Here we are tackling a “forbidden” subject: Zionism and the State of Israel. In France, you can criticize Catholic dogma or Marxism, attack atheism or nationalism, condemn the regimes of the Soviet Union, the United States or South Africa, preach anarchism or monarchism, all without running any risks beyond the usual ones of getting involved in a polemic or being refuted. If, however, you undertake to analyze Zionism you enter into a different world. You pass from the realm of literature into that of the law-courts. By virtue of a law of 29 July 1881 which, very properly, forbids the defamation of any person on account of his belonging to a particular ethnic group, nation, race or religion, any criticism of the policy of the State of Israel and of the political Zionism which is its basis renders you liable to prosecution.

Fundamental criticism of the State of Israel – and by “fundamental” I mean criticism not of individual actions, even criminal ones, but analysis of the inner logic of a state based upon the principles of political Zionism – causes you to be treated forthwith as a “Nazi” and brings upon you threats against your life. The author of this essay can bear witness to this fact, having himself experienced, for this reason, prosecution, the charge of “Nazism” and threats of death.

By what mechanism has it been possible to put the study of political Zionism on the plane of wars of religion? By means of a series of amalgams, shifts of meaning and substitutions, for which Begin gave the signal when he issued this slogan: “No distinction can be made between anti-Israelism, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.” This slogan was at once taken up and orchestrated throughout the world by the leaders of the World Zionist Organization.
 

Roger Garaudy, The Case of Israel: A Study of Political Zionism, Shorouk International (UK) Limited, 1983 (First published in France by SPAG-Papyrus éditions, in 1983, under the title L’affaire Israël: le sionism politique).