“There’s a very legitimate debate about whether you can support a state like that [Israel] and still have progressive, small-D democratic values, and there’s nothing antisemitic about saying you can’t.”

When does anti-Zionism cross the line into antisemitism and has the Democratic Party simply become more critical of Israel, or is its relationship with Jewish Americans changing too?

In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ debate — Joel Rubin, a former Obama State Department official and Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign Jewish outreach director, and Peter Beinart, journalist and Jewish Currents editor-at-large, go head-to-head over the Democratic Party’s shifting relationship with Israel and whether or not anti-Israel sentiment is being conflated with antisemitism.

Rubin tells Mehdi that anti-Zionism goes past criticism of Israeli policy, arguing that opposition to Israel’s existence is a line that many Jews see as beyond political disagreement.

But Beinart argues that questioning Zionism or opposing the idea of a Jewish state is not antisemitic, telling Mehdi there is a legitimate debate over supporting the state of Israel while having progressive and democratic values.

The two go back and forth in the debate on their definitions of Zionism, how Israel fits into American Jewish identity and whether progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Abdul El-Sayed are fueling antisemitism on the left.

This debate published on September 9, 2026 at zeteo.com. If you want early, exclusive access to this kind of independent, unfiltered journalism — subscribe to our Substack here: https://zeteo.com/subscribe

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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
02:05 Defining Antisemitism and Criticism of Israel
10:30 Democrats and Israel
22:53 American Jews
32:17 ADL and Islamophobia
37:35 American Allies
44:04 Closing Arguments



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