> This makes zero sense. Terrorists call for terrorism, ergo anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism? You'll have to put up a better argument than that. The same people

> This makes zero sense. Terrorists call for terrorism, ergo anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism? You'll have to put up a better argument than that. The same people calling for antizionism are also calling for attacks on Jews. But anti-zionism is just antisemitic on its face: it means "I don't want Jews here in the middle east" (despite it being their historical home where they've maintained a constant presence). Here in the west (in the US and much of Europe, anyway), we generally reject the idea of using ethnicity as a reason to reject people from moving here. Imagine if we refused Native Americans from repatriating, but we called it "antitribalism" or something instead of the obvious racism that it is. > The actual history of the conflict starts with a bunch of European Jews turning up in West Asia and claiming that it was their land on the basis of a story book. There actually is a long history of Jews in the middle east, well supported by historical and archaeological evidence, and genetic studies (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judais... , you can find endless books and studies on the subject). They were exiled by multiple wars with the Romans, Arabs, and others. There were also ~600,000 Arab Jews who were exiled from various Arab nations in the middle east in the mid 20th century as well, who overwhelming went to Israel. Early Zionism (late 19th century to 1948) was all Jews purchasing land in the area. They didn't just come and take it. Of course, there were plenty of socioeconomic issues here: Jews were buying land from wealthy landowners who lived or moved to other parts of the middle east, which often disrupted Arabs who lived or worked on that land prior to it being sold. Conflict with the Jews was thus twofold - partly based on the ancient religious strife, partly a socialist uprising (which was ultimately usurped by fascist populist groups like Fatah and Hamas). The Ottoman empire had controlled the land for hundreds of years, the population of the area had plummeted to a fraction of its historical population, and out of the Ottoman empire's fall, new national identities began to form, and with them, new nations - Palestine and Israel amongst them (also Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon...), and some of the Palestinian identity arose as a response to the rise of Israel. I'm going to refrain from going into further depth here, as I could write a novel. Recommended reading: "Palestinian Identity". But to say the conflict starts at the point where there were the least Jews there is, at best, inaccurate, though it is convenient for antizionist narratives. > European anti-Semites were more than happy with this arrangement because it meant their Jewish citizens would leave. Even the Nazis worked with the Zionist Agency to enable some 60 thousand German Jews to emmigrate to Palestine. No argument here.