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In Our Names
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Israeli Influence on the United States hub.
In Our Names.
A Pulitzer-winning Jewish biographer has written a history of Jews who opposed Zionism — and argues that conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is not only false but dangerous, because it ties the safety of Jews everywhere to the conduct of one state acting in their name.
Benjamin Moser (2020 Pulitzer, for 'Sontag') assembled 'Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History' (2026) — 12 portraits of Jewish anti-Zionists across a century (Tamares→Arendt→Shlaim→Goldin) — to show Jewish argument about Zionism was once ordinary. From it he draws a present-day claim: Israel 'foments antisemitism' by acting in all Jews' names, and much of the reported rise in antisemitism is really a rise in anti-Zionism. His argument is a JEWISH argument by a JEWISH writer — the living refutation of 'anti-Zionism = antisemitism.'
DUAL STANCE (same as The Oldest Lies): criticism of a state is not bigotry, and bigotry against Jews is real and rising — both true, keeping them apart is the discipline. Grade the documented tradition FACT (it dismantles the blanket equation). Pose, don't assert, Moser's causal 'Israel manufactures antisemitism.' Fence 'the rise is SIMPLY anti-Zionism' BOTH ways: much of what's counted as antisemitism is criticism of Israel, but NOT all — real antisemitism exists and some of the increase is genuine Jew-hatred. Don't adopt 'evil/wicked' as our voice; refuse the 'self-hating Jew' smear.
Who's making this argument: a Pulitzer-winning biographer, in a serious book, honestly framed.
The messenger matters — the usual dismissal is to question the speaker's standing. Benjamin Moser is an American-born, Pulitzer-winning biographer (2020, for 'Sontag: Her Life and Work'). His 2026 'Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History' (4th Estate UK / Penguin Random House US) is built from twelve biographical portraits of Jewish opponents of Zionism across a century, reviewed from The Guardian to +972. Moser is careful about scope: 'no claims to be writing a definitive history,' calling it portraiture and a personal 'cri de coeur.' Credentialed, mainstream-published, self-aware — not a pamphlet, not an outsider's attack.
The core fact that dismantles the conflation: Jewish anti-Zionism is a deep, once-mainstream tradition.
The documented point, doing the heavy lifting. Opposition to Zionism was for much of its history an ordinary, even majority Jewish position — not a fringe or foreign import. Fewer than 1% of American Jews belonged to the largest American Zionist org in 1914; today ~90% support Israel's right to exist (fewer identify as Zionists). The figures are central: Hannah Arendt (worked to resettle Jewish refugee children in Palestine, then warned in the 1940s a Jewish state would leave the Arabs 'the choice between voluntary emigration or second-class citizenship'); Avi Shlaim, the Iraqi-born historian 'radicalised in the [Israeli state] archives' by documents that 'flatly contradicted the official line.' When towering Jewish thinkers oppose Zionism for a century, 'anti-Zionism is simply antisemitism' collapses as a general rule.
Moser's sharper claim — Israel 'foments antisemitism' in all Jews' names — is his argument, posed not asserted.
Here Moser moves from history to causation, and we move carefully. In remarks reported by Drop Site News he argued Israel is 'actively fomenting' antisemitism by presenting itself as the state of all Jews: 'there's this Jewish army of this Jewish state with this Jewish star on their flag, and they are mercilessly slaughtering tens of thousands of children, but don't confuse them with Jews.' The logic: when a self-declared Jewish state commits acts the world recoils from, in the name of Jews everywhere, some recoil attaches to Jews who never consented to be represented. A serious, plausible argument from a credentialed Jewish source — but a causal interpretation, not a measured fact, and the harshest words ('mercilessly slaughtering,' 'evil, wicked') are HIS characterizations, which we attribute, not adopt. SOME SMOKE: a real, weighty argument, posed.
The overreach to fence — 'the rise is SIMPLY anti-Zionism' — cuts too far; fence it both ways.
Moser also argued the reported rise in antisemitism is 'simply a rise in anti-Zionism' — people reacting to Israel, not Jews. Half is our own position: much logged as antisemitism is criticism of a state, and the word has been used (Moser's phrase) 'so promiscuously it would become meaningless' — the conflation we reject. But 'simply' is where we part. Real antisemitism exists and some of the increase is unambiguous hatred of Jews as Jews — assaults on identifiably Jewish people, synagogue attacks, harassment with nothing to do with Israeli policy. Folding all of it into 'anti-Zionism' is the mirror of the error we criticize: if conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is wrong, so is dissolving antisemitism entirely into anti-Zionism. Much of the rise is misclassified criticism of Israel — but not all, and the genuine Jew-hatred is real and must be named.
