From the Cold War to University Campuses Today: Antizionist Discourse

One of the most striking aspects of contemporary antizionist discourse is the extent to which it reproduces the slogans, tropes, and explanatory logic of Soviet propaganda. From equations of Zionism with Nazism, fascism, racism, imperialism, and colonialism to claims that Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state, the contemporary demonization of Zionism and Israel by the anti-Israel left follows familiar patterns born during the Cold War to serve the USSR’s geopolitical objectives. In this talk, Izabella Tabarovsky traces the trajectory of contemporary antizionism from Cold War USSR to the 1970s-80s global left, the postcolonial Third World, the UN and university campuses today.