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Antisemitism
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When antisemitism accusations are exploited for political purposes, especially to counter criticism of Israel,[1] it may be described variously as a weaponization of antisemitism, as instrumentalization of antisemitism or referred to as playing the antisemitism card.[2] Such accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics and an "appeal to motive".[3][4] Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.[5][6] When used against Jews, it may take the form of the pejorative claim of "self-hating Jew".[7][8][9][10]

Suggestions of such actions have been raised during phases of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,[11][12][13] in the adoption of the controversial working definition of antisemitism by various organizations,[14][15][16][17] the 2014–20 allegations of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party,[18] and the 2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism.[19]

Critics have argued that the charge of weaponization amounts to an antisemitic ad hominem attack whose use fails to address the issue at hand of antisemitism.[20][21] The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.[22]

History

According to Noam Chomsky in his The Fateful Triangle: "The tactic[which?] is standard", and can be traced as far back as 1943.[23] Chomsky writes that it is "in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible".[23]

In the early 1950s, American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who had been a strong critic of Adolf Hitler, was called antisemitic after she began to write against Zionism having witnessed Jewish terrorism against the British and the Nakba against the Palestinian Arabs, Allan Brownfield wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies.[24] Israeli historian Benny Morris described John Bagot Glubb as having been subject to a "tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism" (though Morris also said Glubb's anti-Zionism was "tinged by a degree of anti-Semitism").[25] Glubb wrote in his 1956 memoirs that: "It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism".[26][25]

In 1975, Harold R. Piety, associate editor of Dayton, Ohio's Journal Herald, wrote that the charge of antisemitism was levied in the early 1970s against organizations such as Christian Science Monitor, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning American Friends Service Committee, as well as U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, and American columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. Piety argued that this was solely due to their criticism of Israel, and that the "ugly cry of anti-Semitism is the bludgeon used by the Zionists to bully non-Jews into accepting the Zionist view of world events, or to keep silent".[27][28]

According to Cheryl Rubenberg, in the 1980s, journalists Anthony Lewis, Nicholas von Hoffman, Joseph C. Harsch, Richard Cohen, Alfred Friendly, authors Gore Vidal, Joseph Sobran, and John le Carré,[29] and American politicians Charles Mathias and Pete McCloskey[30] were among those to be called antisemites by pro-Israeli groups. Rubenberg wrote of Mathias and McCloskey in 1989 that "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as "anti-Semitic" is a common practice among Israel's advocates."[30] US politician Paul Findley, in his 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out, wrote: "In its latest usage, the term anti-Semitism stands stripped of any reference to ethnic or religious descent, signifying nothing more than a refusal to endorse all policy decisions of the government of Israel ... It has been a powerful factor in stifling debate of the Arab-Israeli dispute."[31] Journalist Allan Brownfeld wrote in 1987 in the Journal of Palestine Studies that "One cannot be critical of the Israeli prime minister, concerned about the question of the Palestinians, or dubious about the virtue of massive infusions of U.S. aid to Israel without subjecting oneself to the possibility of being called "anti-Semitic".[32]

In 1992, American diplomat George Ball wrote in his book The Passionate Attachment: America's involvement with Israel that AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups "employ the charge of 'anti-Semitism' so carelessly as to trivialize it", and that when doing so in order to stifle criticism of American policies in the Middle East, the user "implicitly acknowledges that he cannot defend Israel's practices by rational argument".[33]

Similar charges of antisemitism have been levied by international Israeli advocacy groups against prominent individuals expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment, including the Nobel Peace Prize winners US President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.[34][35][according to whom?]

Academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein have said accusations of antisemitism rise following aggressive actions by Israel: following the Six-Day War, following the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifadas and the Israeli bombardments of Gaza.[11][12][13] Chomsky argued in 2002: "With regard to anti-Semitism, the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called 'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel."[36]

Matthew Abraham, professor of rhetoric at the University of Arizona, wrote that accusations of antisemitism against those criticizing Israel's violation of Palestinian human rights increased since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. Abraham wrote that "Israel’s supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti-Zionist Jews who reject Israel’s attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as “self-hating Jews,” which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement."[8]

Philadelphia Inquirer opinion writer Abraham Gutman wrote in 2021 that claims by Israel's leaders to represent all Jews worldwide had equated criticism of Israel to prejudice against all Jews. He wrote that this had led to weaponization against pro-Palestinian voices "sometimes in ridiculous ways", including by Marjorie Taylor Greene.[37] Nick Riemer of the University of Sydney wrote in 2022 that anti-Semitism "provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties".[38] During the Israel-Hamas war, Bernie Steinberg, a former executive director of Harvard Hillel, wrote a 2023 opinion essay in The Harvard Crimson that pro-Israeli activists should stop "weaponization" of charges of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian activism and that "It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands."[19] Marshall Ganz, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, criticized in The Nation the "weaponization" of antisemitism, writing the "tactics are remarkably similar to those used by Senator Joseph McCarthy".[39] Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said at the Palestine Expo conference that "the accusation of antisemitism is being weaponised and abused".[40]

