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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/08/why-we-created-the-institute-for-the-critical-study-of-zionism/">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Why we created the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism</h1>
<span class="gmail-post-author"><span class="gmail-by">By</span> <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/rabab-ibrahim-abdulhadi/" title="Posts by Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi</a> and <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/heike-schotten/" title="Posts by Heike Schotten" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Heike Schotten</a></span>
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<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/08/why-we-created-the-institute-for-the-critical-study-of-zionism/" class="gmail-date-link">August 24, 2023</a>
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<img src="cid:ii_llpi3i470" alt="Palestine_anti_semitism_poster_800_528_90.jpg" width="410" height="271"><br><p>In recent years, the Israeli flag has increasingly appeared around
the world alongside racial supremacist political messaging– for
instance, at the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/our-house-inside-maga-riot-rocked-america">January 6th riot</a> in Washington D.C., Hindutva rallies in <a href="https://www.972mag.com/india-israel-zionism-hundutva/">India</a>, Nazi rallies in <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2017-08-04/ty-article/why-the-u-k-s-neo-nazis-are-posing-with-israeli-flags/0000017f-e746-df2c-a1ff-ff579fdb0000">Europe</a>, and, most potently, in anti-Palestinian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/01/nowhere-in-palestine-is-free-west-bank-villagers-defenceless-against-rising-settler-violence">pogroms</a> in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/middleeast/huwara-west-bank-settler-attack-cmd-intl/index.html">West Bank</a>.
At this point, it could not be clearer that Zionism is a political
ideology tightly enmeshed with racism, fascism, and colonial
dispossession. But the conditions for studying and resisting Zionism are
incredibly difficult because Zionism has been framed by its proponents
as “Jewish liberation,” while opposition to Zionism has been
historically framed as antisemitic (or even, as the ADL habitually
characterizes left-wing groups, framed in the rhetoric of
totalitarianism). College students <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/15/uc-berkeley-israel-palestine-class-suspended-decal">studying settler colonialism</a>
are deemed antisemitic. Antiracist organizers drawing links between
U.S. repression and Israeli repression are labeled antisemitic. Ethnic
studies teachers who include any content related to Palestine in classes
are deemed antisemitic. </p>
<p>Despite the false antisemitic labels used to smear research and
teaching on Zionism and Palestinian liberation, scholars and activists
continue to produce crucial new knowledge in these areas. A growing body
of exciting work is also looking at the work of Zionist politics and
institutions in seemingly unexpected domains, from <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/07/spain-lack-of-cooperation-from-israel-on-pegasus-spyware-firm-highlights-impunity/">surveillance</a> to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/ISRAEL0901-01.htm">education</a> to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/89697727/Israel_Guatemala_and_the_agricultural_roots_of_an_authoritarian_internationalism">farming</a>, and critically analyzing how Zionist logics are reproduced and utilized in ideas and arguments about <a href="https://m4bl.org/statements/end-us-complicity-in-israels-abuses-of-palestinians/">race</a>, <a href="https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol24-2-dont-be-evil/slapdsc-pym-roundtable/">policing</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/colonial-chutzpah-jewish-national-fund">land usage</a> and climate change, and <a href="https://al-shabaka.org/op-eds/palestine-how-western-aid-enables-israels-colonialism/">neoliberal capitalism</a>. Extending well beyond the academy, this research is being undertaken by activists and organizers as well, in the <a href="https://deadlyexchange.org/">United States</a>, <a href="https://www.birzeit.edu/en/news/birzeit-university-organizes-study-day-rise-far-right-and-right-wing-populism-israel">Palestine</a>, and <a href="https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2023/christian-zionism-takes-root-latin-america">around the world </a>who are directly confronting these systems of surveillance and repression. </p>
<div>
<img width="368" height="369" src="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Center-for-the-Study-of-Zionism-logo.png" alt="A logo depicting a green-colored circle with black edges. Overlaid on top of the green are the words "Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism" on the right, while on the left side of the circle is an illustration of cactus plants that represent Palestinian steadfastness and resilience." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">The logo of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (Photo courtesy of authors)</div>
<p>Embracing this growing body of work, the <a href="https://criticalzionismstudies.org/">Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism</a>
moves beyond the conventional conception of Zionism as a narrowly
Jewish project and instead engages it as a combined
political/ideological project with its own institutional infrastructure
and set of repressive agendas. Of course, the Palestine liberation
movement as a whole (which includes anti-Zionist Jewish scholars and
activists) has long theorized and argued against efforts to conflate
Zionist politics and ideology with Jews or Jewishness. The Institute
arises from that long history of struggle. In academia in particular,
extending the study of Zionism beyond its presumed exclusive location in
Jewish studies is a necessary intervention that refocuses on Zionism as
a political, ideological, racial, and gendered knowledge project whose
structural consequences include, but are not limited to, the
colonization of Palestine. By taking its place alongside Decolonial
Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Gender and
Sexuality Studies, Critical Disability Studies, and related scholarship
and activism, Critical Zionism Studies does not simply interpret the
world but also works to change it. </p><div id="gmail-mondo-ads-1147422705"><p>Advertisement</p><div id="gmail-mondo-ads-1606399095">
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<p>Studying Zionism through such a comprehensive lens means, for
instance, looking at the role of Zionist institutions in arenas beyond
