Unity and Diversity in Contemporary Antisemitism 2019019115, 2019019834, 9781618119674, 9781618119667

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Unity and Diversity in Contemporary Antisemitism The Bristol–Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on Contemporary Antisemitism

Antisemitism Studies Series Editor: David Patterson (University of Texas at Dallas)

Unity and Diversity in Contemporary Antisemitism The Bristol–Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on Contemporary Antisemitism

Edited by J o n a t h a n G. C a m p b e l l a n d Lesley D. Klaff

BOSTON 2019

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Campbell, Jonathan G. ( Jonathan Goodson), 1964- editor. | Klaff, Lesley D., editor. | Bristol-Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on contemporary antisemitism (2015 : Bristol (England)) Title: Unity and diversity in contemporary antisemitism : the Bristol-Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on contemporary antisemitism / edited by Jonathan G. Campbell and Lesley D. Klaff. Description: Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2019. | Series: Antisemitism studies | Includes index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019019115 (print) | LCCN 2019019834 (ebook) | ISBN 9781618119674 (ebook) | ISBN 9781618119667 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Antisemitism--Congresses. Classification: LCC DS145 (ebook) | LCC DS145 .U538 2019 (print) | DDC 305.892/4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019115 ©Academic Studies Press, 2019

ISBN 9781618119667 (hardback) ISBN 9781618119674 (electronic) Book design by PHi Business Solutions Cover design by Ivan Grave Published by Academic Studies Press 1577 Beacon Street Brookline, MA 02446, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Dedicated to the memory of Professor Robert Fine 1945–2018

Contents

Acknowledgementsix Introduction1 Jonathan G. Campbell and Lesley D. Klaff PART ONE Defining Antisemitism   1 Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitism David Hirsh   2 Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic? What Do British and French Jews Think about the Link between Antisemitic and Anti-Israel Attitudes among Non-Jews? L. Daniel Staetsky   3 Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic Bernard Harrison PART TWO Responding to Antisemitism

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  4 Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism: A Critical Race Perspective on Fraser v University and College Union  81 Lesley D. Klaff   5 Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitism98 R. Amy Elman   6 Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism 115 Alan Johnson

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PART THREE Antisemitism and Extremism   7 Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe: Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and Extremism Dave Rich   8 Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community Rusi Jaspal PART FOUR The Role of the Intellectuals

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  9 The British Left’s Attitudes toward Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim World 187 Matthias Küntzel 10 Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition: Alain Badiou and the Radical Tradition of Antisemitism 203 David Seymour 11 On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings” 219 Robert Fine Contributors235 Index237

Acknowledgements

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he editors would like to offer their sincere thanks to all those whose efforts have helped turn the idea of this book, as well as the colloquium that preceded it, into a reality. Chief among these are the academic participants whose commitment and camaraderie have been constant and whose resultant work in this volume constitutes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about contemporary antisemitism. Indispensable also was the assistance of support staff and student helpers in the School of Humanities at the University of Bristol. Last but not least, nothing would have been possible without generous financial support received from several sources: the Board of Deputy of British Jews, the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts, and the Helena ­Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University.

Introduction JONATHAN G. CAMPBELL AND LESLEY D. KLAFF

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his book is the end result of a small conference that we, the editors, organized and hosted in Bristol in September 2015 under the auspices of B ­ ristol University and Sheffield Hallam University. All but two of the chapters were originally offered as presentations at that event, which was entitled the “­Bristol– Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on Contemporary Antisemitism.” It was put together under the broad theme of the unity and diversity found in manifestations of antisemitism in the early twenty-first century, with a particular focus on the increasingly noticeable antisemitic rhetoric and activities found in Europe and North America, and the participants were skilled in a variety of disciplines (including sociology, political science, law, and philosophy). The rationale for the dual focus on unity and diversity lay in two contrasting, but not necessarily contradictory, factors: the diversity of sources and of the modes of expression of antisemitism in the modern world, on the one hand, and, on the other, the fact that older ideas about Jewish power, malice, and conspiracy also remain more or less constant features of contemporary antisemitism—now combined with a new near-universal demonization of the State of Israel, which goes beyond anything that might be deemed reasonable criticism of that country. When an initial working group first met in Bristol in late 2014 to discuss organizing the conference, it was a general concern for the rising tide of contemporary antisemitism—as well as a conviction that the phenomenon would benefit greatly from academic analysis—that drove the project forward and that, of course, remained the core motivation for producing this follow-on volume. Little did members of the working group realize, however, that violent events in Europe in the following months would increase the poignancy of that concern. More precisely, among Islamist terrorist attacks on various targets in Europe, Jews were specifically singled out in a kosher supermarket in Paris on 9 January 2015, a