Description

Various writers have argued that charges of antisemitism raised in discussions of Israel can have a chilling effect,[41][42] deterring critical commentary on Israel[41] due to fear of being associated with beliefs linked to antisemitic crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust.[43] Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2008 that the charge can discourage others from defending in public those against whom the charge of antisemitism has been made.[44] Campaigns which redefine anti-Zionism as antisemitism aim to shift criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government "beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability", according to Joshua Leifer, an editor of Dissent magazine, in 2019.[45] In his 2005 work Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Finkelstein wrote that use of "the anti-Semitism card" attempts to displace "fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab 'opposition' to Jews".[46]

Rhetorical accusations of antisemitism put a burden of proof on the person against whom the charge is raised, putting them in the "difficult" position of having to prove a negative, according to Mearsheimer and Walt.[47] They wrote that accusations of antisemitism are resonant with many Jewish communities, "many of whom still believe that anti-Semitism is rife".[48] They argued that by stifling discussion the weaponization of antisemitism allows myths about Israel to survive unchallenged.[49]

Norman Finkelstein wrote that some of what is claimed to be antisemitism is in fact "exaggeration and fabrication" and "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy".[50]

A presumption that all Muslims are antisemitic has been "increasingly deployed by Zionist groups to eliminate critical debate inclusive of Palestinian experiences", according to Mitchell Plitnick and Sahar Aziz.[51] Ronnie Kasrils in 2020 compared claims of antisemitism in Britain to rhetorical strategies employed against the anti-apartheid movement by supporters of the South African government.[52] Finkelstein noted the parallels with how during the Cold War, Communist parties would denounce principled criticism as “anti-Soviet”.[46]

Atalia Omer of the University of Notre Dame wrote in 2021 that weaponization of antisemitism is negative for all involved, including Israel and the broader Jewish community.[53]

Joel Beinin wrote in 2004 that the "well-established ploy" of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism exposes Jews to attack by suggesting they are responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.[54]

Kenneth L. Marcus, while warning in 2010 against denying or minimizing antisemitism, also cautioned against the rhetorical overuse of the "anti-Semitism card", paralleling concerns raised by Richard Thompson Ford with the broader misuse of "the race card": that it can be dishonest and mean-spirited, risks weakening legitimate accusations of bigotry, risks distracting socially concerned organizations from other social injustices, and hurts outreach efforts between Jewish and Arab or Muslim groups.[6]

Some scholars have said that the charge of antisemitism is becoming less effective, as a greater number of people are now aware of its political usage.[55][56]

Conceptual disputes

In the 1970s, the concept of "new antisemitism" emerged, with cultural critics identifying a novel form of antisemitism disguised as critique of Israel and Zionism.[57]

Sociologist David Hirsh has criticized the charge of weaponization in discourses about Israel, arguing that accusations of 'playing the antisemitism card' are often made in bad faith.[58][22][21] Hirsh coined the name the Livingstone Formulation, after Ken Livingstone, to refer to the charge of weaponizing claims of anti-semitism. In 2005, Livingstone made the argument that he was being subjected to weaponized charges of antisemitism after he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard. Hirsh criticizes the rhetorical formulation as containing within it "a counter-charge of dishonest Jewish (or 'Zionist') conspiracy".[21] He also observes an inversion within the argument, in which antisemitism that has nothing to do with Israel is rhetorically defended with the claim that charges of antisemitism are misapplied to all criticisms of Israel. He terms this 'crying Israel', as opposed to 'crying antisemitism'.[59] He writes: "The Livingstone Formulation does not allege that Jews often misjudge what has happened to them, it alleges that they lie about what has happened to them. It is not an allegation of error, or over-zealousness, perhaps explicable by reference to the antisemitism of the past. It is an allegation of conspiracy."[60] He later compared the concept's invocation in discourses about antisemitism, writing that "The Macpherson principle says that if a black person says they have experienced racism you should begin by assuming that they are right. The Livingstone principle says: if Jews complain about antisemitism on the left then you should begin by assuming that they are making it up to silence criticism of Israel or to smear the left."[61]

Kenneth L. Marcus wrote in 2010 that although Mearsheimer and Walt described such accusations as "the Great Silencer", they had not themselves been silenced and had instead received a wide audience through their book and appearances. Marcus also wrote that many pro-Israel commentators who had condemned what they viewed as antisemitism in anti-Zionist rhetoric had also taken pains to say that many criticisms of Israel were not antisemitic.[62]

Dov Waxman, Adam Hosein, and David Schraub write that people—generally Jews—who raise charges of antisemitism are frequently accused of being disingenuous, and that charges of antisemitism are bound to be contested because "antisemitism today is not always easy to identify or even define".[10] They write further that charges of bad faith may be dissipated by clarifying, when antisemitism is alleged or denied, which of the many potential understandings of antisemitism is being invoked. They also write that "it is reasonable to insist that persons who encounter a Jewish claim of antisemitism at least adopt a presumptive disposition towards taking that claim seriously and considering it with an open mind. Jewish claims of antisemitism are not themselves sufficient to determine whether or not something actually is antisemitic, but these claims should not be ignored or dismissed out of hand. Thus, when a Jewish person experiences an incident as antisemitic this incident should be investigated as potentially antisemitic. A claim of antisemitism does not need to be the end of a conversation, but it should be the start of one".[10]