Palestine as well as the range of Jewish communities, organizations, and
institutions where it is not as readily transparent. Critical Zionism
Studies means examining how Zionist interventions move capital and shape
the material conditions of life and death–in Palestine, North America,
and beyond. Critical Zionism Studies means considering how Zionist
politics form and influence common sensibilities about race, identity,
and the possibility of shared liberation. Critical Zionism Studies <a href="https://m.facebook.com/AlQawsorg/videos/beyond-propaganda-reorienting-anti-pinkwashing-organizing/407241884004906/?__so__=permalink&__rv__=related_videos">means</a> <a href="http://alqaws.org/articles/Beyond-Propaganda-Pinkwashing-as-Colonial-Violence?category_id=0">interrogating</a> <a href="https://www.academia.edu/89122225/TERFism_Zionism_and_Right_Wing_Annihilationism_Toward_an_Internationalist_Genealogy_of_Extinction_Phobia">how</a>
sex/gender/sexuality are inflected, organized, directed, and contained
in and through Zionist political and ideological projects. And this
research is already happening, albeit on the rocky, uphill <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/the-palestine-exception">terrain</a>
of repressive conditions fostered and perpetuated by Zionist
institutions. The Institute intends to counteract this repression by
allocating space, resources, and visibility to Critical Zionism Studies,
supporting and amplifying it through fellowships, conferences, and
publications that will extend the reach of academic and activist
knowledges into popular culture.</p>
<p>This task has never been more urgent, given the constant and
intensifying attacks on critical Zionism research and activism,
especially in North American and European universities. Departments of
Jewish Studies and Israel Studies have all too frequently either
spearheaded these attacks or served as the terrain wherein Zionist
institutions <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/when-gifts-come-with-strings-attached">try to assert control over knowledge</a>
about Zionism and police the permissible boundaries of critique. By
contrast, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism is financially
and politically transparent and grounded in grassroots spaces, offering
an intellectual and political home for academics and activists across
institutions and cultural sites. The Institute is a response to the
pressing need to declare space, distribute resources, and galvanize the
necessary dialogue, research, and pedagogical approaches that will
constitute the knowledge bases of Critical Zionism Studies. As <a href="https://www.academia.edu/43046935/Whose_University_Academic_Freedom_Neoliberalism_and_the_Rise_of_Israel_Studies_">recent research</a>
has clearly shown, the rise of Israel studies in academia has been
directly linked to Zionist donor-driven initiatives, as exemplified by
the Tikvah Fund’s financing of <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/the-israeli-far-rights-man-in-princeton">lectureships</a>, student fellowships, and events <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/conservative-money-and-jewish-studies-investigating-the-tikvah-fund/">intended to “leverage”</a>
universities’ prestige and resources. This approach has been encouraged
by the Israeli state as a strategic soft-power effort to enlist
popular, political, and diplomatic support (in much the same way as the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sought to build <a href="https://medium.com/@nellybassily/from-pinkwashing-to-pinkwatching-palestinian-queer-resistance-26b7e44447e3">a base of LGBTQI+ supporters of Israel</a> or undermine the call for BDS in the United States). </p>
<p>Students and faculty who insist on critically examining Israel and
the foundational politics that undergird it, or who reject the notion
that Zionism is simply a point of view rather than a mode and structure
of state violence, have regularly been penalized and punished for,
allegedly, “stifling academic freedom.” Yet it is anti-Zionist critics
and scholars whose academic freedom has been violated. <a href="http://www.ijan.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IJAN-Business-of-Backlash-full-report-web.pdf">University
administrations are often influenced by wealthy donors as well as the
rhetoric produced within Israel Studies department</a>s. By contrast,
scholars studying the politics and impacts of Zionist institutions–
especially those who center Palestine–are subjected to <a href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/fatima-mohammed-media-roundup">silencing</a>, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-i-was-fired/?sra=true&cid=gen_sign_in">retaliation</a>, and <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/21/palestinian-scholar-accuses-sfsu-broken-contract-promise">other</a> <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-university-dismisses-antisemitism-claims-against-psychology-professor">repressive</a> <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/legal-battle-ends-larger-struggle-continues-professor-denied-tenure">measures</a>,
adversely impacting their safety and livelihoods. These sanctions are
meted out beyond the academy, by Zionist institutions, and, all too
often, within it, by <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2022/05/grieving-against-the-neoliberal-universitys-collusion-with-apartheid-israel-zionist-donors-and-private-tech-companies/">university administrators</a>
hamstrung by a combination of Zionist bullying and neoliberal
imperatives of diversity, equity, and inclusion that conflate Jewish,
Israeli, and Zionist “identities” as vulnerable subjectivities in need
of protection. The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, working
with scholars across fields, including but not limited to Jewish
Studies, challenges the assumption that Jewish Studies—and, more
obviously, the study of Zionism—must necessarily be pro-Zionist and
overseen by Zionist faculty. A key part of the Institute’s work is to
support resistance to the onslaught of campaigns seeking to equate the
critique of Zionism with antisemitism. This tired tactic is increasingly
the only means left to discredit the growing grassroots support for the
Palestine solidarity movement, especially since claims like
“Palestinians want to ‘throw the Jews into the sea’” have <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/195261631">lost credibility</a> and apologists for Israel’s escalating anti-Palestinian violence are increasingly unable to defend or justify them.</p>
<p>As academic workers, activists, and grassroots organizers who have
already contributed to research on Zionism, both within the Palestinian
context and beyond, we come together in committed support of this work
(see the founding organizing collective <a href="https://criticalzionismstudies.org/people/">here</a>).
