SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: The IHRA definition of antisemitism—unfortunately adopted by many Christians without acknowledging its serious problems, especially when it comes to Zionism—has made honest conversation nearly impossible.

By now, I’m sure many of you have watched this exchange between

Carrie Prejean Boller and an American Jewish Zionist leader. I am deeply grateful for her courage. This confrontation sheds light on two issues that have shaped public discourse for years: the definition of Zionism, and the increasingly aggressive claim that being anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic. I’m also grateful that more and more Americans are finally beginning to see the problem we have been pointing to for years: the attempt to impose one definition and one set of rules on the rest of the world—rules everyone is simply expected to accept without question. Let me be clear: the central problem with Zionism is not complicated. Zionism established a homeland for the Jewish people on someone else’s land. Palestine was not empty. This is not a theoretical debate for Palestinians. We are the people who have lived the consequences: dispossession, expulsion, fragmentation, military rule, and erasure—Muslims and Christians alike. (And yes, I have the same objection to any state built on an exclusive religious identity. A state should belong to all its people.) But Israel was founded on the land of others—and its exclusive identity continues to dismiss, marginalize, and erase half the population. What makes this even more troubling is that this project is repeatedly presented as something “Christian,” as if Christians are obligated to endorse it—something Carrie made clear she does not support as a Catholic. This is precisely why moments like this matter: they expose how the conversation is manipulated. Again and again, they mischaracterize what you are actually saying. Being anti-Zionist does not mean that Israel does not have the right to exist. Being anti-Zionist means Israel does not have the right to exist as a state built through the expulsion of Palestinians, and sustained by policies that treat Palestinians as second-class citizens—including, by the way, Palestinian Christians. So pay attention to the tactic: they try to change the rules of engagement by claiming you are calling for Israel’s destruction, when that is clearly not what you are saying. This is not confusion. It is a deliberate distortion meant to shut down the conversation, avoid accountability, and portray any critique as extremist. And there is another layer to this: the problem of what I can only call an imaginary Zionism—a Zionism that speaks as if Palestinians do not exist. It speaks about safety and refuge, but refuses to account for the people displaced for the project to succeed, and the price Palestinians continue to pay today—in the form of the genocide in Gaza. For Palestinians, Zionism is not an abstract identity debate. It is a political project with a clear history. Zionist leaders themselves spoke openly of “transfer.” They admitted the logic of removal. They named it. They defended it. And the world watched it happen. So let me ask plainly: as a Palestinian—on the receiving end of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing—if I oppose Zionism, does that make me anti-Semitic? Of course not. And yet, this is what we have been dealing with. The IHRA definition of antisemitism—unfortunately adopted by many Christians without acknowledging its serious problems, especially when it comes to Zionism—has made honest conversation nearly impossible. In practice, it has functioned as a tool to police speech: to make any serious critique of Zionism, or any naming of Palestinian dispossession, immediately suspect. This is why I am grateful for Carrie’s courage. She refused to accept the imposed rules. She refused to allow a political ideology to redefine her faith. And she refused to allow Palestinian suffering to be erased. We need more of this moral clarity. Not to attack Jewish people, deny Jewish suffering, or trivialize antisemitism—which is real and deadly—but to insist that opposing an ideology of dispossession is not hatred, and that justice for Palestinians is not extremism. Because Palestine was not empty. And Palestinians—Christians and Muslims—are not invisible. Not then. Not now. And one final thing: Carrie wore a Palestinian flag. I want to say how much I appreciated that. We felt seen. In a session where Palestinian suffering was dismissed—and where even the reality of genocide was denied—that simple act of symbolism, of choosing to visibly affirm our humanity, meant more than many people realize.

7:15 AM · Feb 11, 2026