‘Not in our name’: historic anti-Zionist Congress underway in Vienna

Anti-Zionist Jewish Congress 2025, Vienna, Austria. | Credit: 5Pillars

The world’s first Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress is underway in Austria, bringing together prominent Jewish academics, activists, and intellectuals to oppose the “dangerous” ideology responsible for the occupation of Palestine.

Organisers say they hope the three-day event, hosted in the capital, Vienna, will unite and strengthen the “Jewish resistance” to Zionism and support Palestinians amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The event boasts a line-up of distinguished speakers, including Professor Haim Bresheeth, Ilan Pappé, Professor Yakov Rabkin, Peter Eisenstein, and Iris Hefets.

Speaking to 5Pillars, Ilan Pappé, a Jewish historian, author, and political scientist, explained his hopes for the Congress and why the need for Jews to speak out against the ideology was more important than ever.

“We are hoping to galvanise public opinion among both Jewish and European communities. We hope this will be an historic event which will change attitudes and help stop the genocide on the ground.

“The problem with Zionism is that it is a racist ideology. Although it started as something more benevolent it became a project which believes Palestine should become a Jewish state though the dispossession of the Palestinians.

“That’s what Zionism became. A settler colonialist ideology.”

Speaker Ilhan Pappe sitting alongside Haim Bresheeth and Ghada Karmi.

Jewish academic Professor Haim Bresheeth told 5Pillars that he sees Zionism and Israel as a “racist” project which needs to be brought to an end in the same way apartheid South Africa was ended.

“I am here because it is not possible to live with Zionism. It is not possible to live with all the aggression, destruction, death, genocide and all the war crimes that Israel is afflicting against the Palestinians and everyone else around them. No one is safe from Zionism.

“The problem with Zionism is it is a racist movement of the European kind. It is a racist movement which is grounded in white supremacy, imperialism; the belief that Jews cannot live with non Jews. That is a racist belief.”

A number of Arab and Palestinian speakers are also being platformed including Dr Ghada Karmi and journalist Rahma Zein.

Egyptian journalist Rahma Zein told 5Pillars that platforming the former-Zionist Jews is a tactic to undermine Israel’s narrative.

“Zionism is dangerous but we need to create a safe space for those who want to tear up the Israeli passport and denounce Zionism. To encourage more people. And also to have these people speak against liberal Zionism. People who are ex-Zionist speaking out is sometimes more powerful than a brown woman speaking against it.”

Jewish support for Zionism

Historically, Zionism was not a mainstream Jewish belief or ideology. According to historians, the initial plan to create a homeland for world Jewry in Palestine was not well received or popular.

However, following the Second World War, Jewish settler ambitions in Palestine sparked a wave of support for the idea as more Jews emigrated to the Holy Land.

Today, it is widely believed that a large majority of the world’s Jewish community supports Zionism or has a strong connection to Israel, despite the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.

A 2023 Campaign Against Antisemitism poll found that 80% of British Jews self-identify as Zionist, with 97% feeling “personally connected” to Israel.

However, a 2024 National Jewish Identity Survey reported a decline from 72% identifying as Zionist a decade ago to 63% in 2022, predating the October 7, 2023, events.

A 2025 Voice of the Jewish People survey found that a “significant majority” of American Jews self-identify as “Zionist” or “somewhat Zionist,” with higher non-Zionist or anti-Zionist representation among younger Jews, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and those who have never visited Israel. Exact percentages were not provided.

Professor Bresheeth addressed this point to 5Pillars.

“Zionism is not just occupying Palestine it has occupied the Jewish mind. It moved them from Judaism to Zionism. It replaced God with the army. It replaced the morality of the Prophets with a fascist racist morality of a settler colonial state. Unfortunately this is a powerful argument among many Jews and we can’t change that over night.

“However, when I first came to London, many years ago, I only knew ten anti-Zionist Jewish colleges but now I can’t count them. So it is not a totally lost cause. There is still hope for change.”

Although many Jews support Zionism, Zionists are not exclusively Jewish. There are many non-Jews who identify as Zionists, including extremist Christian groups based in America and Western politicians.

The Palestine solidarity movement boasts many Jewish allies, too, including both secular and Orthodox religious Jews who oppose Israel and the political ideology behind its creation.

Vienna’s Zionist history

The choice of organisers to arrange the Congress in Vienna was not random. Vienna is a city with strong links to the origins of the Zionist movement.

While Zionism as a political movement originated in various locations, including eastern and central Europe, Vienna played a significant role in its development, particularly through the work of Theodor Herzl.

Herzl established the central office of the movement in Vienna and published his official Zionist weekly newspaper, “Die Welt,” from there.

Theodor Herzl, the European founder of Zionism.

Herzl, a key figure in the Zionist movement, is credited with popularising the term “Zionism” and advocating for a Jewish state. He also convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.

Born in 1860 in Budapest to a family of assimilated, non-religious European Jews, Herzl was raised in a culturally Jewish but largely secular environment.

Herzl was a secular European atheist Jew with no attachment to religious Judaism.

Delegates said Zionism is the root cause of the conflict in Palestine, as it encouraged European Jews during and after WW2 to travel to Arab populated Palestine and settle the land.

When the Arabs eventually fought back against illegal Jewish settler expansionism and terrorism, the Zionist settlers forces engaged in ethnic cleansing.

In 1948 Zionists gangs expelled over 700,000 Palestinians from Palestine by stealing their land and ethnically cleansing them. This is known as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe – the dispossession of the Palestinian nation.