In my first Blog post, I described Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s heroic fight against the UN’s infamous Zionism is racism resolution in 1975 – and how Americans responded, joining a chorus of righteous indignation. This post, with material directly excerpted from Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism, published by Oxford University Press, 2013, all rights reserved, explains the evil overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Of course, some criticisms of Israel and Zionism are anti-Semitic, some are not. There is a legitimate anti-Zionist critique among Jews and non-Jews with both an established intellectual tradition and valid contemporary arguments. The contemporary Israeli-Palestinian stalemate is too complex for simplistic judgments yet nevertheless constantly clouded by them. The Zionism-is-racism charge emerged from two such crude condemnations: the Soviet attempt to demean the Jewish people, and the Arab desire to destroy the Jewish state. That “Big Red Lie,” as Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it, grew into totalitarian anti-Zionism subordinating all other goals to the anti-Israel impulse. The power of this lie was such that it outlasted the collapse of its sponsor, the Soviet Union, survived despite the UN’s repeal of the resolution in 1991, and received renewed energy at the 2001 Durban conference against racism which turned into an intellectual pogrom against the Jewish State. “Durban became the tipping point for the coalescence of a new, virulent, globalizing anti-Jewishness,” according to the Canadian parliamentarian and human rights activist Irwin Cotler. The rhetoric at Durban, and the conference’s coincidental juxtaposition with the September 11 terrorist attacks days later, further linked anti-Zionism with anti-Americanism, “laundered” through opposition to racism, as Cotler noted. Driving the new anti-Semitism, Zionism is racism updated many traditional anti-Semitic memes, meaning “something imitated,” an idea or impression popularized through repetition. Christian Europe traditionally viewed Jews as the ultimate villains; now Zionism is racism cast Israel, the collective Jew, as today’s ultimate villain. Christian theology warned that Jews, the people of Israel, were particularly punitive and vengeful in the image of the Old Testament God; Zionism is racism helped caricature the State of Israel as particularly punitive and vengeful in its actions, even when defending itself. The Roman Catholic Church traditionally labeled Jews as “Christ killers”; Zionism is racism cast Israel, the collective Jew, as colonialists slaying innocent Palestinians. Medieval Europeans feared the Jews, despite their weakness, treating the perpetual victim as potential victimizer; Zionism is racism made Israel, the collective Jew, the greatest racist today rather than the greatest victim of Hitlerian racial mass murder. Anti-Semites traditionally used the Jewish concept of “chosenness” to accuse Jews of being clannish and arrogant; Zionism is racism claimed Israel, the collective Jew, used the Holocaust’s unique horror to justify being tribal and superior. Jews living in a Christian world traditionally stood out, with their foreignness justifying European Christians’ obsessions with them; Zionism is racism in an anti-racist world singled out Israel, the collective Jew, for obsessive scrutiny. And just as yesterday’s anti-Semitism was a rallying point, uniting against the common Jewish enemy, Zionism is racism cast enmity against Israel, the collective Jew, and against Zionism, Jewish nationalism, as a rallying point, uniting Islamic fundamentalists and cosmopolitan liberals, while offering unity to an often divided Europe and fragmented Left. “Today Jew-haters try to avoid using the term ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ and instead reach for the word ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zionism,’” the British Labour Party parliamentarian Denis MacShane explained. Thrown into the Middle East pyre, the Zionism-racism charge has been an accelerant, angering, alienating, polarizing both sides. The accusation integrated every tension into a monolithic narrative of racism and delegitimization, which the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian violence exacerbated. By viewing Zionism as racism, many Palestinians saw Israelis harshly as cruel brutes. The severe denunciations, the low expectations, alienated many Israelis from the Palestinians and from their traditional concern with maintaining a reputation for ethical conduct. Just as a sense of honor can help society stretch and reform, accusations of dishonor can alienate adversaries while blocking impulses to trust, transcend, or transform. What the British attorney and author Anthony Julius calls yesterday’s “earned anti-Semitism”—those Jews deserve it!—became today’s “earned” anti-Zionism—see what Israel did! Yet the Left’s anti-racist anti-Semites proclaimed their innocence. Such protestations, denying the overlap with traditional anti-Semitic apparitions, were the rhetorical equivalent of the surgeon general’s warning against smoking printed on cigarette packs. The posture failed to make the act less toxic. By maligning the Jewish state’s essential character and making the conflict zero-sum, the Zionism is racism charge helped anti-Israeli sentiment degenerate into Jew hatred masked by high-minded human rights rhetoric. Thus left and right should unite against this ugly libel not only because it is evil and inaccurate but because it is an obstacle to peace. Gil Troy is Professor of History, McGill University and a Shalom Hartman Engaging Israel Research Fellow in Jerusalem. His latest book is Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism published by Oxford University Press. Watch the new Moynihan’s Moment video!