For a long time, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, there were sections of the Jewish community who were opposed to Zionism and the strategy for a Jewish homeland, and this is still a strand of thought today.
Many in the Labour Party and solidarity campaigns use Zionism and Zionists to specifically mean the POLICIES of the Israeli Government….particularly regarding the occupation of lands post 1967….and many also refer to a ‘global Zionist conspiracy’.
Countries and organisations in the Middle East often use the term Zionist and Jew interchangeably, whether referring to Israel, the Israeli Government or Jews…
And, most importantly, many / most Jews would see Zionism meaning the ongoing support for the existence of THE STATE of Israel.
So before we rant and rave, I am strongly suggesting that much of the impasse over the Labour Party and antisemitism may be to do with language and ambiguity. Communication has has two components, sending AND receiving a message…if this link is broken or distorted it is not then effective communication.
If the Labour Party shouts from the rooftops, on banners and on social media ‘death to Zionism’, ‘Zionists are Racists, ‘Destroy Zionism’…. .. hopefully we mean we oppose the POLICIES of the Government of Israel.. ..
BUT if most Jews HEAR these phrases but understand them to mean ‘death to Jews’, ‘destroy the STATE OF ISRAEL’ then maybe, just maybe, we can both see why there is a problem and we are perceived as being antisemitic.
If Fascists and ourselves are using virtually identical language (and mimicking Hitler) in constantly talking about Zionist conspiracies…are we really saying the Jewish community should spot the difference?
They see our language as overtly antisemitic as Zionism to them means support for existence of the State of Israel and many groups hostile to JEWS use it as a substitute to describes Jews per se.
And how do we defend ourselves when challenged on this? Tell everyone about our disciplinary procedures and assume that will suffice…lol…
If however, we quoted from our 2019 manifesto which says… “Labour is committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on a twostate solution – a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine” – and continually reaffirm this when talking about this subject, and started using more meaningful language to explicitly say what we mean…then it might be that we can have real dialogue across communities and focus our attention on the evil of real antisemitism.