Hadar Sela, writing for the Jerusalem Post in 2019, criticized the BBC for "amplification of antisemitic tropes" in alleged use of the Livingstone Formulation.[63] Lesley Klaff in 2016 called the charge a "denial of contemporary antisemitism [that is] commonplace in Britain."[64]

Jon Pike argued in 2008 that the charge of weaponizing antisemitism is an ad hominem attack that does not address the allegation of antisemitism levied: "Suppose some discussion of a 'new antisemitism' is used in an attempt to stifle strong criticism. Well, get over it. The genesis of the discussion and the motivation of the charge [don't] touch the truth or falsity of the charge. Deal with the charge, rather than indulging in some genealogical inquiry."[65]

Speaking not just of antisemitism but regarding "bad faith" claims responding to discrimination allegations more broadly, David Schraub in 2016 called the charge "a first-cut response that presents marginalized persons as inherently untrustworthy, unbelievable, or lacking in the basic understandings regarding the true meaning of discrimination."[22]

The formulation was described by Terry Glavin in 2016 as a device deployed to shield left-wing antisemites from scrutiny.[66]

In 2020, the EHRC investigated antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and found that agents of the party had committed "unlawful harassment" by "suggesting that complaints of antisemitism are fake or smears," asserting in their report that "this conduct may target Jewish members as deliberately making up antisemitism complaints to undermine the Labour Party, and ignores legitimate and genuine complaints of antisemitism in the Party."[61]