The Institute is explicitly anti-Zionist, anti-racist, and
anti-colonial, and is strictly committed to abiding by the BDS picket
line, established by the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society. The
Institute seeks to create an intellectual and political community
grounded in solidarity with and dedicated to uplifting the voices,
experiences, and lives of those most harmed by Zionism, understood as a
broad set of colonial and repressive networks acting against dissenting
peoples and movements. The <a href="https://criticalzionismstudies.org/points-of-unity/">points of unity</a>
below unite the Institute’s activist and academic members. Starting
from this common ground allows for study, debate, and true academic
freedom to pursue critical anti-Zionist research unhampered by constant
derailing demands, bullying, smearing, and distractions. Perhaps most
importantly, it allows the work to begin without having to declare or
justify its first principles, which are a decisive rejection of the
animating values of the neoliberal colonial university.</p>
<ul><li><strong><em>Zionism is a settler colonial racial project. Like the United States, Israel is a settler colonial state. </em></strong>The Institute opposes Zionism and colonialism.</li><li><strong><em>Studying Zionism – its direct work for the Israeli state and its “other work” – is politically necessary. </em></strong>The
rigorous, transnational study of Zionism as a political ideology and
practice, and of Zionist institutions as political actors, is necessary
for political pursuits from democracy to decolonization.</li><li><strong><em>Academic research is not politically or morally neutral. </em></strong>The
Institute’s research aims to interrogate and intervene in racism,
colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and the appropriation of liberatory
rhetoric by repressive political forces, among other harms.</li><li><strong><em>We join in resistance to structures of racism, group supremacy, violence, militarism, colonialism, and capitalism. </em></strong>The
Institute works in conjunction with interconnected movements, led from
below, for justice and self-determination. Researching the role that
Zionism plays in struggles over racism and violence advances those
movements. Neither studying nor criticizing Zionism is anti-Jewish.</li><li><strong><em>Research on power must center the narratives and perspectives of those it dominates. </em></strong>The
Institute’s project is to support research from below, produced by a
community led by people who are the targets of Zionist and state
repression, with a research agenda determined in collaboration with
communities resisting repression.</li><li><strong><em>We reject the exclusionary/scarcity model of academic work. </em></strong>US
academia is an exclusionary environment, and it is additionally
exclusionary for those engaging critically with Zionism. We reject
academic professional success as a measure of the value of our
colleagues’ research, ideas, and participation. Instead, we aim to
broaden the community of participation in rigorous research and
conversation on Zionism, ensuring that it includes and uplifts students,
junior and contingent faculty, activists, and communities whose lives
are shaped by Zionist institutions’ political work.</li><li><strong><em>We protect each other by working accountably together. </em></strong>Researchers
and activists are subjected to different levels of repression. We
protect each other by adhering to shared security protocols and using
less vulnerable voices to protect more vulnerable voices.</li></ul>
<p>This October, an upcoming bicoastal <a href="https://criticalzionismstudies.org/2023conference/">conference</a>, “<strong>Battling the ‘IHRA definition’: Theory & Activism</strong>,”<strong> </strong>will officially inaugurate the Institute.<strong> </strong>The
conference will bring together scholars and activists for dialogue and
organizing sessions and to share analysis and critiques of the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of
antisemitism, which serves as both a tool of and a shield for repressive
state power. We encourage activists and academics alike — all those who
are battling the IHRA definition, including students, researchers,
faculty, and organizers — to join the Institute’s <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vsp_5o0OOyrDXtdejbMCK9Qm5ys845TeX-MyTQ7EI-c/viewform?edit_requested=true">mailing list</a> to keep up with and support our work. If you’d like to be in touch or get involved in other ways, you can also email us at <a href="mailto:info@criticalzionismstudies.org">info@criticalzionismstudies.org</a>.</p>
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