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J­ ewish community center in Nice on 3 February 2015, and at Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue on 15 February 2015. Worries about antisemitism, necessarily heightened by these attacks, were exacerbated even further by some of the Western media coverage they received. One notorious example was an interview with a Jewish woman in Paris conducted by BBC journalist Tim Willcox shortly after the kosher supermarket siege, which saw four people murdered. As the interviewee tried to explain the importance of acknowledging the Islamist conviction that all Jews are legitimate targets, Willcox interjected that “many critics … of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”1 Although Willcox subsequently issued an apology, his words inevitably raised the fear that, in some Western circles at least, there is a tendency to downplay contemporary antisemitism’s significance and, when antisemitic words and deeds are simply undeniable, to maintain that attacks on Jews in one place are somehow understandable because of the real or imagined shortcomings of Jews elsewhere.2 Against that background of increasing discursive hostility to Jews and Israelis in recent years, coupled with the reality of violent physical assaults, the colloquium in Bristol in September 2015 and this subsequent edited volume could not have come at a more poignant time. As such, the essays in this volume naturally compliment other recent collections on the same subject.3 Given the realities of the current situation vis-à-vis antisemitism in parts of Europe, moreover, it was felt to be vitally important that academic conferences like the one in Bristol should take place in the higher education institutions of Europe itself to supplement those being organized elsewhere. Indeed, the Bristol colloquium, which led to this publication, was—as far as we, the editors, are aware—the first event of its kind in a British university. It was followed by a second similar conference in Sheffield in September 2016 on the theme of contemporary antisemitism and the media. As mentioned above, despite certain more or less pervasive constants, one of the characteristics of antisemitism in the early twenty-first century would appear to be its manifestation in multiple forms with varied content in different places. To help readers navigate that diversity, the main body of this book is divided into four parts, though the manner in which this has been done is not intended to prescribe how the subject matter of each essay should be related to the whole. Part 1 contains three chapters dealing with key aspects of antisemitism’s definition in the current situation. Part 2 looks at three responses to ­antisemitism—each of which is, for different reasons, problematic. Part 3 examines two examples in which connections between extreme ideology and contemporary antisemitism can be seen. Finally, Part 4 considers three

Introduction

i­mportant intellectual currents—one general and two specific—that can be linked to contemporary antisemitism. It is now worth saying a little more about each chapter in its own right. The volume’s first part (Part 1, “Defining Antisemitism”) contains three essays in which the authors discuss how antisemitism might be defined from a variety of academic backgrounds and with partly overlapping, but partly divergent, concerns at the forefront of their analyses. Thus, in chapter 1 (“­Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitism”), David Hirsh looks at the ­difficulties of defining antisemitism in the contemporary context, describing an increasing polarization of understandings. At the “World Conference against Racism” in Durban in 2001, he argues, there was a largely successful campaign to win people to the idea that Zionism was the key form of racism on the planet and, therefore, that anti-Zionism functioned as a symbolic vanguard of all antiracism. Jews were constructed as “white” and Israel as a keystone of the system of global imperialism, while Palestinians were thought of as “black” and as globally symbolic victims; this narrative challenged the assumption that antiracism and opposition to antisemitism were inextricably linked. The result was that, instead of opposing it, some antiracists stumbled into the discourses and tropes of antisemitism at Durban where they found a collective tolerance of antisemitic prejudice. On the other hand, Hirsh excavates the history of the definition of antisemitism offered by the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)—a version of which has come to be known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition—as a response to that “new,” “antiracist” antisemitism. Jewish nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) constructed and fought for frameworks of understanding which they hoped would inspire vigilance against those who were allowing hostility to ­Israel, in some contexts at least, to legitimize antisemitic discourse and exclusions. The antiracism represented by Durban understood the world as fundamentally split between “black” and “white,” a binary worldview into which Jews and antisemitism could not easily be incorporated. This fundamental splitting in theory was then reproduced institutionally, argues Hirsh. The Jewish NGOs found that the spaces in which they were able to get a hearing, the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), were thought of as being “white” spaces. Hirsh concludes that, against the background of this polarization, there is little hope of a consensus emerging on how to define antisemitism. The contested terrain of the phenomenon itself is reflected in struggles over how it is defined. In some respects, in fact, struggles over definition come to function as another manifestation of antisemitism.