See also

References

  1. ^ Illustrative examples:
    • Landy, Lentin & McCarthy 2020, p. 15: "The weaponizing of antisemitism against US critics of Israel was evidenced in 2019 when Florida's upper legislative chamber unanimously passed a bill that classifies certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic"
    • Consonni, Manuela (1 March 2023). "Memory, Memorialization, and the Shoah After 'the End of History'". In Keren Eva Fraiman, Dean Phillip Bell (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 170. ISBN 9781000850321. In 2013, the Committee on Antisemitism addressing the troubling resurgence of antisemitism and Holocaust denial produced two important political achievements: the "Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion"...and the "Working Definition of Antisemitism"....The last motion raised much criticism by some scholars as too broad in its conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The exploitation, the instrumentalization, the weaponization of antisemitism, a concomitant of its de-historicization and de-textualization, became a metonymy for speaking of the Jewish genocide and of anti-Zionism in a way that confined its history to the court's benches and research library and its memory to a reconstruction based mostly on criteria of memorial legitimacy for and against designated social groups.
    • Medico International; Rothberg, Michael (15 February 2024). "The Interview :We need an ethics of comparison". Medico International. I do not doubt that antisemitism exists across German society, including among Muslims, but the politicization of the definition of antisemitism—for example, the way that the IHRA definition is used to stifle criticism of Israeli policies—makes it very difficult to reach consensus on what is and what is not antisemitic."&"The far-right instrumentalization of antisemitism and solidarity with Israel is one of the most disturbing developments of recent years.
    • Roth-Rowland, Natasha (July 28, 2020). "False charges of antisemitism are the vanguard of cancel culture". +972 Magazine. Increasingly, however, those canards coexist with right-wing actors — above all those in power — increasingly labeling Jews as perpetual victims who must be protected, even as these same actors invoke well-worn antisemitic tropes elsewhere. By and large, these charges of antisemitism — especially as they relate to Israel — are made in order to gain political currency, even if the controversy at hand has no bearing on actual threats to Jews. Using the antisemitism label so vaguely and liberally not only stunts free speech, but also makes actual threats to Jewish people harder to identify and combat. This weaponizing of antisemitism is not only "cancelling" Palestinian rights advocates and failing to make Jews any safer; it's also using Jews to cancel others.
  2. ^ Examples of the term "antisemitism card":
    • Finkelstein 2008, pp. 15–16
    • Hirsh 2010
    • Bronfman, Roman (2003-11-19). "Fanning the Flames of Hatred". Haaretz. ...when the waves of hatred spread and appeared on all the media networks around the world and penetrated every home, the new-old answer surfaced: anti-Semitism. After all, anti-Semitism has always been the Jews' trump card because it is easy to quote some crazy figure from history and seek cover. This time, too, the anti-Semitism card has been pulled from the sleeve of explanations by the Israeli government and its most faithful spokespeople have been sent to wave it. But the time has come for the Israeli public to wake up from the fairy tale being told by its elected government.
  3. ^ Examples of criticism as smear tactics:
    • White 2020: "Delegitimizing Solidarity: Israel Smears Palestine Advocacy as Anti-Semitic"
    • Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 9–11: "THE LOBBY'S MODUS OPERANDI… Yet because [former U.S. President Jimmy Carter] suggests that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a "Jew-hater," some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis."
    • Amor 2022: "…if the UN were to endorse the IHRA WDA, the harm would be exponentially greater… human rights defenders and organizations challenging Israel’s violations would be fully exposed to smear campaigns based on bad-faith allegations of antisemitism"
    • Steinberg 2023: "Smearing one’s opponents is rarely a tactic employed by those confident that justice is on their side. If Israel’s case requires branding its critics antisemites, it is already conceding defeat."
  4. ^ Examples of criticism as appeal to motive:
    • Finkelstein 2008, pp. xxxiii, 33: "As I’ve demonstrated in Part 1 of this volume, the purpose of these periodic extravaganzas is not hard to find: on the one hand, the perpetrators are turned into the victims, putting the spotlight on the alleged suffering of Jews today and diverting it from the real suffering of Palestinians; on the other hand, they discredit all criticism of Israeli policy as motivated by an irrational loathing of Jews… The transparent motive behind these assertions is to taint any criticism of Israel as motivated by anti-Semitism and—inverting reality—to turn Israel (and Jews), not Palestinians, into the victim of the “current siege””
    • Plitnick & Aziz 2023: "Specifically, when Muslims and Arabs in America defend the rights of Palestinians or criticize Israeli state policy, they are often baselessly presumed to be motivated by a hatred for Jews rather than support for human rights, freedom, and consistent enforcement of international law."
    • Abraham 2014, p. 171: "This configuration becomes operable because Zionism posits that criticisms of Israel, as a Jewish state, are anti-Semitic because Israel is the state of all Jewish people, both prior to Israel’s creation and into perpetuity, and because the history of anti-Semitism is understood to have reached its zenith in the Holocaust, a culmination of centuries of gentile hatred against Jews. This positioning of Israel within Zionist ideology as a Jewish homeland, even before Israel officially existed as a nation, allows for an easy transposition of historical events, enabling the anti-Semitism of one age to become identified with the words and actions directed against Israel in the context of the contemporary crisis in the Middle East. Often, these transpositions are inappropriate and lead to incorrect conclusions about people’s motives as they participate in furthering discussion and understanding about the Israel-Palestine conflict. As rhetoricians, we should be concerned by this possible misuse of history in these debates; indeed, the charge of anti-Semitism, if it is to be taken seriously, must be leveled with precision and not as a scatter-shot propaganda device for scoring cheap political points. In this discursive environment, every statement introduced into the debate contains a hidden motive, or at least a hidden rhetorical or historical resonance whereby nothing can be interpreted as being offered in good faith: “You claim that the Rachel Corrie Courage in the Teaching of Writing Award is about X (rewarding courage, risk-taking, innovation, etc.) but it is really about Y (anti-Israelism, pro-Palestinian politics, and anti-Semitism).” It is this displacement of a particular conception of anti-Semitism, a conception that had a particular meaning and resonance at a particular point in history, which tends to confuse participants in contemporary debates about the Middle East. As rhetoricians, we should be much more vigilant about the prospects of importing this flawed conception of anti-Semitism into the field of rhetorical studies, particularly when doing so has the potential to hurt possibilities for dialogue and understanding."
