In a provocative address to the World Jewish Congress (WJC) Governing Board in Geneva this week, Mathias Dopfner, CEO of global media giant Axel Springer – owner of major outlets including The Telegraph and Politico – declared that anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from racism, while laying out a series of divisive policy proposals that have reignited debates over media independence, censorship and immigration.
Dopfner’s hardline stance on Israel is not new. Back in April, the media executive made international headlines when he told Politico journalists that any staff who refused to publicly back Israel must resign, a move that stoked widespread fears over the editorial independence of the political news outlet, which Axel Springer acquired in 2021. Opening his WJC speech, he doubled down on his ideological commitments, telling attendees: “I’m a goy, and I’m Zionist, with all my heart, out of conviction, and with passion.”
In a wide-ranging address that included sharp anti-immigrant rhetoric and broad attacks on cultural institutions, universities, musicians, artists and the United Nations, Dopfner launched a particularly scathing attack on the UN Human Rights Council. The body has drawn repeated international condemnation of Israel over documented war crimes, systemic human rights abuses and the imposition of apartheid rule in occupied Palestinian territories; Dopfner derided the council as the “human rights Twistings Council”, claiming it unfairly targets Israel.
Dopfner claimed that anti-Zionist sentiment – which he framed as any widespread, repeated criticism of the Israeli state – is spreading rapidly across North America and Europe, taking root in university campuses, arts and cultural circles, social media platforms and public street protests. While he conceded that criticism of Israel is not inherently forbidden, he argued that such critique should not become a normalized “everyday” conversation. He went further, claiming that rising criticism of Israel has rendered major Western European nations including Germany, France, the UK and Spain no longer “truly safe countries for Jews”.
Turning specifically to UK politics, he attacked the country’s Green Party, which has seen growing electoral support in part driven by its public criticism of Israeli policy. He took particular issue with the party’s framing of Zionism as a racist ideology, retorting: “There must be a misunderstanding here. It is not Zionism that is racism. It is anti-Zionism that is racism.”
Dopfner argued that the rise of anti-Zionism is fueled by “envy” of Jewish communal success, a claim that omitted any reference to Israel’s 56-year military occupation of Palestinian land, or ongoing public calls by sitting Israeli politicians for the establishment of a “Greater Israel” spanning territory from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. “Only a self-assured, proud Jewish identity can help reduce envy and [the] new antisemitism,” he added.
Framing growing global criticism of Israel as a leading warning sign of rising authoritarianism in the West, Dopfner put forward a slate of draconian policy measures. Conflating all anti-Zionists with antisemites, he argued that anti-Zionists “regardless of their origin, must be expelled wherever legally possible”. He praised UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch for advancing similar policy proposals, arguing every democratic nation should adopt such measures. He also called for sweeping changes to European immigration policy, urging the continent to introduce preferential immigration and citizenship pathways exclusively for Jewish families, framing this as a counterbalance to what he called “Christian and particularly Muslim influences” in Europe. “Europe must become more Jewish,” he concluded.
Dopfner also joined growing calls for the forced sale or full censorship of TikTok in Europe, pointing to the 2025 US order forcing the platform to sell off its US operations to non-Chinese owners – a deal that would see pro-Zionist billionaire and close Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ally Larry Ellison take control of the platform. “In America, TikTok has been forced to be sold… Europe should follow this example,” he said, warning that failure to root out anti-Zionism would lead the West to “destroy itself”.
Political analysts note Dopfner’s high-profile public intervention is part of a broader coordinated push by pro-Israel leaders to counter mounting global condemnation and diplomatic isolation of Israel, which has intensified sharply following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that the UN and multiple international human rights organizations have ruled constitutes a genocide. Dopfner’s comments also echo growing alarm among pro-Israel elites expressed at the 2025 Tikvah Jewish Leadership Conference in the US, where billionaires, investment bankers, media leaders, lawyers and Zionist Christian activists gathered to address what they described as a growing global backlash against Israeli policy. That gathering, which brought together leaders from the WJC, the Jewish Leadership Conference and the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly, collectively called for expanded censorship of voices across the political spectrum that criticize Israel – framed by attendees as an effort to “save America from the barbarians”.