The line we hold.
- FACT: Benjamin Moser (2020 Pulitzer, 'Sontag') wrote 'Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History' (4th Estate / PRH, 2026) — 12 portraits of Jewish anti-Zionists (Tamares→Arendt→Shlaim→Goldin); honestly essayistic ('no claim to a definitive history').
- FACT (dismantles the conflation): Jewish anti-Zionism is a deep, once-mainstream tradition — <1% of US Jews in the largest Zionist org in 1914, vs ~90% supporting Israel's existence today; Arendt warned a Jewish state would force Arabs into 'emigration or second-class citizenship.'
- SOME SMOKE (posed): Moser's causal 'Israel foments antisemitism by acting in all Jews' names' (Drop Site quotes). A serious Jewish argument — but causal interpretation; the 'evil/wicked/mercilessly slaughtering' language is HIS, attributed not adopted.
- SOME SMOKE (fenced BOTH ways): 'the rise is SIMPLY anti-Zionism' overclaims. Anti-Zionism ≠ antisemitism (FACT) and much is misclassified criticism of Israel — BUT real antisemitism exists and some of the rise is genuine Jew-hatred (synagogue attacks, assaults on identifiable Jews). Much, not all. Refuse the reverse-conflation too.
- FACT (balance): a MINORITY tradition (~90% of US Jews support Israel's existence), internally varied/evolving — Avi Shlaim said in 2023 'Israel has not engaged in genocide,' then published 'Genocide in Gaza' in 2025; the book omits strands (Satmar theological anti-Zionism).
- DUAL-STANCE FENCE: documenting a Jewish writer's Jewish argument is the OPPOSITE of antisemitism; refuse the 'self-hating Jew' smear (the move the book preempts); antisemitism IS real/rising and is not minimized; don't claim most Jews are anti-Zionist (they aren't).
Why it matters.
Collapsing anti-Zionism and antisemitism into one thing does damage in two directions, which is why getting it right matters. One direction: it shields a government from criticism — any objection to its policies can be reclassified as hatred and dismissed, so the more a state does, the harder it becomes to say anything about it. The other — Moser's deepest fear — is that it endangers Jews, by making every Jew a hostage to a government's conduct and by cheapening 'antisemitism' until it no longer rings the alarm it was meant to. If everything is antisemitism, nothing is; and the genuine article, when it comes, meets a public that has learned to roll its eyes. A Jewish writer sounding that warning is not an enemy of Jews — he argues the conflation is bad for the very people it claims to protect, with a century of Jewish witnesses behind him. The position he recovers was, for a long time, unremarkable: early American Reform Judaism was largely anti-Zionist; the socialist Bund opposed Zionism in favor of Jewish life where Jews already lived; before the 1942 Biltmore Conference even some Zionists imagined a shared homeland. The near-consensus support for Israel that feels timeless is young — a product of the Holocaust, the state's founding, and the decades since. The sharpest edge is consent: a state that calls itself the state of all Jews, flies the Star of David over its army, and claims to act for world Jewry has drafted every Jew into its conduct without asking — so the Jew in Paris or Buenos Aires is held answerable for a war they did not wage and may oppose. Whether that is Israel 'fomenting' antisemitism or merely creating conditions others exploit is a genuine question we leave posed. But the worry — that binding a people's safety to a government's reputation is a dangerous bargain for the people — is one Jewish anti-Zionists have voiced, as this book shows, for a very long time.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenThe full text and exact context of Moser's 'actively fomenting' remarks — which event, and the surrounding argument — beyond the Drop Site excerpt, to confirm wording and framing directly.
- OpenA rigorous breakdown of recent antisemitism-incident data (e.g., ADL/CST tallies) separating genuine Jew-hatred from reclassified anti-Israel criticism — the empirical test of Moser's 'simply anti-Zionism' claim that neither side has cleanly done.
- OpenThe counter-tradition in equal depth — serious Jewish thinkers who hold that a state is a necessary guarantor of Jewish safety after the Holocaust — so the argument is met at its strongest, not its weakest.