antiSemitism

In 1948, as the foundations of the Israeli state were being laid upon the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (AFFFI), condemning the growing Zionist militancy within the settler Jewish community. “When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organisations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.”

Einstein — perhaps the most celebrated Jewish intellectual of the 20th century — refused to conflate his Jewish identity with the violence of Zionism. He turned down the offer to become Israel’s president, rejecting the notion that Jewish survival and self-determination should come at the cost of another people’s displacement and suffering. And yet, if Einstein were alive today, his words would likely be condemned under the current definitions of anti-Semitism adopted by many Western governments and institutions, including the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, now endorsed by most Australian universities.

Under the IHRA definition, Einstein’s outspoken criticism of Israel — he called its founding actors “terrorists” and denounced their betrayal of Jewish ethics — would render him suspect. He would be accused not only of delegitimising Israel, but also of anti-Semitism. His moral clarity, once visionary, would today be vilified.

That is why we must untangle the threads of Zionism, colonialism and human rights.

Einstein’s resistance to Zionism was not about denying Jewish belonging or rights; it was about refusing to build those rights on ethno-nationalist violence. He understood what too many people fail to grasp today: that Zionism and Judaism are not synonymous.

Zionism is a political ideology rooted in European colonial logics, one that enforces Jewish supremacy in a land shared historically by Palestinian and other Levantine peoples. To criticise this ideology is not anti-Semitic; it is, rather, a necessary act of justice and a moral act of bearing witness. The religious symbolism that Israel uses is irrelevant in this respect. And yet, in today’s political climate, any critique of Israel — no matter how grounded it might be in international law, historical fact or humanitarian concern — is increasingly branded as anti-Semitism. This conflation shields from accountability a settler-colonial state, and it silences Palestinians and their allies from speaking out on the reality of their oppression. Billions in arms sales, stolen resources and apartheid infrastructure don’t just happen; they’re the reason that legitimate “criticism” gets rebranded as “hate”.

READ: Ex-Israel PM accuses Netanyahu of waging war on Israel

To understand Einstein’s critique, we must confront the truth about Zionism itself. While often framed as a movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism in practice has operated as a colonial project of erasure and domination. The Nakba was not a tragic consequence of war, it was a deliberate blueprint for dispossession and disappearance. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has detailed how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, approved “Plan Dalet” on 10 March, 1948. This included the mass expulsion and execution of Palestinians to create a Jewish-majority state. As Ben-Gurion himself declared chillingly: “Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion.”

This is the basis of the Zionist state that we are told not to critique.

Einstein saw this unfolding and recoiled. In another 1948 open letter to the New York Times, he and other Jewish intellectuals described Israel’s newly formed political parties — like Herut (the precursor to Likud) — as “closely akin in… organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”

Einstein’s words were not hyperbole, they were a warning. Having fled Nazi Germany, he had direct experience with the defining traits of Nazi fascism. “From Israel’s past actions,” he wrote, “we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”

Today, we are living in the very future that Einstein feared, a reality marked by massacres in Gaza, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the denial of basic essentials such as water, electricity and medical aid. This is not about “self-defence”; it is the logic of colonial domination whereby the land theft continues and the violence escalates.

Einstein warned about what many still refuse to see: a state established on principles of ethnic supremacy and expulsion could never transcend its foundation ethos. Israel’s creation in occupied Palestine is Zionism in practice; it cannot endure without employing repression until resistance is erased entirely. Hence, the Nakba wasn’t a one-off event in 1948; it evolved, funded by Washington, armed by Berlin and enabled by every government that trades Palestinian blood for political favours.

Zionism cannot be separated from the broader history of European settler-colonialism. As Patrick Wolfe explains, the ideology hijacked the rhetoric of Jewish liberation to mask its colonial reality of re-nativism, with the settlers recasting themselves as “indigenous” while painting resistance as terrorism.

READ: Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinian school in occupied West Bank

The father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, stated in his manifesto-novel Altneuland, “To build anew, I must demolish before I construct.” To him, Palestine was not seen as a shared homeland, but as a house to be razed to the ground and rebuilt by and for Jews alone. His ideology was made possible by British imperial interests to divide and dominate post-Ottoman territories. Through ethnic partition and military alliances embellished under the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the ironic Zionist-Nazi 1933 Haavara Agreement, the Zionist project aligned perfectly with the West’s goal, as per the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Israel is thus criticised because of its political ideology rooted in ethnonationalism and settler colonialism. Equating anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism is a disservice not only to Palestinians, but also to Jews, especially those who, like Einstein, refuse to have their identity weaponised in the service of war crimes. Zionism today includes Christian Zionists, military allies and Western politicians who benefit from Israel’s imperial reach through arms deals, surveillance technology and geostrategic partnerships.

Zionism is a global power structure, not a monolithic ethnic identity.

Many Jews around the world — rabbis, scholars, students and Holocaust survivors and their descendants — continue Einstein’s legacy by saying “Not in our name”. They reject the co-option of Holocaust memory to justify genocide in Gaza. They refuse to be complicit in what the Torah forbids: the theft of land and the murder of innocents. They are not “self-hating Jews”. They are the inheritors of a prophetic tradition of justice. And they are being silenced.