  5. ^ Quigley 2021, p. 251-252: "A difficulty in attributing anti-Zionist views to anti-Semitism is that such views are held by Jews… Opposition to Israel is depicted as a product of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is "weaponized" to silence criticism of Israel. "Shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel," wrote one analyst, and "makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims." If anti-Semitism is invoked too loosely, allegations of anti-Semitism may come to be regarded with a jaundiced eye." The term "race card" has been applied to this phenomenon in a related context… The same risk is present with inappropriate charges of anti-Semitism. "False charges of antisemitism," warned Special Envoy Forman, "can hinder the real fight against hate." Amnesty International expressed concern that "conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy is detrimental not only to ending serious crimes under international law, but also to efforts to address and end antisemitism.""
  6. ^ a b Marcus 2010, pp. 68–69: "Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that overplaying the "anti-Semitism card" must be avoided for several reasons. These are, generally speaking, a subset of the risks of playing "the race card" that Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford catalogued in his important recent book of that name. First, it is dishonest (at least if it is done intentionally)… Second, it is shortsighted and dangerous in the way of the boy who cried wolf. It may be regretted if it is needed later, especially if others become wary of false or exaggerated claims. Third, it can be mean-spirited because it involves the use of charges that in some cases can have serious repercussions. In addition, there are two other dangers that Ford does not discuss. Even if true, an overplayed "anti-Semitism card" may distract socially concerned individuals and organizations from other pressing problems, including social injustices facing other groups. Finally, it may disrupt or retard outreach efforts to other groups, including Arab and Muslim groups, with whom partnership efforts may be jeopardized."
  7. ^ "In Israel and the U.S., 'apartheid' is the elephant in the room". The Washington Post. Omer Bartov: "You can call me a self-hating Jew, call me an antisemite. People use those terms to cover up the reality, either to deceive themselves or to deceive others. You have to look at what's happening on the ground."; Barton's comments also referenced at "'Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic': Holocaust historian". Al Jazeera.
  8. ^ a b Abraham 2014, pp. 67–68: "With increased attention being brought to Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights in the European press since the beginning of the Second Intifada in September of 2000, US supporters of Israel sought to blame the poor reputation Israel was developing in the international community on the rise of a New Anti-Semitism. As this line of thinking went, Israel had been targeted for criticism not because of what it does to the Palestinians in violation of international law, but because of a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism that has roots in age-old hatreds of the past. Israel’s critics, then, were hiding their thinly veiled animus toward the Jewish state behind anti-Zionist arguments and were not motivated by humanitarian they purported to be. To draw this equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Israel’s supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti- Zionist Jews who reject Israel’s attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as “self-hating Jews,” which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement."
  9. ^ Chomsky 1983, p. 53: "It might be noted that the resort to charges of “anti-Semitism” (or in the case of Jews, “Jewish self-hatred”) to silence critics of Israel has been quite a general and often effective device. Even Abba Eban, the highly-regarded Israeli diplomat of the Labor Party (considered a leading dove), is capable of writing that “One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism [generally understood as criticism of policies of the Israeli state] is not a distinction at all,” and that Jewish critics (I.F. Stone and I are specifically mentioned) have a “basic complex...of guilt about Jewish survival.”"
  10. ^ a b c Waxman, Schraub & Hosein 2022.
  11. ^ a b Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 190–191"Supporters of Israel have a history of using fears of a "new anti-Semitism" to shield Israel from criticism."
  12. ^ a b Muzher, Sherri (2005-10-27). "Beyond Chutzpah: An Interview with Professor Norman Finkelstein". Campus Watch. Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.'
  13. ^ a b Chomsky 2002, p. 1.
  14. ^ Ahmed, Nasim (2023-09-15). "Weaponised definition of anti-Semitism is a 'tool' to undermine free-speech". Middle East Monitor.
  15. ^ Stern, Kenneth (2019-12-13). "I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it". the Guardian.
  16. ^ Amor 2022.
  17. ^ Adalah 2023.
  18. ^ Graeber, David (2020-04-12). "The Weaponisation of Labour Antisemitism". Double Down News.
  19. ^ a b Steinberg 2023
  20. ^ Sources include:
  21. ^ a b c Hirsh 2010
  22. ^ a b c Schraub, David (2016). "Playing with Cards: Discrimination Claims and the Charge of Bad Faith". Social Theory and Practice. 42 (2): 285–303. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract201642216. ISSN 0037-802X. JSTOR 24871344.
  23. ^ a b Chomsky 1983, p. 54: "The Perlmutters deride those who voice “criticism of Israel while fantasizing countercharges of anti-Semitism,” but their comment is surely disingenuous. The tactic is standard. Christopher Sykes, in his excellent study of the pre-state period, traces the origins of this device (“a new phase in Zionist propaganda”) to a “violent counterattack” by David Ben-Gurion against a British court that had implicated Zionist leaders in arms-trafficking in 1943: “henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic.” It is, however, primarily in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible."

