IJV Statement on Zionism

November 12, 2024 IJV Canada

In June 2024, IJV members voted to adopt the following position statement:

  1. IJV re-affirms that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
  2. IJV re-affirms that many Jewish people identify as anti-Zionist.
  3. IJV welcomes as members and supporters all people who agree with our Basis of Unity and are willing to work towards our goals.
  4. IJV re-affirms that it unequivocally opposes the following laws, policies, practices, and positions of the State of Israel, its governments, the World Zionist Organization and/or various Zionist organizations and lobby groups:
  • Jewish supremacy in any of its forms, especially in granting fewer rights to Palestinians in Israel/Palestine than to Jews;
  • Israeli laws and policies that privilege Jews over Palestinians, and/or promote forced segregation between Jews and Palestinians, and/or discriminate against Palestinian individuals, Palestinian institutions or Palestinian governments (e.g. municipalities, schools, etc.);
  • The expulsion of Palestinians, ongoing from 1948 until the present, and refusal to allow their return;
  • Expropriation of Palestinians’ property, ongoing from 1948 until the present, and refusal to pay compensation;
  • Use of public land almost exclusively for the benefit of Israel’s Jewish citizens and to the exclusion and detriment of Palestinians;
  • The continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, without the unequivocal granting of full rights and equality to the Palestinians living there;
  • The “Jewish Nation-State Law”;
  • Illegal Israeli settlement in the territories Israel occupied in 1967 and the ongoing expulsions of Palestinians, seizures of their lands, harassment and intimidation of local people, and illegal arrests and killings that are used to maintain and deepen the occupation; 
  • The blockade of Gaza from 2007 to the present;
  • The horrific massacres, dispossession, starvation and plausible genocide inflicted on the people of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2024; and
  • Other acts of discrimination, persecution, oppression and violence against the Palestinian people, too numerous to list here in full.
  1. Since the items listed in (4) above have become key elements of mainstream Zionism — by which we mean the political movement and supporting ideology that advocates for a state run by Jews for the benefit of Jews, to the exclusion of other citizens and noncitizens, in particular Palestinians — and since IJV is committed to working towards a future in Israel/Palestine that promises complete equality between Jews and Palestinians, IJV opposes Zionism.
  2. IJV re-affirms our support of BDS, including its three goals:
  • Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
  • Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
  • Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.