EXTREMISMThe Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism: Five Things to Know
The far-left Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) uses scholastic veneer to establish anti-Zionist activism as an academic discipline and as the only acceptable moral and scholarly stance in academia.
1. The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism is a non-profit organization seeking to dismantle Zionism.
The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) is a far-left, explicitly anti-Zionist non-profit organization founded in 2023 by prominent anti-Zionist activists and academics who seek the villainization and wholesale rejection of Zionism—the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, Israel—from academia. Utilizing a scholastic veneer, this activist group works to establish anti-Zionist activism as an academic discipline and as the only acceptable moral and scholarly stance in academia.
The ICSZ’s stated mission is “to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies” and to place Zionism in the same realm academically as “decolonial studies, critical terrorism studies, settler colonial studies.” It works toward this mission by promoting a subject it calls “Critical Zionism Studies,” which frames Zionism as a co-conspirator or relative of ideologies such as Nazism, fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism, transphobia and Hindutva (a form of Indian ethno-nationalism), among others.
In the ICSZ’s view, the current association between the study of Zionism and Jewish Studies effectively shields the movement for Jewish self-determination from the political and ideological critiques they seek to normalize. As its handout on Critical Zionism Studies states, “we have to delink [Zionism] from areas of study that fence it off from political and ideological critique” and “make clear” that the study of Zionism “is deeply and essentially connected to the study of global forces including contests over power, race, colonialism, capital, militarism, and violence.”
The delinking of Zionism from Jewish and Israel Studies serves two goals: to advance the cause of anti-Zionism and to discredit accusations of antisemitism.
The ICSZ believes “accusations of antisemitism are weaponized to advance Zionist politics” and sees the need to “reclaim” the definition of antisemitism “away from the way that Zionists misuse it,” ICSZ board member Sara Kershnar said on the April 15, 2024, episode of the ICSZ podcast Unpacking Zionism.