    The events of 1943 mentioned by Chomsky were reported at the time as follows: Sedgwick, A. C. (1943-08-18). "PALESTINE ISSUES SHARPEN AT TRIAL; British Effort to Stamp Out Gun-Running Brings Conflict With Zionists to Fore". The New York Times. Mr. Ben-Gurion described Maj. R. B. Verdin's much-discussed address to the court, in which, acting as counsel, he sought leniency for his two British soldier clients on the ground that they had been ensnared by the gun-running ring, as "characteristic of the lowest type of anti-Semitism." Many find it hard not to consider such a description exaggerated, especially when the Nazi excesses in Berlin and Warsaw are borne in mind. There are many, too, who feel that any charge of anti-Semitism in its accepted sense is most noticeably incompatible with the military court proceedings against the Jewish defendants, which are carried out with a scrupulousness and courtesy designed to preclude any such castigation, and where every consideration is accorded to the defense, even to the point of one judge's offering his cushion to one of the defendants, who looked uncomfortable on the hard wooden bench.

    Christopher Sykes described this as follows in 1965: Sykes, Christopher (1965). Cross Roads to Israel. Mentor books. Collins. p. 247. This provoked Ben-Gurion, understandably exasperated by the publicity organized by British information services, to a violent counterattack in which he asserted that the court had acted under anti-Semitic influence. In keeping with the new spirit of absolute uncompromise, he opened a new phase in Zionist propaganda which lasted to the end of the mandate: henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic; to disapprove of Jewish territorial nationalism was to be a Nazi.
  24. ^ Brownfeld 1987, p. 63-64: "The tactic of using the term anti-Semitism as a weapon against dissenters from Israeli policy is not new. Dorothy Thompson, the distinguished journalist who was one of the earliest enemies of Nazism, found herself criticizing the policies of Israel shortly after its creation. Despite her valiant crusade against Hitler she, too, was subject to the charge of anti-Semitism. In a letter to the Jewish Newsletter (6 April 1951) she wrote: "Really, I think continued emphasis should be put upon the extreme damage to the Jewish community of branding people like myself as anti-Semitic... every time one yields to such pressure, one is filled with self-contempt and this self-contempt works itself out in resentment of those who caused it.""
  25. ^ a b Benny Morris (3 October 2003). The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. I.B.Tauris. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-86064-989-9. Over the decades there has been a tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism. Zionists routinely branded Glubb an 'anti semite', and he was keenly aware of this.
  26. ^ Sir John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier With the Arabs, p.7: "In the course of this narrative, I have voiced criticisms of the actions of various governments, notably those of Britain, the United States, France, the Arab countries and Israel... Criticism of the Israeli government does, however, require a particular explanation. A number of people, both Jews and Gentiles, are apt to refer to any criticism of Israeli policy as "offensive anti-Semitism", an accusation implying a definite moral lapse. I wish to defend myself against such a charge. "Anti-Semitism", I assume, is an emotion of hatred or dislike towards Jews as a whole, whether considered from the point of view of race or religion. I can state categorically and with all sincerity that I feel no such emotion. But it is of the essence of Western democracy to allow free criticism of the government, a right freely exercised against the governments of the U.S.A., Britain, France and other free countries. It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism."
  27. ^ Piety 1975, p. 5: "I am saddened and depressed by charges of anti-Semitism levelled at distinguished individuals and institutions such as the Christian Science Monitor, one of the most highly respected newspapers in the world: the American Friends Service Committee, an organization whose indefatigable search for non-violent solutions to national quarrels earned the AFSC the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, and the admiration of the world for 60 years; former U.S. Senator J. Willam Fulbright; and national columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. They are pilloried because all, at one time or another, have either explicitly criticized Israel, or have published material that Zionists regarded as critical of Israel. Such savage and offensive calumny, unsupported by any other evidence, should embarrass Jews and enrage any disinterested American. The cry of anti-Semitism reverberates now through the corridors of the United Nations since the General Assembly has approved a resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination… Israel… represents as well a surrender by many Jews of their glorious, 4,000-year-old religious and historical tradition to the political imperatives of Israel, the submerging of Judaism in favor of Zionism. These imperatives are employed by Zionists to stifle dissent among Jews. Anti-Zionists are regarded as freaks, Communists, renegades. The ugly cry of anti-Semitism is the bludgeon used by the Zionists to bully non-Jews into accepting the Zionist view of world events, or to keep silent. Like all brutal and bullying tactics, the cry of anti-Semitism is counterproductive. However successful it is in the short run, it will ultimately give substance to the apparition it chases.”}}
  28. ^ Brownfeld 1987, p. 66.
  29. ^ Brownfeld 1987, pp. 56, 57, 62: "In an article entitled "J'Accuse" (Commentary, September 1983), Podhoretz charged America's leading journalists, newspapers, and television networks with anti-Semitism because of their reporting of the war in Lebanon and their criticism of Israel's conduct. Among those so accused were Anthony Lewis of the New York Times; Nicholas von Hoffman and Joseph Harsch of the Christian Science Monitor; Rowland Evans, Robert Novak, Richard Cohen, and Alfred Friendly of the Washington Post; and a host of others… More recently, Podhoretz excited much discussion with attacks on two writers, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative Joseph Sobran-both guilty, he charged, not only of anti-Semitism but of a variety which is "naked," "brazen," and "vicious… Another target of those who see anti-Semitism in all discussions of the Middle East that do not wholly support the position of the government of Israel is novelist John Le Carre”
