Challenges to Zionism in the late 1960s and 1970s sparked an effort to redefine antisemitism focused on defending Israel while attacking the political Left. This resulted in the IHRA definition and the assault on Palestine activism we see today.

For Malcolm X, Zionism was inextricably linked to wider European colonialism. In a little known passage written just before his assassination, he made it clear he saw Zionism as not just a threat to Palestine, but to the entire Third World.

In the late 1960s as black organizations began to weigh in on the national discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict, black radicals and their critiques of Israel became a source of much anxiety for civil rights groups who fear support for Palestinians would jeopardize their cause.