The results of an intriguing study on anti-Israel and anti-Zionist language usage were published on December 2. Veteran blogger Elder of Ziyon displayed a detailed table with results of a study that reviewed the terminology employed in academic papers going back from 2005 through 2024. His findings are that antisemitic and activist anti-Zionist language is used in thousands of academic papers, thus reinforcing a negative subjective narrative.
The phrases and terms used in these papers included “Jewish supremacism,” “Talmudic rituals,” “Israeli Occupation Forces,” Gaza as an “open air prison,” and “Judaization,” among others. Such language seeps from the academic world into mainstream media op-eds, and then back again. Students and university colleagues are regularized to express themselves by using the exclusionary language of castigation and of animosity regarding Jewish nationalism and Middle East politics.
What is at work here results not in detached independent scientific research, but rather, it eventually locks the public into an ideological entrenchment primed and positioned to disallow any refutation. Moreover, there is no possible defense by those targeted as “colonialists.” Even more dangerous, it is a rhetoric of volatility.
The articulation may seem to be lofty academic verbiage, but it is just a repeat of medieval theological cancellation as when Jews were forced to engage in demeaning, unfair disputations. Today’s anti-Zionist hordes – safe in their self-constructed castles of words that reinforce the visceral animosity they already have in place – always have the advantage.
Raef Zreik, an Israeli Arab who is a senior lecturer of Jurisprudence at Ono Academic College and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, wrote a 2023 article titled “Zionism and Political Theology.” It purports to “identify what is unique about the political theology of Zionism” and “explores what the consequences of this uniqueness might be.”
Constructing a Zionist Villain
On page 15 of the article, published in Routledge’s Journal of Political Theology, we read, “there is something within Zionism – be it religious or secular – that invites violence in order to achieve its goals and aims.” Starkly, Zreik’s framing positions Zionism as a guilty party, the one responsible for reactions to it.
Another article published there is by Hanine Shehadeh. She sees “no place for Ismael” because Christian and Jewish Zionism bring about “the liquidation of the Gaza Ghetto.”
The pattern is quite transparent. The inescapable conclusion forced on the trusting reader is that Zionism possesses an inherent and unrepentant “violence.” Those who attack it justifiably are forcibly drawn to do so because Israel represents the evil One Ring of the Dark Lord of an imagined colonization scheme, a land where the Shadows lie.
This fantasized “Zionism,” we can assume, is in the background of the latest Palestinianism campaign that seeks the release of Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for killing Israelis in his role as a terrorist commander. A Hollywood star’s petition describes him, in Palspeak, as “a long-time advocate for freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people.”
The underpinning of our era’s anti-Zionism reflects the evil power of a Palestinian Sauron. And, as J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, the rhetoric at work is a ring that binds them all in darkness. Will a Frodo Baggins reappear to destroy its effects and power? Will this Frodo unpack, dissect, and explain the redefining of terms, their repurposing, and their misappropriation by pro-Palestine adherents? Can he clarify the misinformation as well as the concealment of facts?
A phony narrative has been fashioned. The complicated and complex Arab vs Israel conflict that is presented to the uninvolved is that Israel is, indisputably, a colonization project that is an immutable determination.
Reality is inverted (Exactly who intends “genocide”?), and the messaging fosters a moral equivalence (Who actually is the victim?). Confusion sets in; delegimitization is an acceptable position, and BDS practices become normalized.
The term “apartheid” has its definition reconfigured. The phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is denuded of its geographical history as what the League of Nations defined as the reconstituted Jewish national home territory. “Amalek” is misperceived.
Demands for one-way “nuancing” and “contextualizing” rob arguments of shared truths. Conspiracy theories abound. Deflection and outright Pallywood deceptions are employed. Jews “storm” the Temple Mount. Killed terrorists are but “martyrs”; Gaza is a “concentration camp.”
Words have become weapons. The language of pro-Palestinianism is constructed to promote a form of emotional absolutism and moral superiority. It pushes those who listen and absorb its messaging to mutate into robots of rage against Israel, its Zionist foundation. In an unstoppable and unavoidable frenzy and furor, it will assault Jews, their schools, their synagogues, their kosher restaurants, their culture, and their religion.
Those words will deny history, toss away facts, erase identity, and eliminate any and all rights of Jews to be who they want to be and their 3,000-year-old experience as a people, with their beliefs and customs.
Roger Cohen provided another sharp picture of the workings of all this in his piece on page one of The New York Times’ November 28 international digital edition. Its headline read “Israel’s ‘imperial’ presence.”
Lost here is the reality that Israel faces the remnants of the Sunni Muslim empire, first established in the 7th century, that reached from Asia to Europe; the new Iranian-led Shi’ite empire from Persia through Lebanon to Yemen; and Turkey’s resurgent Ottoman Empire designs.
But Cohen wishes that his readers see Israel as “imperial” – and as such, should not even be allowed to defend itself. That, of course, is an illogical and ridiculous argument. It is evil, too.
Yet, this language is accepted by those whose minds have become woke and twisted into accepting progressive-presented inanities. Cohen employs many dishonest methodologies, as well as the aforementioned terms, “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “famine,” to convince and elicit responses that do not require deep thinking but rather passionate polemical disparagement. Zionists are to become unworthy, even dirty.
Wearing their own special anti-Zionist one ring, Zreik, Cohen, Peter Beinart, and too many others trust that their dishonest manipulations will become invisible.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.