Coexistence and other Fighting Words

Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin

Seconds before al-Qaeda terrorists murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl on 23 January 2002, in Karachi, Pakistan, he spoke his last words that have both haunted and inspired his family. In a videotape his kidnappers made of Daniel’s murder, he says: ‘My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish. Back in the town of Bnei Brak, there is a street named after my great-grandfather, Chaim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town’.  After his untimely death, Danny became an international symbol, ‘as a true citizen of the world, an embodiment of Western values and an icon of Jewish pride’.

Danny’s father, Professor Judea Pearl of the University of California, Los Angeles, is renowned for his achievements as a computer scientist specialising in artificial intelligence, human cognition, and the philosophy of science. His son’s death challenged him profoundly and propelled him ‘to step beyond algorithms and equations and directly examine the social and political forces that are shaping our troubled world’.

In the Pearl family’s united efforts to ensure a meaningful legacy reflecting Daniel’s character, beliefs and ideals, only two months after Daniel’s murder, the family established the Daniel Pearl Foundation ‘to continue Daniel’s life work of dialogue and understanding and to address the root causes of his tragedy’. The Foundation sponsored journalism fellowships, organised concerts and promoted a hate-free world through lectures and public dialogues. One of its foremost achievements was the Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding, established together with Pakistani diplomat and scholar Akbar Ahmed.

Tragically, the current global tsunami of antisemitism has shattered grassroots peace initiatives, such as those proposed and accomplished in more generous times by the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Without willing partners to engage in cross-cultural Muslim-Jewish exchanges, its work, relevance and potential effectiveness in today’s climate has been compromised. So, you might ask, what effect has this had on Judea Pearl? Has he retreated broken and bowed from the front lines of engagement with challenging contemporary struggles? Given his 88 years, surely he might have been tempted to withdraw from the antisemitic confrontations erupting on his campus and in the wider world. Instead, this warrior for truth and peace has buckled on his armour and returned to the fray, with a battle vocabulary that he believes might strengthen the arguments and political positions of Jewish students, staff and others encountering aggression and hatred on campuses throughout the United States and globally.

In his recently published book, Coexistence and other fighting words, Selected writings of Judea Pearl  2002-2025, he explores effective responses to antisemitic hysteria and those who attack the legitimacy of Zionism, expounding his belief that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism but a different ideology altogether. While he doesn’t exonerate anti-Zionists from charges of antisemitism, he focuses attention on the discriminatory, immoral and more dangerous character of anti-Zionism, which rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation—’a collective bonded by a common history’—denying Jews the right to self-determination in their historical birthplace and seeking to dismantle the Jewish nation-state Israel. ‘Anti-Zionism earns its discriminatory character by denying the Jewish People what it grants to other indigenous claimants,’ he states. ‘Antisemitism rejects Jews as equal member of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal member in the family of nations.’ He writes that anti-Zionism is, in many ways, more dangerous than antisemitism, as it targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, the Jewish population of Israel, whose physical safety and personal dignity depend crucially on maintaining Israel’s sovereignty. He argues that anti-Zionism is more dangerous than antisemitism because its rhetoric has become a mark of academic sophistication and social acceptance in certain extreme yet vocal circles of US academia and among the media elite.  He adds, ‘Anti-Zionism disguises itself in the cloak of political debate, exempt from sensitivities and rules of civility that govern interreligious discourse, to attack the most cherished symbol of Jewish identity’. He alleges it is anti-Zionism, not antisemitism, that poses a more dangerous threat to lives, historical justice and the prospects of peace in the Middle East.

In 2018, Pearl urged those engaged in the moral fight against BDS to replace the word anti-Zionism with the word ‘Zionophobia’ to define the irrational fear of Zionism coupled with an obsessive commitment to undermine the right of Israel to exist. His strong advocacy of this word ‘Zionophobia’ is predicated on his belief that we do not have another word that describes the moral pathology of those who deny us statehood or even peoplehood. He points out that the word ‘anti-Zionism’ has become a badge of honour even in ‘respectable’ circles. He maintains that Zionophobia describes precisely the ideology promoted by BDS activists on campus, it rhymes with Islamophobia—the cardinal sin in liberal circles—and has an element of irrationality and bigotry. ‘My experience in debating hard-core Zionophobes has taught me that the mere mention of the word Zionophobia creates an immediate and drastic change of conversation, from the standard accusations against Israel’s policies to the moral core of the dispute: Jews’ right to a homeland versus the bigotry of those who deny them that right,’ he states. ‘It is a word that shames the excluder for moral deformity as severely and universally as Islamophobia.’ He also advocates for the use of the word ‘Zionophobe’—‘If you deny my people’s right to a homeland, something is wrong with you, not me’.

Judea Pearl’s compilation of writings over a 23-year period, from the death of his son to the present time, reflect his philosophical understanding of ‘the long and heroic journey of our people, a journey of dignity, creativity, and excellence’. His latest book is rich in the insights and accumulated wisdom of a lifelong thinker and courageous campaigner for peace and security for Jews in the diaspora, and for the people of Israel. This book demonstrates the capacity of an individual to rise above personal tragedy, with its searing burden of loss and pain, and to discern within himself the beginnings of a new trajectory and mission that highlight strategic thinking and pragmatic actions for these darkest times. However, there are also those times when, as Judea Pearl concedes, we fail ‘to comprehend God’s cruel ways of playing with human lives and world order’. When his son Danny was murdered, that proved one such moment, when he failed to fathom anything meaningful in the brutal cessation of that precious life. At that time, Judea could only sing the traditional prayer for mourners. ‘It’s a melody that rattles the gates of Heaven and pleads for mending our broken world order,’ he writes.

This thoughtful and provocative book also includes a timeline of key moments in the history of the Jewish people; as Pearl states, ‘These events made us who we are’. There is also a glossary of key terms and an index.

Coexistence and other fighting words: Selected writings of Judea Pearl 2002-2025

Judea Pearl

Political Animal Press, Toronto, Chicago

2025