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The Lost Cause: Anti-Zionism, Oct. 7, and How Revisionist Movements Can Distort History
Pro-Hamas activists gather in Washington Square Park for a rally following a protest march held in response to an NYPD sweep of an anti-Israel encampment at New York University in Manhattan, May 3, 2024. Photo: Matthew Rodier/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Every January, I study aspects of the American civil rights movement and pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. for bending the arc of our world toward justice. Since last year, I have been revisiting Lost Cause literature. Much to my surprise, the Lost Cause movement was popularized by universities and influencers in ways that are eerily similar to today’s resurgent antisemitism.
The Lost Cause is a popular revisionist movement that reframes the Confederate States in the US South as the victims of Northern aggression and Confederates as righteous and heroic actors of the United States Civil War. While the Civil War ended in 1865, many secessionists and Confederate sympathizers were determined to bring victory out of battlefield defeat through terrorism and a revisionist counter-narrative of the Civil War. The tactics changed but the struggle for White Supremacy remained the same. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded in 1865 by former Confederate soldiers to realize the goals of the Lost Cause. As Charles Aycock, the former governor of North Carolina, later proclaimed, “From the mountains to the sea … we must disenfranchise the Negro.”
WEB Du Bois eloquently wrote in Black Reconstruction in America that the Lost Cause and its revisionist narrative was propelled for decades by elite American universities: “The real frontal attack on Reconstruction, as interpreted by the leaders of national thought in 1870 and for some time thereafter, came from the universities and particularly Columbia [University].” Du Bois further states: “The Columbia school of historians … has issued … sixteen studies of Reconstruction … all based on the same thesis, and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro [italics added for emphasis].” As Du Bois concludes in his seminal book: “A nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned.”
In addition to universities, influencers helped to mainstream the Lost Cause by disproportionately emphasizing the sins committed by Northerners and Southern blacks during and after the Civil War. From Birth of a Nation to Gone with the Wind to The Dukes of Hazard, the popular Lost Cause narrative celebrated Southern white culture and defiance of “outsider” meddling while downplaying the horrors of slavery and injustices of Black Codes and segregation. The occupying Union soldiers and administrators were labeled “the carpet bagger regime” and the Reconstruction “occupation” was viewed primarily as folly and oppressive.
Similar to the Lost Cause phenomenon, anti-Zionism is a popular revisionist movement that reframes the founding of Israel as a colonial enterprise and the Palestinians/Arabs as righteous and heroic actors of the ongoing conflict. The reality is most Jews were forcibly expelled from what is modern day Israel into the diaspora by the Babylonians and the Romans, yearning for centuries to return to their sacred ancestral homeland, while many Jews remained in the area for millennia. Throughout the early to mid-1900s, Arab anti-immigrant activists in the Middle East pressured the British to restrict Jewish refugees in the British Mandate of Palestine, enabling millions of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust including 80 members of my family. Nevertheless, when the colonial British Mandate in Palestine ended, the Jewish Agency supported the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan to establish a Jewish and a Palestinian state.
Palestinian leaders and surrounding Arab countries refused to compromise and almost immediately attacked Israel in 1948. The goal of the 1948 war against Israeli independence was, as clearly stated at the time, “to eliminate the Jews of Palestine, and to completely cleanse the country of them.”
Most neighboring countries are still determined to eliminate Israel as an independent nation, only tolerating a weak token Jewish presence in their midst. As Bobby Kennedy foresaw in 1948 after visiting the region, “They are determined that a separate Jewish state will be attacked and attacked until it is finally cut out like an unhealthy abscess.” Around 30 countries currently do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. A number of these countries openly support terrorism and exhibit a singular hatred of the Jewish state. Malaysia inscribes on its passports: “This passport is valid for all countries except Israel.” The Iranian president said he would “try to have friendly relations with all countries except Israel.” The Qatari government has given Hamas $1.5 billion over the past 10 years, and systemic antisemitism is woven into their country’s educational curricula. Yet, Israel is widely vilified by the international community.
Much like at the height of Lost Cause influence, antisemitic and anti-Zionist sentiment today is being fueled by elite universities. University presidents refused to unequivocally declare that on-campus advocacy of genocide against Jews violates school codes of conduct. A Columbia University professor who declared Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel “resistance” has been rewarded rather than reprimanded: the anti-Zionist professor is scheduled to “teach” a course on Zionism! Professors and university-supported student organizations at places such as Harvard astonishingly blamed Israel for the horrors of Oct. 7, even before Israel’s military response, despite the government of Gaza explicitly declaring its desire to eliminate Israel through more such attacks.
It’s an upside-down time, where the party that seeks to commit genocide flips the script by labeling the party it wants to kill as evil and genocidal.
The anti-Zionist hostility on college campuses is palpable, as I observed during visits with my college-bound son. Numerous banners promote “the intifada” and decry “the Gaza genocide,” with no “free the hostages” or “free Gaza from Hamas/Iran” signs anywhere to be found.
Well-intentioned people usually gravitate to “the underdog” and social justice rhetoric. But what if the perceived underdog’s values or viewpoints are dangerous? And, what if the social justice slogans are misleading or nefarious? As Bob Dylan forewarns in Man of Peace, “sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.” (A red flag for the well-intended: university professors and students echo former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who participates in anti-Israel protests and claims the Jews are committing “genocide” against the Palestinians.)
Also similar to the Lost Cause, influencers today are legitimizing antisemitism and indifference to Jewish suffering. Eric Clapton’s recent claim that “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show” epitomizes this perspective. Throughout the world, musicians abandoned their hippie comrades in Israel. There has been no “We are the World” coalition to commemorate the Nova festival massacre or demand a return of the hostages taken from the peaceful music venue — even though Oct. 7, 2023, was the largest and most violent atrocity in music history.
A deliberate effort is underway to separate Jewish identity from Zionism, while branding Zionism as evil. Anti-Zionists hypocritically celebrate longstanding place-based connections of every identity group, except the Jewish Tribe.
Jews and the State of Israel are far from perfect. But Israeli efforts — along with shameful instances of egregious abuse, mistakes, and bigotry — should be viewed within the “bigger picture” context and without double standards. For instance, journalists and anti-Israel activists emphasize the number of deaths “on both sides,” implying moral equivalency or that a higher death toll on one side in and of itself shows the other side is wrong.
Yet, no reasonable journalist or human rights organization suggests that the Americans and English were the bad actors of World War II, even though the American military was segregated at the time, during “D-Day” the Allies bombed Nazi-controlled French villages and cities inadvertently killing over 20,000 French civilians, and an estimated 40,000 German civilians were killed by the American and English bombings of Hamburg. During and after the US Civil War, some white Union soldiers engaged in horrific behavior including instances of rape and pillaging of white southern communities. However inexcusable (and deserving condemnation), such misdeeds are no longer disproportionately emphasized or given equal footing with the perpetuation of slavery due to the waning influence of Lost Cause advocates.
Zionism is a Jewish liberation and self-determination movement that should be widely celebrated but instead is being quieted by antisemitic narratives and supersessionist religious theologies that erase Jewish indigenousness in the land of Israel. Historical documents and archeological findings undeniably prove a sustained Jewish presence in the land of Israel for thousands of years. Denying historical Jewish connections to the land of Israel is, as Yossi Klein Halevi states, part of an ongoing “war against the Jewish story” and should be viewed as a threat to indigenous people everywhere.
Zionists need to do a better job communicating the beauty of Zionism and history of the Jewish people, while not hardening our own hearts and minds in the face of adversity. Rising extremism within our own midst requires unequivocal condemnation and marginalization, including against Jewish-settler terrorism in the West Bank. We must cherish strength and security but continuously strive for peace and compromise, despite the long history of intolerance toward Jews and ongoing hostilities to Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.
Studying the Lost Cause offers opportunities to understand how harmful human beliefs and behaviors can become widely accepted. Long after the Civil War, American blacks and their allies were lynched, harassed, and intimidated to suppress black liberation. Universities and influencers for decades fueled anti-black hatred and oppression, while claiming to champion social justice. On the other hand, the abolition and civil rights movements show the difficult and ongoing efforts required to push back against slavery and Lost Cause themes. While the US Lost Cause and civil rights movements are unique experiences, Jews and our allies would be wise to learn from them to overcome our struggles for freedom and liberty.
The post The Lost Cause: Anti-Zionism, Oct. 7, and How Revisionist Movements Can Distort History first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.