Zionist antisemitism, also known as antisemitic Zionism or pro-Israel antisemitism, refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the far right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their countries and see Zionism as the least complicated method (in comparison to ethnic cleansing or genocide) of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
The Israeli government's alleged collaboration with antisemitic politicians abroad has been criticized by anti-Zionists as a manifestation of Zionist antisemitism, in that it seeks to highlight Jew-hatred in order to provide further incentive for Jewish immigration to Israel. In this context, anti-Zionists have criticized the Zionist movement's alleged complicity with or capitulation to antisemitism since it gained traction in the 19th century, and some anti-Zionists have also categorized Zionism as a form of antisemitism.
Background A complex matrix of racial stereotypes invested European representations of the Jews (conceived of as male), notions not only claiming there were physical traits which marked out Jews from other people, such as that Jews had darker skins, larger noses, were prone to disease or limping and the like, but also that they were rootless and a corruptive presence within Western societies. The massive waves of emigration westwards by Eastern European Jews (known as Ostjuden in German), which were triggered by the recurrence of pogroms throughout Eastern Europe from the 1880s onward, not only intensified prejudices in societies where Jewish communities were well-established and assimilated, but led to the internalization of these putative Jewish characteristics in Jewish self-representations themselves. To complicate matters, Western European, especially German, Jewish stereotypes of these Ostjuden were often exploited by antisemites as endorsements of their prejudices. These antisemitic stereotypes influenced the representation of Jews in Zionism, and are evidenced also in the writings of Zionist public opinion makers.
Early Zionism According to Jordanian academic Joseph Massad, writing in Middle East Eye, there is a historic link between the Zionist movement and antisemites, in so far as, as modern Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl recognized, both share at least one basic aim: the negation of the Diaspora. As early as mid-1895, Herzl described his expectation that in supporting the emigration of Jews, "anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies".Theodor Herzl, Entry of 12 June 1895, The Complete Diaries Of Theodor Herzl, Volume I, pages 83–84, "It would be an excellent idea to call in respectable, accredited anti-Semites as liquidators of property. To the people they would vouch for the fact that we do not wish to bring about the impoverishment of the countries that we leave. At first they must not be given large fees for this; otherwise we shall spoil our instruments and make them despicable as "stooges of the Jews". Later their fees will increase, and in the end we shall have only Gentile officials in the countries from which we have emigrated. The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies."
In constructing their image of the "new Jew" or "Hebrew", the early Zionists contrasted this image against the Yid, the negative caricature of European Jewry. In doing so, they employed language similar to that of antisemites. For example, the Russian-born Jewish scholar Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who developed Revisionist Zionism in the 20th century, wrote: Our starting point is to take the typical Yid of today and to imagine his diametrical opposite ... because the Yid is ugly, sickly, and lacks decorum, we shall endow the ideal image of the Hebrew with masculine beauty. The Yid is trodden upon and easily frightened and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to be proud and independent. The Yid is despised by all and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to charm all. The Yid has accepted submission and, therefore, the Hebrew ought to learn how to command. The Yid wants to conceal his identity from strangers and, therefore, the Hebrew should look the world straight in the eye and declare: "I am a Hebrew!"
American academic Amy Kaplan, writing in MondoWeiss, has said that "anti-Semitism and pro-Zionism have never been mutually exclusive. Advocates for a Jewish state enlisted stereotypes of Jewswittingly or notto further their cause. Theodor Herzl himself appealed to European leaders that Zionism would resolve the 'Jewish Question' by sending Jews elsewhere". Writing for International Socialist Review, Annie Levin argues that the writings of Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and other European Zionists were "littered with descriptions of European Jews as parasites, social diseases, germs, aliens", and she also argued that these antisemitic views "flowed quite logically from Zionism's basic assumptions about Jews. Zionists accepted the 19th century view that anti-Semitism–in fact all racial difference–was a permanent feature of human nature. For this reason it was pointless to struggle against it." Levin said that Jews have often been "hostile to Zionism" because the movement "called for a retreat from the struggle against anti-Semitism."
In his book Conspiracy, American historian Daniel Pipes notes that "some antisemites favor a Jewish state as a means of reducing the Jewish population in their midst." Pipes mentions German journalist Wilhelm Marr, the anti-Jewish agitator who coined the term "antisemitism", as an early example of a "pro-Zionist antisemite". Marr supported Jewish migration from Europe to Palestine as being beneficial both for German Jews and for German antisemites. Pipes describes this variety of antisemitism as less common compared to conspiratorial or anti-Zionist antisemitism.
