Not all Zionists: blanket attacks are antisemitic

The evidence that we live in a polarised world assails us on a daily basis. In Australia, one form of polarisation has manifested itself in the bitter communal divisions which have emerged in consequence of the atrocities of October 7 and Israel’s war in Gaza.

For the most part two competing narratives are presented in Manichaean terms: each sees the war and its tragic precursors as a conflict between darkness and light.

One person’s genocide is another’s necessary self-defence against a brutal terrorist organisation bent itself on perpetrating genocide. One person’s exercise of freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate is another’s detestable hate speech.  One person’s Naqba is another’s heroic fight to preserve a tiny nascent state created by the authority of the United Nations from destruction by five hostile armies. One person’s respect for international humanitarian law, as interpreted by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, is another’s confirmation of the irremediable anti-Israel bias of international organisations.

The polarisation evident in the competing narratives obscures a very important point, entirely lost on most if not all ‘anti-Zionists’. The current terrible conflict has exposed, if it was not clear beforehand, the many varieties of Zionism within the Australian Jewish community.

 It has also exposed the link between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.