Washington, D.C. | www.mpac.org | August 15, 2025 — In his recent interview this week with the New York Times, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt repeated the claim that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitism. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) firmly rejects this assertion.
People — Jewish, Palestinian, and otherwise — may oppose political Zionism for reasons rooted in anti-colonial principles, human rights law, political philosophy, or the belief that the Bible did not grant the land exclusively to Jews but to all followers of Abraham, including Christians, Muslims, not because of hostility toward Jewish people. Flattening all anti-Zionism into antisemitism delegitimizes those perspectives and shuts down necessary debate about state policies, history, and power.
Antisemitism is real, dangerous, and on the rise — but its credibility as a charge depends on precision. If the term is stretched to include all criticism of Zionism, it risks becoming a political tool rather than a safeguard for Jewish safety, ultimately making it harder to call out genuine antisemitism when it occurs.
This conflation has already been used to justify campus censorship, professional retaliation, and legal crackdowns on advocacy for Palestinian rights. Such actions don’t protect Jewish safety — they suppress political engagement, academic freedom, and legitimate dissent.
Criticism of Zionism is not a rejection of Jewish self-determination, it's a rejection of the exclusivist apartheid model of the Israeli state. Reducing this to “you’re against Jews having self-determination” is a misrepresentation that distorts the debate and silences necessary discussion.
If we want to protect our communities and foster real safety, we must confront antisemitism and every other form of hate with accuracy, not through politically expedient conflations.