According to the political theorist Michael Walzer, the first anti-Zionists in the 19th century were Orthodox Jews who believed that Zionism was a heretical ideology; they argued that the return of Jews to the Land of Israel and the establishment of a state would only occur after the Messiah came and until then Jews must accept living in diaspora and defer to non-Jewish rulers while waiting for redemption. Zionists, who were usually secular, despised the perceived passivity of Orthodox Jews "with such passion" that they were referred to as antisemites by Orthodox anti-Zionists. For example, In 1918, Hungarian anti-Zionist Rabbi Baruch Meir Klein, President of the New York Board of Rabbis, said that the "Goyyim in America let us be Jews. They do not ruin our Talmud Torah. They do not reform our schools.... They do not ridicule Jews who go to Mikveh or Kloppen Hoyshaness.... It is enough for me to be in Galuth (disapora) with Goyyim. I have no need to be [in Eretz Israel], in Galuth under Jews who are antisemitic Zionists."
A similar conclusion was reached at the opposite end of the Jewish political spectrum, by some liberal assimilationist Jews. For example, British Liberal Party politician Edwin Montagu, the sole Jewish member of the Lloyd George ministry and an ardent anti-Zionist, was "passionately opposed to the [Balfour] declaration on the grounds that... it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews".
The Austrian-Jewish anti-Zionist writer Karl Kraus regarded antisemitism as the "essence" of the Zionist movement and used the label "Jewish antisemites" to describe Jews who identified as Zionists. He attacked German-Jewish self-hatred, gaining notoriety at the turn of the twentieth century for his pamphlets A Crown for Zion and Die demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature). In the former, he thrust barbs at what he saw as the self-hating aspects of German Jewish society and German Zionism, while in the latter, he lampoons a couple of members of the Viennese literary crowd (a Jewish crowd, though this was not an overt part of this second work). In A Crown for Zion, Kraus suggests that in attempting to assimilate, German Jews had imbibed the stereotypes and beliefs in racial power structures pervasive through German society. He describes assimilationist Zionists, and Herzl in particular, as "Jewish antisemites" in the same vein as the "Aryan antisemites" for their common desire to expel Jews from European culture.
A similar situation also existed in the Kingdom of Romania. Prime Minister Dimitrie Sturdza, while promoting antisemitic policies, endorsed the 1881 Focșani Zionist Congress and, in an 1886 interview for The New York Herald, he declared that "the idea of a Jewish state is an exceptional idea" and that "the creation of a Jewish state is the only solution for the Jewish Question".
Writing for Socialist Worker in 2017, Sarah Levy asserted that early Zionists "partnered with a rabidly antisemitic British ruling class to secure funding for their colonial project in Palestine".
In a 2013 op-ed for Al Jazeera English, Joseph Massad stated: "It is Israel's claims that it represents and speaks for all Jews that are the most anti-Semitic claims of all." Massad said that "Jewish opponents of Zionism" understood that gentile Europeans "shared the precepts of anti-Semitism" and that Zionists and antisemites held a shared belief in "the expulsion of Jews from Europe". Massad said that most pre-War European Jews resisted the "anti-Semitic basis of Zionism", while European countries typically supported "the anti-Semitic programme of Zionism".
In Israel
Racism between Jews has been documented in Israel.Torstrick, Rebecca L., The limits of coexistence: identity politics in Israel, University of Michigan Press, 2000, p 32Madmoni-Gerber, Shoshana, Israeli media and the framing of internal conflict: the Yemenite babies affair, Macmillan, 2009, p 54-56Ruttenberg, Danya, Yentl's revenge: the next wave of Jewish feminism, p 178 In 2023, a video circulated on social media showing Likud activist Itzik Zarka shouting "may you burn in hell" at protesters and disrespecting Holocaust victims by further adding, "I am proud of the six million that were burned, I wish that another six million would be burned", whilst additionally referring to leftists as traitors. Zarka was temporarily removed from the party under orders by Benjamin Netanyahu, but his membership was later restored.
In 2025, the Israeli government held a conference about antisemitism in Jerusalem. The conference sparked controversy due to the invitation of far-right politicians in Europe who have been accused of antisemitism, racism, and Holocaust denial. The president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), Ariel Muzicant, characterized the invitation of far-right politicians as a "stab in the back" to European Jews and accused the Israeli government of "helping our enemies". The former EJC president Michel Friedman stated: "Nobody who convenes a conference against antisemitism can at the same time invite antisemites who spread the poison of prejudice and hatred." Several individuals and organizations dropped out of the conference in protest, including Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. The former ADL head Abraham Foxman stated that the invitations legitimized "authoritarian neo-fascist political parties" and accused the Israeli government of abnegating its duty to "defend Jews around the world".
In the United States