Missouri is on the wrong track to fight hatred of Jews: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism | Opinion
A recent Star guest commentary about pending legislation in Jefferson City purporting to combat antisemitism, while correct on free speech, ignores the problem and distorts the issue. Anti-Zionism isn’t distinct from antisemitism. It’s the latest form.
Missouri House Bills 746 and 937 are the wrong response to college campus antisemitism. By codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, Missouri legislators would chill campus speech and invite First Amendment lawsuits — without meaningfully addressing antisemitic harassment. Courts hold that vague or overbroad restrictions deter lawful speech and encourage arbitrary enforcement. Campus advocacy groups, free speech organizations and legal scholars broadly oppose codifying the IHRA definition for this reason.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes broad and ambiguous examples, such as “applying double standards” to Israel or comparing Israeli policies to Nazi Germany. Enforcing this definition under Missouri law would pressure universities to suppress protected speech to avoid liability. The First Amendment prohibits the government from penalizing speech based on viewpoint, even if that speech is offensive or wrong.
The chilling effect of these bills is real. Universities, unsure what speech might trigger an antisemitism investigation, could overcorrect — shutting down discussions on Israel, Zionism and Palestinian rights. This is not hypothetical: Universities are already silencing speech preemptively to avoid legal exposure.
The author of this essay is right to oppose these bills on free speech grounds, but she offers no alternative — ignoring the need for targeted legal solutions that protect Jewish students without chilling speech.
Antisemitism is surging on college campuses, with anti-Israel rhetoric frequently escalating into harassment of Jewish students. Under the 1999 Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education Supreme Court decision, universities must respond to harassment that is “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” — yet many fail to act when antisemitism is involved. Instead of restricting speech, lawmakers should take three concrete steps:
- Amend Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect against religious discrimination explicitly, ensuring that antisemitic harassment is treated consistently under federal law.
- Codify existing Department of Education guidance, confirming Title VI applies to antisemitic harassment rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes.
- Adopt the Davis harassment standard across all education-related antidiscrimination law, ensuring a uniform and constitutionally sound approach.
But legal protections alone are insufficient. The rise of anti-Zionism as the socially acceptable form of antisemitism has normalized attacks on Jewish identity itself.
Distinguishing anti-Zionism from antisemitism — suggesting anti-Israel bias is distinct from hostility toward Jews — is factually and historically wrong.
Anti-Zionism is not criticism of Israeli policy; it rejects Jewish self-determination entirely. Framing Israel as a settler-colonial project, it invokes the terms “Nakba,” “apartheid” and “genocide” to delegitimize the Jewish state. Since 1900, more than 100 nation-states have formed, many with state religions or population displacements. Yet Israel’s existence is challenged uniquely. Denying Jewish self-determination while supporting it for others is textbook antisemitism.
As the world’s oldest hatred, antisemitism mutates to fit its time. In the medieval period, the hatred was religious — Jews were persecuted for rejecting Christ. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the hatred was racial — Jews were labeled an ethnic threat, fueling eugenics and state-sponsored murder. Today, the hatred is political — anti-Zionists insist their issue is with Israel, not Jews, yet they single out Jewish nationhood as uniquely illegitimate or unworthy of self-defense. Jews are no more guilty of “genocide” today than of poisoning wells in the Middle Ages.
Delegitimizing Israel is the 21st-century’s blood libel.
The Star’s previous commentary, in opposing Missouri’s antisemitism bills, fails to recognize anti-Israel bias as the driving force behind antisemitic harassment.
Protecting Jewish students and upholding the First Amendment are not mutually exclusive. The solution is not vague laws that chill speech but targeted legal measures that address antisemitic harassment without suppressing political expression.
A small but vocal minority of young American Jews publicly question Israel’s existential legitimacy. This neither validates anti-Zionism nor signifies moral clarity — it reflects a profound failure of Jewish education. A generation ignorant of the Jewish state’s necessity is vulnerable to internalizing the language and biases used to justify Jewish persecution.
The First Amendment protects anti-Zionist speech — but it does not make anti-Zionism any less antisemitic.