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In chapter 2, Daniel Staetsky (“Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic? What Do British and French Jews Think about the Link between Antisemitic and Anti-­Israel Attitudes among Non-Jews?”) opens his analysis by noting recent scholarly debates and disagreements about the correct definition of antisemitism and, more particularly, the extent to which anti-Israel attitudes in the early twenty-first century may be legitimately deemed antisemitic. He further observes, however, that little scholarly attention has so far been paid to the attitudes of ordinary European Jews to the latter question. Hence, in the remainder of his chapter, Staetsky looks at two large datasets pertaining to the views of Jews living in the UK and France on the basis of recent surveys with a high degree of reliability. Those surveys asked British and French respondents to say whether they believed twelve carefully constructed statements about Jews in general and a further three statements about Israel in particular should be deemed antisemitic or not. Staetsky then analyses the responses, taking into account certain variables as appropriate (age, gender, religious affiliation, experience of harassment, etc.), and the results are fascinating. A clear majority of those surveyed viewed mere criticism of Israel as either definitely or probably not antisemitic, whereas calls to boycott Israel or describe it as a Nazi state were seen as antisemitic by about 80 percent. More specifically, Staetsky shows how what he calls a “typical Jew” in the UK—a British-born middle-aged Ashkenazi male, resident in London, non-Orthodox, educated to degree level, and with no recent experience of harassment—tended to see one or two of the statements about Israel as antisemitic. In contrast, where variables such as age or religiosity were different, the manner in which the Israel-related statements were evaluated was also different. For instance, those who were Orthodox or had experienced harassment tended to see two or three of the Israel-related statements as antisemitic. A similar, though not identical, picture emerges from France. Overall, therefore, Staetsky’s study demonstrates the degree to which Jews in the UK and France are able and willing to make a distinction between simple criticism of Israel, on the one hand, and discourse about Israel that crosses the line into antisemitism, on the other. Although they do not agree among themselves as to exactly where that line should be placed, Staetsky’s analysis nonetheless undermines the canard that, since European Jews supposedly view all criticism of Israel as antisemitic, their worries about contemporary antisemitism are to be dismissed as unfounded. Bernard Harrison, in chapter 3 (“Why Present-day ‘Anti-Zionism’ is Antisemitic”), closes discussions around the definition of antisemitism with an important consideration of the nature of secular anti-Zionism and the ­associated

Introduction

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Following Gordon Allport’s general definition of prejudice as “thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant” (see below p. 67), Harrison sees two main forms of “thinking ill” of Jews in particular: social antisemitism and political antisemitism. The first of these views Jews primarily as a set of disgusting individuals who are to be despised, rather than feared—as commonly reflected, for instance, in the imaginary world of nineteenth-century English literature. The second, in contrast, while allowing that some individual Jews may rightly be held in high esteem, sees the Jewish collective as nonetheless pernicious in a way that evokes fear, not contempt. Such political antisemitism focuses on the organized Jewish community’s alleged obsession with its own self-interest, its conspiratorial designs on non-Jewish institutions, and the fact that the societal evils that result from the nefarious designs of the Jewish collectivity must be dealt with, harshly if necessary, to reestablish the good. As such, it is this political antisemitism that is most harmful to Jews because it is essentially eliminationist; social antisemitism, on the other hand, is closer in nature to other forms of racism. Now, as Harrison observes, it is not difficult to show that contemporary anti-Zionism is like classic political antisemitism in key respects, especially its eliminationist character. When anti-Zionists reject accusations of antisemitism by claiming that they oppose racist attitudes to Jews as individuals, therefore, they miss the point. It may or may not be true, in other words, that anti-Zionism avoids social prejudice against Jews, but this is not the end of the matter. That is because political anti-Jewish prejudice is also rightly called antisemitism and, more particularly, Harrison maintains that a good case can be made that anti-Zionism has such political antisemitism at its heart. The second part (Part 2, “Responding to Antisemitism”) focuses on three recent distinct reactions to contemporary antisemitism: one in the form of legal action against a trade union by an individual member concerned about antisemitism’s existence within the organization, another in the EU’s collective response to the problem of Judeophobia, and the third from another individual but this time one who denies that antisemitism is a significant issue today. Lesley Klaff looks at the union case (“Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism: A Critical Race Perspective on Fraser v University and College Union”) in chapter 4. As she explains, Ronnie Fraser, a retired mathematics lecturer, filed a complaint in 2011 in the Central London Employment Tribunal under sections 26 and 57 Equality Act 2010, alleging that his trade union, the University and College Union, had harassed him as a Jewish member by engaging in acts and omissions that were informed by hostility to Israel and

