views of Zionists?”
  • Stony Brook University SJP, May 2018

 

• “When you accept the proven involvement of Jewish bankers and their political representatives to have been very involved in the funding of the Nazis re- armament, you have only two possible answers: Either Zionists are not Jews or the Zionists wanted a mass persecution of their own people. Both these answers are true. Many Zionists are not Jewish. Those that were knew that to further the rise and creation of the Zionist State in Palestine, they required an irrefutable need. The gathering Nazi hatred and blame towards the Jewish people for the ills of the world which led to the mass persecution, gave the Zionist elite exactly that.”
  • Bobby English (in conspiratorial antisemitic website henrymakow.com), 2015

 

• “The Nazis are still around they call themselves Zionists now.” 

• Sign at anti-Israel rally in New York City, May 2021

 

• “...the Zionists, after the election of an independent German government under Hitler, tried to incite pogroms and large-scale massacres of the Jews in Germany for the purpose of facilitating the stampeding of Aryan cattle from Britain and the United States to punish the Germans for trying to have a country of their own. ... The remarkable thing is that, so far as I know, no Jews anywhere (except Burg) seem at all offended by Weizmann’s admission that he thought the ‘annihilation of the Jews in Germany’ a small price to pay for a Jewish seizure of Palestine.”
  • The Jewish Strategy, Revilo P Oliver, 2001

 

• “Israel-Nazi collaboration today echoes Zionist-Nazi collaboration in the 1930s-1940s:”
  • US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, October 2017

 

• "...that asshole who said 'if you bring up the Third Reich, you lose the argument.' No, you don't! We should all be bringing up the Third Reich all the time, particularly in reference to what's going on in apartheid Israel!”
  • • Roger Waters, October 2022

6) Theme: Zionists are Not True Jews and Zionism Cannot be Part of Judaism 

This allegation manifests in several ways, including through the promotion of the idea that Zionists are not Jewish because Zionism is incompatible with Judaism or that “Zionists” and Israelis are actually Khazars (Eastern European non-Jews who allegedly converted to Judaism in the 8th century) and have no ancestral connection to the land of Israel. Others might refer to “fake Jews;” allege “Zionists” are not semitic (an antiquated racial category); that Zionists are all Europeans; or that they lack the DNA or genetic traits of “real” Jewish people. 

Anti-Zionists who make this accusation usually promote the Khazar theory in an attempt to “prove” that Jews have no historic links, and therefore no contemporary claims, to the Land of Israel. Other anti-Zionist activists view Zionism as inimical to Judaism, alleging that it is an exclusivist ideology that inherently discriminates against non-Jews (ignoring that Zionism does not oppose Palestinian statehood and self-determination).

Examples of such rhetoric include:

• “The so-called Israelis of today are mainly EUROPEAN Khazar converts to Judaism &have no genetic ties to the land. They are not even Semitic.” 
  • American Muslims for Palestine’s Government Relations Coordinator Neveen Ayesh, January 2017

 

• “Zionist[sic] are fake Jews, for example Rothchilds, etc.”
  • PatriotPartyUSA, October 2022

 

• “There’s a group of them that are so wicked, but they say that they’re Jews, but they’re not. They’re the Synagogue of Satan…The Jews in Israel is fake Jews…They’re not the real Jew.”
  • Abdul Haleem Muhammad (Nation of Islam), July 2019

 

• “Eastern European Jews that migrated to Israel...had Khazar blood, not Jewish and Middle Eastern blood, but Khazar.”
  • Dr. Raza Moosvi (Muslims United for Justice) at Quds Day event in NYC, May 2022

 

• “Could it be that the Ashkenazim's plan is to take back and re-settle their ancient Khazaria after the Downfall of Apartheid Israel?”
  • Henry Makow (antisemitic conspiracy theorist), March 2022

 

• “Zionists aren’t real Jews.”
  • Eric Resnick (JVP activist), March 2020

 

• “Definitive DNA studies have now been conducted, and the results are clear and indisputable. The people who today call themselves ‘Jews’ and reside both in the Middle East and around the world are not descendants of the ancient Israelites. They are not the seed of Abraham and have no blood to the prophets of ancient Israel. Instead, DNA shows these people to be descendants of the Kingdom of Khazaria, a country that formerly existed in the Caucasus, south of Russia.”
  • Texe Marrs (right-wing antisemite), 2013

 

• “...the Jewish people today are not the descendants – the overwhelming majority – are not of the descendants of the ancient Israelites. They’re not. They’re from the Jews of Khazaria, south of Russia…Zionism falsified history to invent what is called Israeli people today, based on religion.”
  • Dr. Osama Abuirshaid (Executive Director of AMP), February 2018

 

• “The problem is not the Jews. The problem is the Khazar Jews, who are the power behind the Zionist Israel, the UK and the U.S.”
  • Wardo Rants/Edward Andrew Whitley (conspiratorial antisemite), January 2016

 

• “Zionism and Judaism are not equivalent, any more than ISIS and Islam are, or the KKK and Christianity are. Don't confuse violent and bigoted political ideologies with peaceful religions."
  • Hussam Ayloush (CAIR-LA Executive Director), May 2021

 

7) Theme: Zionists are Greedy 

This theme propagates the idea that Jews who support Israel’s existence are consumed by a monomaniacal desire to accumulate power, wealth and control at the expense of others. People who promote these ideas often leverage age-old stereotypes about Jews to describe “Zionists” as money hungry. Others may also include the claim that Israel or Zionists spend(s) large sums of money to influence American policies or society and disregard the impact on other people and communities. 

