For years, European leaders have warned that anti-Zionism is often just antisemitism in disguise. Now, a groundbreaking new study from Sweden has delivered the empirical proof.

A first-of-its-kind survey experiment led by Professor Christer Mattsson of the University of Gothenburg has found a measurable, widespread correlation between anti-Zionist rhetoric and classic antisemitic beliefs — an overlap long acknowledged by Jewish communities but downplayed by traditional antisemitism indexes.

The study, conducted across Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States with roughly 9,000 interviewees, replaced the word “Jews” with “Zionists” in common antisemitic tropes. The results were stark. Only 5–10% of respondents endorsed statements such as “Jews are deceitful” or “Jews control the media.” But when the same statements targeted “Zionists,” public agreement skyrocketed to near-neutral — meaning just as many people agreed as disagreed.

In other words, antisemitic sentiment suddenly became socially acceptable when rebranded as anti-Zionism.

“This study shows contemporary antisemitism expresses itself through anti-Zionism,” Mattsson told Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). “It preserves the same conspiratorial content.”

The findings challenge years of official reporting. Countries celebrated as having “low antisemitism” — such as Sweden and the Netherlands — consistently show high levels of antisemitic harassment in Jewish community surveys. Sweden, for example, ranked as the least antisemitic country in the ADL’s 2025 Global 100 poll, scoring just 5%, yet 35% of Swedish Jews reported experiencing antisemitic harassment in the previous year.

Mattsson says the discrepancy can no longer be explained away as isolated extremism or immigrant-community concentration. “The data doesn’t add up,” he said. “There is something wrong with the measurement.”

Because antisemitism has “migrated” from explicit hatred of Jews to accusations against “Zionists,” earlier surveys simply failed to capture the phenomenon.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, head of the European Jewish Association, said the study confirms what Jewish communities have observed for years: anti-Zionism is being used as a “socially permissible” cover for antisemitism.

“For a Jew walking the streets of Europe today, this is not about statistics — it is daily reality,” Margolin said. “Leaders must wake up and confront this despicable phenomenon.”

The Swedish findings directly challenge previous studies that suggested only a weak or inconsistent connection between anti-Israel attitudes and antisemitism. By swapping “Jew” for “Zionist,” Mattsson’s study uncovered what earlier researchers missed.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)