Disputing the right to self-determination is anti-Semitic

The argument

The argument proceeds from a specific characterisation of what Zionism is. On this account, Zionism and the establishment of an Israeli state represent the global Jewish community exercising the right to self-determination, the same right under which other peoples have constituted themselves as states. If that description is accepted, proponents argue, then to deny Jews this right, and with it the ability to control their own political future, is not a policy disagreement about a particular state's conduct but a denial of a right granted to everyone else. The second step is an argument from consistency. Nobody would seriously argue that the UK, France, Pakistan or Thailand do not have the right to exist as states, even where their founding involved partition, displacement or contested borders, and even where their governments are subject to severe criticism. The examples are chosen to span different regions and different circumstances of formation, in order to press the question of why one case should be treated differently. To single out Israel among all states as the one whose existence is open to challenge is, on this reading, a manifestation of anti-Semitism rather than an application of any principle held generally, because no general principle is being applied. Proponents add an argument from duration. The UN General Assembly voted to recognise the state of Israel more than seven decades ago, and in the ordinary course a state's existence ceases to be an open question well within that span. That the question is still being debated is taken to indicate that something other than an unresolved legal or historical dispute is sustaining it. From these steps the conclusion follows that anti-Zionism is tantamount to anti-Semitism: not because criticism of Israeli policy is off-limits, but because opposition to the existence of the state, as distinct from opposition to its actions, applies a standard to Jewish self-determination that is applied to no one else's.

Context

At its core, Zionism is the pursuit of Jewish self-determination.

Premises

Counter-arguments

[Counter 1] Anti-Zionism does not seek to deny Jews the right to self-determination. It merely disputes the right of the state of Israel to exercise that self-determination at the expense of the Palestinian community. Anti-Zionism, in the purest definition of the term, is the objection to Israeli expansionism and the suppression of the Palestinian people. There is nothing anti-Semitic about it. Nor does it deny Israel's right to exist. It is simply the promotion of equality and Palestinian rights. [Counter 2] Even if anti-Zionists did question Israel's right to existence, it wouldn't be anti-Semitic. Not all ethnicities and religions have the automatic right to a nation-state. The Kurds, Scots, Catalans, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Lombards and Uyghurs do not have a state. They have a right to exist in a pluralistic and tolerant society. But they do not have the right to demand the formation of a nation state.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Anti-Zionism does not criticise the Jewish right to self-determination. [Rejecting P2] Even if it did, it wouldn't be anti-Semitic.