Christian Zionism In The News

Has the Campaign Against Antisemitism Become a Threat to Freedom?

August 26, 2022

In the 1970s some leaders of the Anti-Defamation League began to warn against a “new antisemitism.” To criticize Israel for its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank was declared antisemitic. That trend came out in the open this year when the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee accused Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of antisemitism for categorizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as apartheid. Peter Beinart writes that now “Palestinians become antisemites if they call for replacing a state that favors Jews with one that does not discriminate based on ethnicity or religion.” He argues that the campaign against “antisemitism” has, ironically, become a threat to freedom.

This opinion piece was published in the New York Times on August 26, 2002. Peter Beinart is a professor of journalism, an editor at large of Jewish Currents, a CNN political commentator, and author of The Crisis of Zionism (Picador, 2013).

To view Beinart’s article (click here): Peter Beinart article on antisemitism.