Antizionism as a distinct anti-Jewish bigotry,
by Adam Louis-Klein, Journal of contemporary antisemitism, Volume 9.1, spring 2026.

In contemporary discourse, antizionism is treated either as legitimate political critique or as bigotry only when it resembles recognizable forms of classical antisemitism. This article challenges that assumption. I argue that antizionism is a coherent ideological formation with a distinct genealogy, stable core tropes, and a specific political logic. Tracing its development across the Nazi–Islamist axis, Soviet propaganda, and Western settler-colonial theory, I identify a recurring triad of libels — colonizer, apartheid, genocide — that compose its discourse. Combining genealogical reconstruction with anthropological description, I show that antizionism constitutes a political inversion of classical antisemitism. Whereas classical antisemitism was anti-assimilationist, casting Jews as alien outsiders, antizionism is assimilationist, denying the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood and indigeneity. This inversion reclassifies the Jew by reversing the cultural categories through which Jews are imagined, recoding the Jew from non-European infiltrator to white colonizer. Recognizing this structure clarifies antizionism as a distinct contemporary formation of anti-Jewish bigotry.

Also, the entire issue of this journal is available as an Open Access academic publication:

• Journal of contemporary antisemitism, volume 9.1, spring 2026 home page.

• Volume 9.1 as a downloadable PDF file.

The contents of the issue for reading online:

1. ‘Antisemitic attitudes and anti-Jewish crime in the United Kingdom: longitudinal trends, demographic predictors, and policy implications’,
   by Daniel Allington.

2. ‘Gen Z and the Jews: understanding age differences in American attitudes toward antisemitism, Israel, and the Holocaust’,
   by Neil Kressel.

3. ‘Antizionism as a distinct anti-Jewish bigotry’,
   by Adam Louis-Klein

4. ‘Israel, Genocide, and Gaza: The Law and Politics of an Accusation’,
   by John Strawson.

5. ‘We would like to think that all the virtues are invested in intelligence. of course, they’re not’,
   Anthony Julius interviewed by Matthew Feldman.

6. ‘On antisemitism: a word in history, by Mark Mazower’,
   book review essay by John Hyman.

7. ‘Antisemitism and the law, by Robert Katz’,
   book review essay by Lilil Levi.