Examples include: 

• “Charitable giving is a way for rich people to amass money—power—and then grant it as they see fit personally, enriching their allies, and bypassing much-needed resource redistribution. The concentration of wealth in New England demonstrates the importance of combatting zionism[sic] locally.”
  • The Mapping Project, “Boston’s Zionist NGO Circuit,” June 2022

 

• “It seems that chutzpah is part of the Zionist DNA (altho we already knew that didn't we? So is greed.). Now, according to this UPI story, Israel wants it military aid from the US increased."
  • Jeffrey Blankfort (left-wing activist and journalist), September 2013

 

• “While this jew[Israeli journalist Gideon Levy] seems sincere, in warning other jews to take their foot off the accelerator, they’ll keep accelerating until the world wakes up again to their insatiable greed. Chuck Schumer & Jared Kushner are both examples of jews with differing agendas. One is a Bolshevik & the other is a Zionist Nationalist. They’ll still ally with each other to fight goyim.”
  • Memory Holed Telegram channel, Dec. 2020

 

• “You [AIPAC] are only concerned that the empire giving you welfare money to sustain your illegal occupation is not as strong as it used to be. Thanks to Zionist criminals like you sucking the life out of this country...”
  • Abbas Hamideh, August 2022

 

• “Marxism, identity politics, greed, narcissism and degeneracy will plague us while the Zionists abscond and gloat about their exploitation and destruction of the gentiles.”
  • The FOG (Arizona chapter) Telegram, June 2022

 

•  “Germany has been bled by the Jewish Allies since both World Wars and has been completely exploited as its industries and wealth produced by its people are used to Israel’s sole benefit for over a century. Now this cutting off of natural gas is threatening the basic standards of living for the average German...”
  • National Socialist Telegram New Dawn of White Action, October 2022

8) Theme: Zionists are bloodthirsty 

The idea that Zionists are bloodthirsty has echoes of the historic blood libel, which accuses Jews of using the blood of non-Jews (usually children) for rituals. Such accusations have led to persecution and even massacres of Jews.

Today the charge is often leveled at Israel, including allegations that Zionists/Israel systematically harvest organs or that Zionists/Israelis intentionally kill babies. It can also include excessive references to “blood” in the context of discussing Zionism or Israel. Language may also refer to Zionists as parasites or leeches, sucking the resources out of the societies where they live.

Many antisemites and right-wing extremists promote hardcore antisemitic ideas, such as that “Zionists” or Israelis are inherently desirous of inflicting harm upon others. Others may use less explicit language:

• “[The Zionists] are gonna kill people and destroy cities and level nations until they get all the land they want. And they're going to use American men and their blood to get it done. That's the truth. That's what I'm up against: that Zionist monster that is draining the life blood out of the American people.” 
  • Rick Wiles, December 2019

 

• “they [Israelis] harvest organs of the martyred [Palestinians], feed their warriors our own.”
  • Mohammed El-Kurd (anti-Israel activist), 2021

 

• “Across the country Zionists are beating, gassing, shooting, lynching Palestinians. They’re unhinged. The videos we’re seeing are reminiscent of the Nakba. State-settler collusion emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land. Terrorist, genocidal nation.”
  • Mohammed El-Kurd, May 2021

 

• “All the ‘good’ Republicans touted as heroes by liberal media for feigning indignation at Donald Trump’s twitter are – to a man – bloodthirsty warmongering Zionists.”
  • Eric Striker (white supremacist), August 2021

• National JVP, May 2022 (A cartoon depicted Israeli soldiers joyously drinking the blood of dead Palestinians)

 

• “’Elite’ freemasons, jesuits, zionists blood rape sacrifice in satanic lodges!!!! These sick fucks!!”

 

• Q News Official TV Telegram channel, November 2020

 

• “Can’t get enough save Palestinian kids”

 

• “The Zionists=Palestinian children killers”

• Signs at a rally in Los Angeles co-hosted by JVP-LA, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), May 2021

 

• “These five major events outlined above have together created a poisonous brew of hatred, extremism and murderous violence –and it is ordinary Americans like James Foley—among thousands of others—who have been called upon to pay the price for the Zio-blood lust.”
  • David Duke (white supremacist), August 2014

 

• “Does it come with Palestinian blood”
  • JVP Detroit (in response to a post praising Israeli coffee), October 2022