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the Zionist project. In 2013, the Tribunal dismissed all ten grounds of Fraser’s complaint and accused him and his thirty-four witnesses of conspiring to use the litigation process to prevent the union from criticizing Israel. Klaff analyses that judgment from a “critical race” perspective, doing so by drawing predominantly on Didi Herman’s recent work addressing the English law’s complicity with antisemitism.4 Critical race theory holds that the law fails to combat race discrimination because the racism that pervades society also pervades the legal system and, therefore, such racism may be uncovered in many allegedly neutral concepts, procedures, and analytical approaches. Herman’s important research examines a range of English cases involving Jews and Jewish issues, noting the practice of English judges to choose consciously “legal formalism” as an analytical approach, thereby marginalizing the Jewish experience and denying the Jewish claimant’s discrimination claim. Legal formalism may be described as the liberal position separating the law from the social world in which it is embedded and denying the importance that context has in understanding the law; this prevents the law from addressing the nature and experience of racism insofar as race or ethnicity is an account of social being—insofar, that is, that it is the lived experience. Accordingly, Klaff discusses the Employment Tribunal’s conscious privileging of legal formalism with respect to three crucial legal issues in Fraser’s case: the statutory definition of “harassment” under section 26 Equality Act; the principle of “third-party responsibility” with respect to section 57 Equality Act; and Fraser’s argument that the ten grounds of his complaint should be viewed “cumulatively” so as to constitute a “course of conduct” that amounted to “institutional antisemitism.” Unfortunately, as Klaff demonstrates, it was the privileging of legal formalism that allowed the Employment Tribunal to deny Fraser’s experience of antisemitism within the union and consequently reject his claim for unlawful harassment. In chapter 5 (“Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitism”), Amy Elman observes that antisemitism’s resurgence throughout Europe and its increasing convergence with anti-Zionism provide a fitting moment to reflect on the European Union’s responses to these problems. While the EU insists it takes every opportunity to condemn antisemitism, its often obscure and sometimes contradictory positions frequently fall short. Antisemitism’s distinctive characteristics are routinely sidelined, for example, as it is simply elided with other forms of prejudice, while Islamism’s role in the recent growth of anti-Jewish prejudice is usually ignored. In addressing such issues, Elman moves counter-chronologically, opening with a discussion of statements issued by EU officials in the aftermath of the murder of Jews in the kosher