  30. ^ a b Rubenberg 1989, p. 358: "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as "anti-Semitic" is a common practice among Israel's advocates. For example, when Senator Charles Mathias [R., Maryland] voted in favor of the AWACs sale to Saudi Arabia, a Jewish newspaper in New York commented: "Mr. Mathias values the importance of oil over the well-being of Jews and the State of Israel. The Jewish people cannot be fooled by such a person, no matter what he said, because his act proved who he was." Former Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey [R., California] also has had the charge of anti-Semitism leveled at him: "When I ran for reelection in 1980, I was asked a question about peace in the Middle East, and I said if we were going to have peace in the Middle East we members of Congress were going to have to stand up to our Jewish constituents and respectfully disagree with them on Israel. Well, the next day the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith accused me of fomenting anti-Semitism, saying that my remarks were patently anti-Semitic." Indeed, it may be that the weapon of greatest power possessed by the pro-Israeli lobby is its accusation of anti-Semitism. George Ball comments: "They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out." In Ball's view, many Americans feel a "sense of guilt" over the Holocaust, and the result of their guilt is that the fear of being called anti-Semitic is "much more effective in silencing candidates and public officials than threats about campaign money or votes.""
  31. ^ Findley 1987, p. 316
  32. ^ Brownfeld 1987, p. 53: "Today, more and more, anti-Semitism has been redefined as anything that opposes the policies and interests of the state of Israel. One cannot be critical of the Israeli prime minister, concerned about the question of the Palestinians, or dubious about the virtue of massive infusions of U.S. aid to Israel without subjecting oneself to the possibility of being called "anti-Semitic”."
  33. ^ Ball & Ball 1992, pp. 217–218: "Efforts to Suppress Independent Opinion… AIPAC and other groups have assiduously claimed that opposition to Israeli policy equals anti-Zionism, and anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Viewed objectively, it seems astonishing that Jewish organizations and Israeli spokesmen should employ the charge of "anti-Semitism" so carelessly as to trivialize it. "Anti-Semitism" is a term freighted with a long and ugly history. It conjures up images of vicious civic discrimination, the religious persecutions of the Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the ultimate horror of the Holocaust. Any Jewish American who equates that term with critical comments on transient Israeli policy implicitly acknowledges that he cannot defend Israel's practices by rational argument. Is it anti-Semitic, for example, to point out repeated Israeli violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions? Or to suggest, as the State Department did from 1979 to 1981, that the implanting of settlements in the Occupied Areas was illegal? The overuse of the term "anti-Semitism" gives the practitioners of real anti-Semitism a quasi-respectability, just as Joseph McCarthy devalued the term "Communist" by recklessly applying it to anyone whose views deviated from his own. In addition, the haphazard use of this odious term is clearly intended to stifle criticism of American policies in the Middle East.”
  34. ^ White 2020, p. 67: "Israeli officials, as well as Israel advocacy organizations internationally, have a long history of charging Palestinians and their allies, as well as Israel's critics and human-rights campaigners, with anti-Semitism. Prominent individuals are not exempted."
  35. ^ Abraham 2014, p. 179: "If to state that “Israel is in violation of international law” is beyond the pale, reflecting that one harbors anti-Semites animus, then it is completely understandable why public figures such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu are so often accused of engaging in anti-Israel rhetoric. This tendency to condemn criticism and critics of Israeli policy as anti-Semites enforces a type of political correctness at the cost of refusing to promote greater understanding about the conditions producing conflict in the Israel-Palestine conflict."
  36. ^ Chomsky 2002: "With regard to anti-Semitism, the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called 'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel. So there's no difference between criticism of policies of the State of Israel and anti-Semitism, because if he can establish 'that' then he can undercut all criticism by invoking the Nazis and that will silence people. We should bear it in mind when there's talk in the US about anti-Semitism."
  37. ^ Gutman, Abraham (2021-05-27). "Supporting Palestinian rights is antisemitic because Israel wants it to be". The Philadelphia Inquirer – via nbcnews.com. It is this conflation between Israel and Judaism, one that is baked into the foundation of Israel and perpetuated by its leaders, that leads to a problematic tautology: Israel's leaders represent all Jewish people, and thus by definition any criticism of Israel must be criticism of all Jewish people — and hence antisemitic.
  38. ^ Riemer 2022, p. 7: "Just as Islamophobia has been politically instrumentalized in the service of neocolonial control of Muslim populations, anti-Semitism currently provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties. This takes the form of the severe legal penalties increasingly leveled against expressions of Palestine solidarity on the grounds that they are instances of racism against Jews, or of witch-hunts against Palestine supporters on the grounds of their supposed anti-Semitism - the vendetta against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK Labour Party being the most flagrant example. Facebook even considers the term "Zionist" as potentially anti-Semitic - particularly clear evidence of the rational and moral dead end in to which Zionists' efforts to defend their ethno-state inevitably lead. As we will explore in the last chapter of the book, overcomplication and excessive subtlety can easily sound the death knell of progressive politics. So it is important to assert the self-evidence and the lack of nuance with which two simple facts should be stated: anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, and objecting to Israel's anti-Palestinian policies, as many Jews do, is not anti-Semitic. It is not anti-Catholic or anti-Latino to criticize the policies of Costa Rica, where Catholicism is a state religion, just as it is not Islamophobic or anti-Shia to criticize Iran or anti-Buddhist or anti-Asian to criticize Cambodia. In just the same way, objecting to Israel's anti-Palestinianism is not anti-Jewish racism. What would be anti-Semitic would be to oppose Israeli policies and measures on principle, simply because they are decided on and enacted by Jews - the exact opposite of the stance adopted by BDS."
  39. ^ Ganz, Marshall (February 2024). "Calling for Respect, Freedom, and Security for All Is Not Antisemitic". The Nation. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  40. ^ Harpin, Lee. "Former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy tells Expo event antisemitism 'weaponised' to silence Palestinian struggle". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
  41. ^ a b Lerner, Rabbi Michael (2007-02-07). "Highest Jewish values sometimes conflict with Israeli policy". The Mercury News. The impact of the silencing of debate about Israeli policy on Jewish life has been devastating.
  42. ^ Thompson 2012, p. 12: "They called the charge of anti-Semitism "the Great Silencer.""
  43. ^ Alexander, Jeffrey C.; Adams, Tracy (2023). "The return of antisemitism? Waves of societalization and what conditions them". American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 11: 261.
