Adam Louis-Klein: Why anti-Zionism is the newest hate movement

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Lazar Focus. Each Friday, join host diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman for a deep dive into what’s behind the news that spins the globe.

Since October 7, 2023, there has been a focused and intense campaign to paint Zionism as a supremacist, racist, and inherently violent movement that has no place in academia, popular culture, or public life in the West.

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Jews and supporters of Israel usually label such attacks as antisemitism, since they often take old tropes about Jews and apply them to Israel.

Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein, who emerged from the Colombian jungle on October 9 and found himself under attack from colleagues for his support of Israel, is leading the effort to cast anti-Zionism as a hate movement that seeks to deny Jews a place in the public square on their own terms by portraying Zionism as the root of much of the world’s evil and violence.

Louis-Klein applies his critical lens to anti-Zionism, examining its roots in Nazism, Islamist ideology, and Soviet propaganda. He unpacks terms like “settler-colonialism,” “genocide,” and ” apartheid,” and explains why the anti-Zionists chose those loaded words in their attack on the Jewish state.

Lazar Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.

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