Introduction

supermarket in early 2015, as mentioned above. Moving backwards, she then also considers the EU’s commemorative Holocaust declarations issued from the relative calm of its bureaucratic corridors between 2014 and 2011. Despite the different contexts from which these two sets of statements emerged, both typify the reluctance on the part of European officials to explicitly address, much less properly condemn, antisemitism. The final segment of Elman’s chapter considers the EU’s adoption (in 2005) and later abandonment (in 2013) of the Working Definition of Antisemitism as the background against which to grasp its most recent rhetoric. Understanding how the EU withdrew that definition, years after it had only informally adopted it and never really bothered to implement it, allows us to grasp better why the murders of Jews on the streets of European capitals elicited little outrage from a polity which had earlier omitted Jews from the record of victims on International Holocaust Memorial Day. Nonetheless, as alarming as the EU’s apparent indifference to antisemitism has been, Elman warns that conditions are likely to get worse. Whether out of fear, economic self-interest or a naïve desire for recognition as an interlocutor for world peace, the EU remains incapable of dealing honestly and seriously with antisemitism, even as the situation for Jews in member states deteriorates. The next chapter is by Alan Johnson (“Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism”), who firstly summarizes the nature of the “new antisemitism,” as he sees it, especially the way it constitutes a mutation of older anti-Jewish prejudices redirected towards the Jewish state. Having made a strong case that this new Judeophobia actually exists, Johnson then turns to one influential example of someone who denies the reality of the phenomenon— Norman Finkelstein, with whom Johnson himself engaged in public debate in 2015 and whose writings assert instead that the so-called new antisemitism has been invented by Zionists to silence criticism of Israel. Before analysing that particular claim further, Johnson looks at Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000),5 which maintained that the “Holocaust Industry” was set up by Israel’s supporters after the Six Day War to silence critics of the occupation of Palestinian territories. According to Finkelstein, Israel’s supporters hoped that, if the non-Jewish world were reminded how much Jews suffered in World War II, then the playing of that “Holocaust card” would exempt Israel from behaving decently towards the P ­ alestinians. As Johnson notes, even a harsh critic of Israeli government policy, like Enzo Traverso in 2003, deemed Finkelstein’s thesis a shocking caricature of reality. Yet, Johnson explains that in 2005 Finkelstein nonetheless went on to write Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History,

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according to which warnings of a new antisemitism similarly function as variants of the “Holocaust card.”6 Johnson unpacks in some detail how Finkelstein postulates that a wide range of individuals and bodies propagate this myth of a new antisemitism, motivated by a desire to shut down legitimate criticism of Israel. To that end, proponents of the myth exaggerate and fabricate instances of antisemitism in the early twenty-first century, misrepresent reasonable criticisms of Israel as though they were antisemitic, and take advantage of “spillover.” Johnson observes that, by the latter admission, Finkelstein indicates that hostility to Israeli policy sometimes really does spill over into unfair animus towards all Jews. While Finkelstein thereby effectively undermines his case against the existence of a new antisemitism, he unfortunately fails to unpack the logic of his “spill-over” point. On the contrary, as Johnson concludes, Finkelstein steadfastly refuses to take contemporary antisemitism seriously, arguably even normalizing it in his own discourse, just at a time when thorough intellectual engagement with the issue is needed. The third part of the book (Part 3, “Antisemitism and Extremism”) contains two discussions about the relationship between contemporary antisemitism and extreme ideology. Thus, in chapter 7, Dave Rich (“Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe: Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and Extremism”) begins by referring to Asghar Bukhari, founder member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee and regular media commentator, who in June 2015 claimed that “Zionists” had sneaked into his house at night and stolen one of his shoes. Although Bukhari was widely mocked for this absurd idea, Rich asks whether the claim was any more improbable than the notion that Israel or the USA carried out the 9/11 attacks. The latter theory is widely held: a 2011 Pew Global Survey, for example, found that fewer than 30 percent of respondents in eight Muslim-majority countries believed that “groups of Arabs” were responsible. Such conspiracy theories have, of course, long played a central role in the antisemitic mindset. But Rich does not rehearse that history, instead looking at how antisemitic conspiracy theories are employed today by extremists. He finds that, most commonly, fragments of conspiratorial thinking are used to explain specific events or political changes—usually to blame Jews or “Zionists” for what is wrong in the world. These fragments are often then isolated and magnified by social media, rarely meeting opposition or contradiction, so that conspiratorial thinking is sustained and developed further. Although Rich focuses on the discourse and activities of extremist movements, he also notes the distrust of official sources of information in wider political culture. And he argues that efforts to counter extremist narratives through alternative

