The difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism:
- Anti-Semitism is “hostility and prejudice directed against Jewish people” (OED).
- Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel, and thus support for the modern state of Israel. Anti-Zionism opposes that.
It is evident, at least to me, that more than a few Democratic legislators are moving to the center, and even dipping their toes in the putrid, polluted water of the Republican Party. I am at the point where I am done with the Democratic Party at the national and state levels. Few are the Democrats willing to stand for liberal progressive values. One such issue is the current war between Israel and the Palestinian people.
Many Democrats, fearful of losing the support of pro-Israel voters (and donors), are now painting people such as I as holding anti-Semitic beliefs. How did they come to this conclusion? Some of us on the left dare to call things as they are. Yes, Hamas’ attack on innocent Israeli citizens was immoral and deserved a swift response from Israel. We saw similar circumstances when the United States responded to Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack on American civilians. If former President George W. Bush had just gone after Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists, I would have little objection. However, Bush/Cheney and Rumsfeld dragged the United States into a two-decade-long war that caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and bombed Iraq back to a third-world country. A war, by the way, that cost trillions of dollars and accomplished nothing other than violence, bloodshed, and death in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, decades later, knowing that Saudi Arabia played a big part in the 9/11 attacks, the United States is best buds with them, selling them billions of dollars of offensive weapons.
Isreal could have focused its attention on Hamas — you know the terrorists who slaughtered Israeli civilians. Instead, they are now fomenting a genocide against innocent Palestinian men, women, children, babies, and unborn fetuses. Israel has deliberately targeted innocent people who had nothing to do with Hamas’ attack. As a result, Israel has killed at least fifty times the number of civilians killed by Hamas. Their genocidal actions against the Palestinian people are, without exception, immoral.
Yet, when people such as I dare to point this out, both Republicans and centrist Democrats say I am being anti-Semitic. When people say this, we know that they have drunk the Kool-Aid and are unable to parse the difference between someone being anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist. I am the latter, not the former. I do, however, object to Israel’s immoral treatment of the Palestinian people. I object to their slaughter of innocent people. I object to their illegal settlements. I object to their roadblocks and identity check stations. I object to their indifference towards the starvation of Palestinians, who are starving as a direct result of Israel’s incessant bombing of Gaza. I object to their refusal to accept a two-state solution. I reject the United States’ blind financial and military support of Israel — all because Israelis think a few verses in the Old Testament command them to do so
We must not cower and silence our voices when pro-Israel politicans — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — use a pejorative definition of the terms anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. What concerns me is that many politicans want to trample the First Amendment, and make it illegal to criticize, demean, and condemn people who are dare to call Israel’s war against the Palestinian people what it is is: genocide.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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