Adam Louis-Klein: Why anti-Zionism is the newest hate movement

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Lazar Focus. Each Friday, join host diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe.

Since October 7, 2023, there has been a focused and intense campaign to paint Zionism as a supremacist, racist, and inherently violent movement that has no place in academia, popular culture, or public life in the West.

Jews and supporters of Israel usually label such attacks as antisemitism, since they often take old tropes about Jews and apply them to Israel.

Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein, who emerged from the Colombian jungle on October 9 and found himself under attack from colleagues for his support of Israel, is leading the effort to cast anti-Zionism as a hate movement that seeks to deny Jews a place in the public square on their own terms by portraying Zionism as the root of much of the world's evil and violence.

Louis-Klein applies his critical lens to anti-Zionism, examining its roots in Nazism, Islamist ideology, and Soviet propaganda. He unpacks terms like "settler-colonialism," "genocide," and " apartheid," and explains why the anti-Zionists chose those loaded words in their attack on the Jewish state.

Lazar Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Adam Louis-Klein (courtesy) / Demonstrators gather on the UCLA campus, June 12, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.