  44. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 191b
  45. ^ Leifer, Joshua (2019-08-26). "Israel's one-state reality is sowing chaos in American politics". +972 Magazine. Today, the Israeli hasbara apparatus's most active front is the attempted redefinition of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, with the goal of rendering any opposition to the occupation, Zionism – or even simply Israeli policies themselves — beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability.
  46. ^ a b Finkelstein 2008, pp. 34: "The chief political and ideological advantage of playing the anti- Semitism card, however, was succinctly (if unwittingly) put by one of Israel’s most vigorous apologists, Harvard professor Ruth Wisse. “In the case of the so-called Arab-Israel conflict,” she explained, “to permit the concept of anti-Semitism into the discussion is to acknowledge that the origins of Arab opposition to the Jewish state are to be located in the political culture of the Arabs themselves, and that such opposition can end only if and when that political culture changes.” It displaces fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab “opposition” to Jews, and fundamental responsibility for resolving it from Israel ending its occupation to the Arab world ending its irrational hostility toward Jews. Although Israel’s apologists claim to allow for criticism of the occasional Israeli “excess” (what is termed “legitimate criticism”), the upshot of this allowance is to delegitimize the preponderance of criticism as anti-Semitic—just as Communist parties used to allow for criticism of the occasional Stalinist “excess,” while denouncing principled criticism as “anti-Soviet” and therefore beyond the pale."
  47. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 191-192: "Third, this tactic works because it is difficult for anyone to prove beyond all doubt that he or she is not anti-Semitic, especially when criticizing Israel or the lobby"
  48. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 192: "The accusation is likely to resonate among American Jews, many of whom still believe that anti-Semitism is rife."
  49. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 196a.
  50. ^ Finkelstein 2008, pp. 16: "This shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel, makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims, and puts the onus on the Arab world to rid itself of anti-Semitism rather than on Israel to rid itself of the Occupied Territories. A close analysis of what the Israel lobby tallies as anti-Semitism reveals three components: exaggeration and fabrication; mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy; and the unjustified yet predictable “spillover” from criticism of Israel to Jews generally..."
  51. ^ Plitnick & Aziz 2023, p. 47.
  52. ^ Kasrils, Ronnie (2020-12-17), Against the Witch Hunt: On the Instrumentalization of Antisemitism in Britain's Labor Party
  53. ^ Omer, Atalia (2021-01-21). "Weaponizing Antisemitism is Bad for Jews, Israel, and Peace". Contending Modernities. Retrieved 2024-01-01.
  54. ^ Beinin 2004, p. 112: "Summers may have thought that he was expressing himself in a reasoned way to an academic audience. But the conflation of criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism was an already well-established ploy. The endorsement of this notion by the president of the country's most prestigious institution of higher learning authorised others to go on the political offensive without fear that they would be criticised as boorish enemies of academic freedom… Among these were several high-profile incidents, most of them motivated by opposition to Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. Paradoxically, by failing to make a clear distinction between anti-Semitism, which should always and everywhere be opposed, and anti-Zionism, which is a legitimate political opinion, the ADL and like-minded organisations exposed American Jews to attack because they were identified with Israel."
  55. ^ Abraham 2014, p. 51: "The usual charge that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism is no longer as effective a weapon in distracting the public from the relevant criticisms of Israel’s behavior.”
  56. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 196: "The obvious reason is that increasing numbers of people recognize that this serious charge keeps getting leveled at individuals who are not anti-Semites but who are merely questioning Israeli policies or pointing out that the lobby promotes policies that are not always in the U.S. national interest. "
  57. ^ Berkman, Matthew (2022). "The Conflict on Campus". In A. Siniver (ed.). Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Taylor & Francis. p. 522. ISBN 978-0-429-64861-8. Retrieved 2023-05-21. Attempts to rearticulate antisemitism to encompass opposition to Israel's "right to exist" or its character as a Jewish state date back to the 1970s, when the Anti-Defamation League first popularized a discourse on "the new antisemitism" (see Forster and Epstein 1974; on the subsequent development of that discourse see Judaken 2008). The identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles, but only in the last two decades have Israel advocacy groups endeavoured to establish it as a principle of United States anti-discrimination law. The earliest step in this direction was taken in 2004, when Kenneth L. Marcus, the Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under President George W. Bush, issued a game-changing policy guidance letter empowering OCR staff, for the first time, to investigate complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act alleging pervasive antisemitism on college campuses.
  58. ^ "Antisemitism and Radical Anti-Israel Bias on the Political Left in Europe". Anti-Defamation League. 8 August 2023. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  59. ^ Hirsh, David (2007). Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections. Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. ISBN 978-0-9819058-0-8.
  60. ^ "It was the new phenomenon of Israel-focused antisemitism that required the new definition. David Hirsh responds to a recent 'call to reject' the IHRA". Fathom. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
  61. ^ a b Hirsh, David. "The 'Livingstone formula' is dead". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
  62. ^ Marcus 2010, p. 73: "Indeed, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer recently called anti-Semitism allegations the "Great Silencer."
  63. ^ "How the BBC proliferates antisemitism in the UK". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 2019-02-10. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
  64. ^ Klaff, Lesley (2016-12-01), Wistrich, Robert S. (ed.), Holocaust inversion in British politics : the case of David Ward, University of Nebraska Press, pp. 185–196, ISBN 978-0-8032-9671-8, retrieved 2024-01-09
  65. ^ Pike, Jon (31 January 2008). "Antisemitism and Testimonial injustice". Engage. Archived from the original on 4 February 2008.
  66. ^ Glavin, Terry (2 May 2016). "Terry Glavin: The left confronts its antisemitism". National Post.

Bibliography

Further reading

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaponization_of_antisemitism