Why anti-zionism is often anti-semitism

A good article on how anti-semities often try to hide behind what they are doing by calling it anti-zionism. Firstly what is zionism?

Zionism — the movement for Jewish self-determination and statehood, reflects the millennial longing of Jews to return to their ancestral homeland in the land of Israel. Zion is a biblical term used interchangeably with Jerusalem. This longing to “return to Zion” has been a tenet of Jewish tradition since the Romans destroyed the Jewish Second Temple in 70 CE and dispossessed the Jews of their sovereignty over the region. …

Zionism posits that Jews ought to have a safe haven from the bigotry and endangerment they suffer perennially as a minority culture among non-Jewish majority cultures — be it from Tsarist pogroms, Hitler’s Europe, the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands, anti-Jewish restrictions in the Soviet Union or the increase in antisemitic violence in contemporary France.

Zionism asserts that the Jews have the same right to self-determination and nationhood that is typically afforded to other nations.

To be a Zionist basically just means that you support the right of the State of Israel (as a Jewish state) to exist at all. Technically anyone who supports a two state solution in the Middle East is a Zionist. That is all it means. It doesn’t mean you support particular boundaries, just the right of nationhood.

Zionism is a big tent that includes progressive Jews, conservative Jews, apolitical Jews and non-Jews who believe in and support the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish homeland. There are Zionists who are critical of Israeli policies, just as there are Zionists who rarely voice disagreement with the Israeli government. There are diverse views among Zionists about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about how to promote peace or support for a two-state solution.

Again anyone who supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is a Zionist.

Those who propagate “anti-Zionism” distort what Zionism is and define it narrowly and perniciously. Some express criticism of specific Israeli policies by assigning blame to “Zionism” or “Zionists,” thereby turning a critique of policy into a negation and demonization of Jewish statehood and its supporters. Denying the plurality of thought among Jews and Zionists, anti-Zionism envisions Zionists as a monolithic evil and as inherently opposed to Palestinians’ human rights and to the values of social justice. Like classic antisemites, sometimes anti-Zionists even use “Zionist” as a derogatory term for all Jews or interchangeably with all Israelis — a dangerous conflation.

Anyone who tries to blame Zionists for something, is often using it as code for Jews.

Anti-Zionism views Jewish power as fundamentally malevolent and denounces the Jewish aspiration for sovereignty. Often anti-Zionists do not scrutinize other nations or movements for nationhood to the same degree. Israel is regarded simply as an illegitimate state, founded on a lie. Some anti-Zionist activists have even sought to normalize the exclusion of Jews en masse from political movements unrelated to Israel unless they proactively denounce Israeli policies.

In February 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron stated, “Anti-Zionism is one of the modern forms of antisemitism. Behind the negation of Israel’s existence, what is hiding is the hatred of Jews.”

If you want to criticise the policies of the Israeli Government, then criticise the Israeli Government. But people who rant and rail against Zionists are basically just spreading hatred.