The right to protest against the Israeli State
JVL Introduction
New Expert Opinion on AntiZionism has been issued, looking at whether that is antisemitic, intrinsically or tangentially. The paper was written by Adam Sutcliffe, Antony Lerman and Neve Gordon who writes here about the key themes and reasons for writing the paper.
Inevitably the words of the IHRA so called “working”definition on antisemitism comes under scrutiny and, for example the writers take issue with those objecting to defining Israel as a racist endeavour when it is, at least, plausibly so given how many organisations regard Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid.
They outline different opinion within the Jewish community and are clear that Anti-Zionism is a legitimate and not an antisemitic point of view and that protesting against the State of Israel is necessary.
This article was originally published by Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice on Wed 16 Sep 2026. Read the original here.
The right to protest against Zionism and the Israeli state
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This is a very important, helpful article, I feel. If we can’t describe what is real accurately then we can neither discuss nor solve those problems. Dodging straight talk once seems to breed further euphemisms and obfuscations!
Thank you for this thoughtful article. I am one of those anti-Zionists Jews who is appalled the State of Israel is committing an intentional genocide that it claims to be doing in my name and that of all Jews.
I fully support your statement that, “…people consider themselves anti-Zionist for reasons associated with their wider political commitments to antiracism, anticolonialism and/or economic, political and legal justice. It is clearly reasonable to argue, on the basis of numerous reputable studies that have found Israel to be, in effect, an apartheid-style state, that Zionism is a structurally unjust and/or racist or supremacist ideology.” Thank you too for the work you do on my behalf and that of many others.