The Daily Lobo’s article, “What is the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism” is offensive and derogatory to the Jewish community. It perniciously masks the hatred Jewish students and faculty face.
Zionism is the political reality of the nation-state of the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland. Jews have a 3000-year history in the land — even when we were exiled, we maintained a common language (Hebrew), Jewish calendar and culture.
Anti-Zionism is NOT mere criticism of Israeli policy; it denies the very acceptance of Israel as a nation-state of the Jewish people and uses traditional antisemitic libels for demonization and delegitimization. Substituting the word “Zionist” for “Jew” allows the modern antisemite to hide behind their anti-Zionism. And most every libel Israel is accused of is inverted. For example, BDS (the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement) accuses Jews in Israel of apartheid, ironic in that Israel is the only democratic nation in the Middle East that has equal rights for all citizens no matter their race, religion, gender, or orientation.
Arabs, Muslims, Druze and Jews all serve in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament). Yet BDS is silent when the Hamas death cult practices gender apartheid (honor killing of women), orientation apartheid (murdering gays) or ethnic apartheid (Hamas vows to repeat their Oct. 7 barbaric slaughter over and over). Or the libel that Jews are out to conquer land, despite the fact that Israel has offered the Palestinians their own State multiple times.
Why are students and faculty not protesting Iran’s colonization of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon? Why are they not protesting Hamas stealing humanitarian aid provided by Israel, use of its own civilians as human shields, or their torture, rape, and slaughter of civilians on Oct. 7 and those they still hold as hostages? The Hamas charter calls for no peace with Jews and the total annihilation of Israel. Gazans are now protesting Hamas telling them to “get out” and free the hostages — why do some students and faculty still rally for death cults such as Hamas? A Hamas surrender would bring an immediate end to the conflict. And why are Jewish students on UNM’s campus now being threatened, harassed and humiliated? Ignorance? Double standards? Hypocrisy? Or blind hatred?
Anti-Zionism is today’s modern-day insidious version of the world’s oldest hate: the hate of the Jew. The Daily Lobo’s article is a perpetuation of hate-filled ideology.
Halley Faust, MD
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine
Nathaniel Fisher
UNM Class of 2027
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Sally Fisher, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, UNM School of Medicine
Todd Goldblum, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology
