Jewish supremacy or Jewish supremacism is a discourse pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that asserts that the ethnonationalist views, policies and identity politics of some actors, particularly within Israel, arise to the level of a form of supremacism.[1][2][3] The term "Jewish supremacy" has been used by various critics of Israeli policies, with some arguing that it reflects a broader pattern of discrimination in Israel against non-Jews.[4][5]
According to Raz Segal, it is a type of white supremacy.[6]
Ilan Pappé, an expatriate Israeli historian, writes that the First Aliyah to Israel "established a society based on Jewish supremacy" within "settlement-cooperatives" that were Jewish owned and operated.[7] Joseph Massad, a professor of Arab studies, holds that "Jewish supremacism" has always been a "dominating principle" in religious and secular Zionism.[8][9] Zionism was established with the goal of creating a sovereign Jewish state, where Jews could be the majority, rather than the minority. Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism, considered antisemitism as an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and as a result, he believed that only a separation could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution. "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!"[10]
Since the 1990s,[11] Orthodox Jewish rabbis from Israel, most notably those affiliated to Chabad-Lubavitch and religious Zionist organizations,[11][12] including The Temple Institute,[11][12] have set up a modern Noahide movement. These Noahide organizations, led by religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis, are aimed at non-Jews in order to convince them to commit to follow the Noahide laws.[11][12] However, these religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis that guide the modern Noahide movement, who are often affiliated with the Third Temple movement,[11][12] expound a racist and supremacist ideology which consists in the belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and racially superior to non-Jews,[11][12] and mentor Noahides because they believe that the Messianic era will begin with the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to re-institute the Jewish priesthood along with the practice of ritual sacrifices, and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy in Israel, supported by communities of Noahides.[11][12] David Novak, professor of Jewish theology and ethics at the University of Toronto, has denounced the modern Noahide movement by stating that "If Jews are telling Gentiles what to do, it’s a form of imperialism".[13][14][15]
In 2002, Joseph Massad said that Israel imposes a "Jewish supremacist system of discrimination" on Palestinian citizens of Israel, and that this has been normalized within the discourse on how to end the conflict, with various parties arguing that "it is pragmatic for Palestinians to accept to live in a Jewish supremacist state as third class citizens".[1]
In the aftermath of the 2022 Israeli legislative election, the winning right-wing coalition included an alliance known as Religious Zionist Party, which was described by Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg as a political party "driven by Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism".[16]
Various discriminatory policies and practices have been cited variously as Jewish supremacy in Israel,[17] including specifically the 1952 Citizenship Law and [18] the nation-state law.[19] The Kach party, Israeli settlers, and Netanyahu-led Israeli government are cited as favoring Jewish supremacy.[18][6]
Whereas the First Aliya established a society based on Jewish supremacy, the Second Aliya's method of colonization was separation from Palestinians.