SNA (Tokyo) — The US House of Representatives passed a resolution last week which redefined the term anti-Semitism in such a manner to brand billions of people—probably the global majority—as being “anti-Semites.”

Of the five operative passages of the resolution, the contentious fourth of them was that the House “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

In other words, those who fail to support Israel as the Jewish State are effectively on moral par with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany or those who carried out bloody pogroms over the thousand years of history—beginning with the Crusades at the end of the 11th century—which preceded the Holocaust.

While the House resolution certainly conforms with the assertions of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and other elements of the pro-Israel lobby, it quickly runs up against numerous intellectual and moral dilemmas.

For instance, this definition condemns as “Anti-Semites” those people who believe that Israelis and Palestinians should ultimately live in peace together in a secular democratic state. Zionism asserts that only Jews have a legitimate claim to the contested territory, or certainly that any non-Jews within the “Jewish State” have second-class status in terms of political, religious, and cultural rights. Religious minorities might be tolerated and treated well, but any claims to full equality are inadmissible if they jeopardize the Jewish character of the regime, even if backed by a majority vote.

It is the same democratic dilemma faced by nations which define themselves as “Islamic states” or if, for example, a conservative religious movement were to redefine the United States as a “Christian state” instead of a secular republic.

Moreover, the intellectual origins of “Anti-Zionism” are themselves Jewish. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most Jews rejected the Zionist political ideology, and a large minority of Jews continue to do so.

This is true of the Satmar Rebbe, a Hasidic group founded in 1905. They have consistently and proudly rejected Zionism. The related website of the “Torah Jews” explains that “Zionism not only denied our fundamental belief in Heavenly redemption; it also created a pseudo-Judaism that views the essence of our identity to be a secular nationalism. Accordingly, Zionism and the State of Israel have consistently endeavored, via persuasion and coercion, to replace a Divine and Torah-centered understanding of our peoplehood with an armed materialism.”

Aside from such Orthodox Jewish sects which have always rejected Zionism, it is thought that up to about one-third of young Jewish Americans either reject Zionism or regard Israel as an Apartheid state unworthy of support in its current form.

New York Representative Jerrold Nadler pointed out some of these problems with the resolution in the course of the debate that preceded the vote, noting that it “states that all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. That is either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong. It implicates many of my former Orthodox constituents in Brooklyn, many of whose families rose from the Holocaust.”

In spite of this sound word of caution, the House voted 311 in favor and 14 against the resolution; 92 representatives voted “present.”

AIPAC is reportedly planning to spend about US$100 million in the next cycle to defeat the reelection of the young progressive members of “The Squad,” all of whom except Greg Casar (who voted “present”) were among the fourteen votes against the resolution.

This article was originally published on December 11, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.