If Einstein spoke today, he would be accused of antisemitism

Albert Einstein warned that Zionism betrayed Jewish ethics — today his critique would be branded antisemitic, proving truth has been silenced for power, writes Aisya Zaharin.

IN 1948, AS THE foundations of the Israeli state were being laid upon the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (AFFFI), condemning the growing Zionist militancy within the settler Jewish community:

'When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organisations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.'

Einstein – perhaps the most celebrated Jewish intellectual of the 20th Century – refused to conflate his Jewish identity with the violence of Zionism. He turned down Zionists’ offer to become Israel’s president, rejecting the notion that Jewish survival and self-determination should come at the cost of another people’s displacement and suffering.

And yet, if Einstein were alive today, his words would likely be condemned under the current definitions of antisemitism adopted by many Western governments and institutions — including the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, now endorsed by most Australian universities.

Under this new definition, Einstein’s outspoken criticism of Israel — calling its foundational actors “terrorists" and denouncing their betrayal of Jewish ethics would render him suspect. He would be accused not only of delegitimising Israel but of antisemitism itself. His moral clarity, once visionary, would today be vilified.

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The danger of conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism

Einstein’s resistance to Zionism was not about denying Jewish belonging or rights — it was about refusing to build those rights on ethno-nationalist violence. He understood what too many fail to grasp today: Zionism and Judaism are not synonymous. Zionism is a political ideology rooted in European colonial logics, one that enforces Jewish supremacy in a land historically shared by Palestinians and other Levantine peoples.

To criticise this ideology is not antisemitic — it is, in fact, a necessary act of justice and a moral act of bearing witness. And yet, in today’s political climate, any critique of Israel – no matter how grounded in international law, historical fact, or humanitarian concern – is increasingly branded as antisemitic.

This conflation serves two functions: it shields a settler-colonial state from accountability and it silences Palestinians and their allies from speaking the truth of their oppression.

How many times must we watch Western leaders weaponise antisemitism to shield Israel before we admit the truth? Billions in arms sales, stolen resources and apartheid infrastructure don’t just happen — they’re the reason "criticism" gets rebranded as "hate.”

Zionism: A settler-colonial project, not a religious mandate

To understand Einstein’s critique, we must confront the truth about Zionism itself. While often framed as a movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism in practice has operated as a colonial project of erasure and domination.

The Nakba – when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced in 1948 – was not a tragic consequence of war; it’s a blueprint for disappearance. Jewish historian Ilan Pappé details how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, approved Plan Dalet on 10 March 1948 — a strategy that included the mass expulsion and execution of Palestinians to create a Jewish-majority state.

As Ben-Gurion himself chillingly declared:

“Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion."

This is the foundation of the (Zionist) state we are told not to critique.

Einstein saw this unfolding and recoiled. In another 1948 open letter to the New York Times, he and other Jewish intellectuals described Israel’s newly formed political parties, like Herut (the precursor to Likud), as:

'... closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.'

Einstein's words were not hyperbole — they were a warning. Having fled Nazi Germany, he had direct experience with the defining traits of Nazi-fascism.

He wrote:

'From Israel’s past actions, we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.'

Today, we are living in the very future Einstein feared — a reality marked by massacres in Gaza, the destruction of infrastructure, and the denial of essential resources such as water, electricity and medical aid. This is not about defence — it is the logic of colonial domination.

A state established on principles of ethnic supremacy and expulsion could not transcend its foundation ethos — it cannot endure without employing repression. To criticise Israel is to challenge Zionism itself — Israel’s foundation is Zionism in practice.

Einstein has warned what many still refuse to see: Israel’s founding logic demands perpetual violence until Palestinian resistance is erased entirely.

The Nakba didn't end in 1948; it evolved, funded by Washington, armed by Berlin and enabled by every government that trades Palestinian blood for political favours. Today, the land theft continues and the violence escalates.

Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism

Israel is criticised because of its political ideology rooted in ethnonationalism and settler colonialism. The symbols it uses are irrelevant — its actions speak for themselves. Equating the two is a disservice not only to Palestinians, but to Jews — especially those who, like Einstein, refuse to have their identity weaponised in the service of war crimes.

Zionism today includes not only Israeli supporters but Christian Zionists, military allies and Western politicians who benefit from Israel’s imperial reach, through arms deals, surveillance technology, and geostrategic partnerships. It is a global power structure, not a monolithic ethnic identity.

Many Jews around the world – rabbis, scholars, students, and survivors – continue Einstein’s legacy by saying:

“Not in our name.”

They reject the co-optation of Holocaust memory to justify genocide in Gaza. They refuse to be complicit in what the Torah forbids: the theft of land and the murder of innocents. They are not “self-hating Jews”. They are the inheritors of a prophetic tradition of justice. And they are being silenced.

Colonial legacies and the myth of Jewish exclusivity

Zionism cannot be separated from the broader history of European settler-colonialism.

As Patrick Wolfe explains, Zionism hijacked the rhetoric of Jewish liberation to mask its colonial reality of re-nativism — where the settlers recast themselves as 'indigenous’ while painting resistance as terrorism.

Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, stated in his manifesto-novel Altneuland:

'To build anew, I must demolish before I construct.'

To Zionists, Palestine was not seen as a shared homeland, but as a house to be razed and rebuilt by and for Jews alone. His ideology was further made possible by British imperial interests.

From the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the (ironically) Zionist-Nazi 1933 Haavara Agreement, Zionist project aligned perfectly with the West’s goal to divide and dominate post-Ottoman Southwest Asia through ethnic partition and military alliances (read: Sykes-Picot Agreement).

The real danger: Weaponising Jewish identity

'The IHRA definition (of antisemitism) undermines the fight against antisemitism. It has come to be used over and over as an excuse to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel. It basically prioritises defence of the Israeli government over the defence of Jews around the world. This is a completely counterproductive approach about antisemitism, it cheapens the concept of antisemitism.'

~ Kenneth Roth, human rights activist and son of a Holocaust survivor

Perhaps the most dangerous development today is Israel’s insistence on linking its crimes to Jewish identity itself.

It frames civilian massacres, apartheid policies and international law violations as acts done in the name of all Jews. By tying the Jewish people to the crimes of a state, Israel risks exposing Jews globally to collective blame and retaliation.

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Einstein warned against this. And if Einstein’s vision teaches us anything, it is this: justice cannot be compromised for comfort and profit. Truth must outlast repression. And freedom must belong to all.

In the end, no amount of Israel’s militarisation, propaganda, or geopolitical alliances can forever suppress a people’s resistance or outlast the world’s collective condemnation. The only question left is: how much more blood will be spilt before justice prevails?

Reclaiming Einstein’s prophecy

The struggle for clarity today is not just academic — it is existential. Without the ability to distinguish antisemitism from anti-Zionism, we cannot build a future where Jews and Palestinians both live in dignity, safety and peace.

Reclaiming the term “Semite” in its full meaning – encompassing both Jews and Arabs – is critical. Further isolation of Arabs from the Semitic identity by Zionist narratives has enabled the dehumanisation of Palestinians and the erasure of shared Jewish-Arab histories. Particularly, the centuries of co-existence, the Jewish-Muslim Golden Ages in places like Baghdad, Granada/Andalusia, Istanbul, Damascus and Cairo.

Einstein stood up for the future for us to reclaim it. The path forward must be rooted in truth, justice and accountability.

That means unequivocally opposing antisemitism in all its forms, but also refusing to allow the term to be manipulated as a shield for apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonial domination. It means affirming that Jewish safety must never come at the price of Palestinian freedom and that Palestinian resistance is not hatred — it is survival.

And if Einstein were silenced today, we must ask — who will speak tomorrow?

Aisya Zaharin is a PhD researcher, award-winning trans rights advocate, and member of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Trans and Gender Diverse Expert Advisory Committee.