Opinion: Criticizing oppressive Zionism is legitimate, not antisemitic

Whatever one’s views about the Palestinian struggle, the San Diego school board has no right to censor political speech and educational content.

By Yazan Zahzah

and Omar Zahzah

Dec. 6, 2021 4:23 PM PT

Yazan Zahzah is a longtime member of the Palestinian Youth Movement who works as a community researcher and lecturer in San Diego, and lives in Hillcrest. Omar Zahzah is the education and advocacy coordinator at Eyewitness Palestine and a member of the San Diego branch of the Palestinian Youth Movement. He has a Ph.D. in comparative literature with an emphasis on ethnic studies from UCLA and lives in North Park. The authors are brothers.

On Oct. 26, the Board of Education for the San Diego Unified School District once again revealed its hypocrisy and disregard toward Arab and Muslim American inclusion and safety. Its members passed a resolution defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism, formalizing programmatic contracts with the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, two organizations working in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security on the advancement of Islamophobic policy.

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Originally entitled Countering Violent Extremism, a governmental surveillance project that began under the Obama administration has received notable backlash from many civil rights organizations across the United States due to its criminalization of religiosity, citizenship status, mental health, socioeconomic class and political beliefs in a discredited attempt to preemptively stop “radical” (often Muslim) “extremists.”

In 2016, the San Diego school board considered a resolution to address the disproportionate amount of bullying faced by Muslims. Muslim youth have been mocked, harassed and severely beaten due to bullying with minimal response from the school district.

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But community members filed a lawsuit against San Diego Unified in 2017 for its support of the resolution, alleging the resolution was developed in questionable proximity to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The basis of the outcry was an Islamophobic dismissal of CAIR, alleging it was a terrorist-affiliated organization. Though a judge ruled “there was no evidence that the school district was treating Islam more favorably than other religions,” ultimately plaintiffs contended the resolution prioritized Muslim students. As a result of the suit, San Diego Unified abandoned the prospect of a partnership with CAIR and shelved the resolution.

In October, proponents of the new resolution contended it protected against antisemitism, a racist belief, while opponents argued it was a dangerous political consolidation of antisemitism with the anti-racist ideology of anti-Zionism.

Zionism is the political ideology that justifies the state of Israel’s apartheid practices against the Palestinian people, including legal systems that prevent Palestinians from holding certain positions, a segregated road system, the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes and more. Zionism may seem exceptional, but it is quite similar to Manifest Destiny, which stipulated that White North Americans had a God-given right to colonize the land of peoples they deemed inferior. Opposing Zionism is therefore not, as pro-Israel institutions and individuals often falsely claim, about discriminating against Jewish people. It is about ensuring all people, including Palestinians, can live free from oppression.

Whatever one’s views about the Palestinian struggle, the San Diego school board has no right to censor political speech and educational content. Gutting political speech on Palestine is no different from the national right-wing crackdown on anti-racist education.

Moreover, the fact that the district has sidelined fighting the Islamophobia plaguing San Diego schools while censoring Palestine from classrooms shows a warped, insensitive and frankly callous disregard for student safety and well-being.

The court case over the anti-Muslim bullying resolution spurred San Diego city schools’ partnership with the ADL around 2017. By falsely portraying political activism as a rampant form of antisemitism, pro-Israel forces are then able to pressure school boards to use Zionist organizations like the ADL, which has advised law enforcement agencies to surveil activist organizations and works with the FBI, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center as the default organizations for teaching about antisemitism. But this establishes a dangerous precedent, given that student bodies are being taught about antisemitism by organizations whose principal aim is demonizing any and all work for justice in Palestine.

If the creators of the resolution were genuinely concerned with the experiences of Jewish bullying victims, then a resolution banning violence against another religious minority group might seem like a relevant initiative that builds upon the other. However, if we consider the ardent Zionism driving the creation of the resolution and the intentional conflation between antisemitism and anti-Zionist ideology, then we can see how it acts to criminalize CAIR and delegitimize the experiences of Muslim victims of bullying.

The message is loud and clear: Arabs and Muslims do not matter except insofar as their struggles can be co-opted to reinforce a politically fraudulent definition of antisemitism that equates unquestioned support for Israel with protecting Jewish students.