Perhaps the most dangerous development today is, therefore, Israel’s insistence on linking its crimes to Jewish identity. It frames civilian massacres, apartheid policies and violations of international law as acts done in the name of all Jews and Judaism. By tying the Jewish people to the crimes of a state, Israel risks exposing Jews around the world to collective blame and retaliation.

Einstein warned against this. And if Einstein’s vision teaches us anything, it is this: Justice cannot be compromised for comfort and profit. Truth must outlast repression. And freedom must belong to all. In the end, no amount of Israel’s militarisation of terminology, propaganda or geopolitical alliances can suppress a people’s resistance forever or outlast global condemnation. The only question left is: how much more blood will be spilled before justice prevails?

The struggle for clarity today is not just academic, it is existential. Without the ability to distinguish anti-Semitism from anti-Zionism, we cannot build a future where Jews and Palestinians all live in dignity, safety and peace. Reclaiming the term “Semite” in its full meaning, encompassing both Jews and Arabs, is critical. Further isolation of Arabs from their Semitic identity has enabled the dehumanisation of Palestinians and the erasure of shared Jewish-Arab histories, especially the centuries of coexistence, the Jewish-Muslim golden ages in places like Baghdad, Granada/Andalusia, Istanbul, Damascus and Cairo.

Einstein stood up for the future for us to reclaim it.

The way forward must be rooted in truth, justice and accountability. That means unequivocally opposing anti-Semitism in all its forms, but refusing to allow the term to be manipulated as a shield for apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonial domination. It means affirming that Jewish safety must never come at the price of Palestinian freedom, and that Palestinian resistance is not hatred; it is survival.

And if Einstein would be silenced today, who will speak tomorrow?

OPINION: Palestinian voices are throttled by the promotion of foreign agendas

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Families of victims of the deadly attack on a Jewish celebration at Australia’s Bondi Beach earlier this month have called for a national inquiry into rising anti-Semitism.

In an open letter published on Monday, relatives of 11 of the victims of the attack called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to hold a royal commission into what they called the “rapid” and “dangerous” rise of anti-Jewish sentiment following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Fifteen people, most of them Jewish, were killed when two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on December 14.

Australian authorities have said the suspected gunmen, Sajid Akram and his son Naveed, were inspired by the ISIL (ISIS) group.

In their letter, the families said they needed to know why “clear warning signs were ignored” and “how antisemitic hatred … [was] allowed to dangerously grow unchecked”.

“As proud Australians and proud Jews, we have endured more than two and a half years of relentless attacks,” the families said.

“Our children feel unsafe at school and university. Our homes, workplaces, sporting fields, and public spaces no longer feel secure.”

The response of Albanese’s Labor government to the attack, including proposals to tighten gun laws and introduce tougher legislation against hate speech, was “not nearly enough,” the families said.

“The dangerous rise of antisemitism and radicalism in Australia is not going away,” they said.

“We need strong action now. We need leadership now.”

The calls for an inquiry into anti-Semitism came as Albanese on Monday announced the terms of an independent review into whether law enforcement and intelligence agencies could have done more to prevent the attack.

Albanese and his government colleagues have resisted calls for a public inquiry into the attack, arguing that such a process would take years and could undermine social cohesion by platforming extremist voices.

Albanese told a news conference that the review, led by former intelligence chief Dennis Richardson, would examine what authorities knew about the suspected gunmen before the attack and information sharing between federal and state agencies, among other issues.

“Just over two weeks ago, anti-Semitic terrorists tried to tear our country apart, but our country is stronger than these cowards,” Albanese said.

“They went to Bondi Beach to unleash mass murder against our Jewish community. We need to respond with unity and urgency rather than division and delay.”

Anti-Jewish sentiment, as well as anti-Islam and anti-immigration sentiment, are rising in Australia. Many Australians have expressed their concerns over a rise in right-wing extremism in the country, where one in two people is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas.

In September, thousands of people held rallies in cities, including Sydney, Perth, Canberra and Brisbane, demanding an end to “mass migration”.

The Australian government has condemned the rallies, which took place under the banner of “March for Australia”, as racist, while Minister for Multicultural Affairs Anne Aly said the gatherings were “organised by Nazis”.

The group behind “March for Australia” said on its website and social media that “mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together” and that its rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration”.

But Australia also experienced a sharp rise in both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents since October 7, 2023.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which supports the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, documented 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents nationwide between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025, after more than 2,060 incidents the previous year.

The Islamophobia Register Australia recorded 309 in-person incidents of Islamophobia and 366 online incidents between January 1, 2023 and November 31, 2024.

Numerous rights organisations, including some Jewish groups, have criticised the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, arguing that it has been used to conflate legitimate criticism of Israel – particularly of its genocidal war on Gaza – with anti-Jewish bigotry.

One of Albanese’s highest-profile critics in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – he blamed Albanese’s government for failing to protect Australia’s Jewish community and also linked the shooting to Australia’s recent decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.