Introduction

messaging need to recognize the central role played by conspiracy theories in sustaining extremism. At a policy level, therefore, politicians need to recognize that conspiracy theories are taken seriously by terrorist groups and by some governments. At a popular level, Rich believes that schools need to teach “digital fluency” to students, enabling young people to evaluate critically online content. Unfortunately, Rich points out that there is little sign at present that policymakers themselves understand the significance of antisemitic conspiracy theories and the impact they can have. In chapter 8 (“Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community”), Rusi Jaspal looks at antisemitism and anti-Zionism among British Pakistani Muslims. As he explains, research into antisemitism and anti-Zionism among European Muslim minority groups has focused hitherto on a range of ethnicities and concentrated on Holocaust denial. In his chapter, by contrast, Jaspal examines data drawn from a qualitative study that he undertook with a group of thirty-six British Pakistani Muslims, aged 18–35, concerning their broader perceptions of Jews and Israel. Jaspal analysed interview data using qualitative thematic analysis, drawing on identity process theory and social representations theory from social psychology. Those theoretical frameworks proved to be of considerable heuristic value in highlighting the potential social-psychological motivations of the interviewees and, consequently, could also be employed profitably by other scholars working on contemporary antisemitism and anti-Zionism. More particularly, Jaspal found that four overarching themes regarding Jews and Israel stood out among the British Pakistani Muslims who participated. First, Zionism and, by extension, Jews generally were seen as a powerful global threat to both the individuals interviewed and to Muslims more generally, not just because of Israel’s alleged oppression of the Palestinians but also because of an assumption that the ultimate Zionist goal is to destroy Islam. Second, the initial sense of powerlessness engendered by this worldview was countered by a defiant assertion of worldwide Muslim resistance to Zionism/Jews, with Israel’s inevitable demise as the clear aim, in contrast to Western non-Muslims’ subservience to Zionist or Jewish influence. Third, anti-Zionism was seen as an important unifying marker of Muslim identity that allowed the serious divisions of the Islamic world to be transcended, thereby accentuating the perceived gulf between “us” (Muslims) and “them” (Zionists/Jews). Fourth, despite assertions that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are unrelated, interviewees’ anti-Zionist diatribes tended to use language about Israel and Jews that was rhetorically bolstered by antisemitic motifs, including the notion that action against Diaspora Jews might be legitimate. Given

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these four interrelated themes, Jaspal unsurprisingly found a strong conviction among interviewees that Muslim identity is incompatible with Israel’s acceptance. He also found that the social world of participants contained little to challenge negative ideas about Jews and Zionism. Understandably, therefore, Jaspal concludes that, for the sake of all concerned, there is an urgent need to develop strategies for de-coupling Muslim identity in the UK from anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The fourth and final part (Part 4, “The Role of the Intellectuals”) considers three rather different aspects of the intellectual background to contemporary antisemitism. It begins with Matthias Küntzel’s consideration of the way that many Westerners ignore or excuse antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world (“The British Left’s Attitudes toward Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim World”), even though antisemitism is particularly common in contemporary Arab and Muslim societies and expresses itself primarily as an aspiration to “salvation” through the annihilation of everything “Jewish.” A key example employed by Küntzel is the Hamas Charter, published in 1988, which simultaneously appeals to traditional Islamic hostility to Jews (e.g., negative material in the Hadith) and classic European antisemitism (e.g., Protocols of the Elders of Zion). Hamas uses such sources to justify its Jew-hatred and undermine hope of a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israel conflict. As Küntzel shows, this Islamist antisemitism is often ignored or, at least, explained away by Western intellectuals. That is a mistake with far-reaching consequences, for the average observer, ignorant of the Hamas Charter’s anti-Jewish content, has to find some other explanation for the organization’s terrorism against Israel—and thus tends to blame Israel itself. A case in point is Gilbert Achcar, author of a much acclaimed study The Arabs and the Holocaust.7 Distinguishing between a pathological European antisemitism, on the one hand, and the frustration-based “expressions” of antisemitism in the Arab world, on the other, Achcar views the latter merely as a sign of oppression for which “the Jews” and Israel must be deemed culpable. As Küntzel rightly points out, however, violent fantasies about the destruction of Jews or Israel have nothing to do with real conflicts in the Middle East. Real conflicts, after all, would engender fury (whether justified or unjustified) over policies perceived as misguided with a view to changing behavior and bringing about peace, not antisemitism aimed at annihilation. Yet, Achcar is an example of an intellectual who excuses those who propagate antisemitism when it seems to come from the oppressed. Even Holocaust denial is seen as an understandable desperate reaction to the relentless onslaught of Israel. As Küntzel explains, such attitudes constitute the “Orientalization” of antisemitism in the Arab and

Introduction

Muslim world, effectively infantilizing Arab and Muslim people so that they cannot be expected to know what they are doing or be held to the same standards as others. Such “Orientalization” is aided and abetted by a faulty understanding of the Holocaust’s uniqueness and the nature of antisemitism more generally. The answer, Küntzel suggests, lies in more and better Holocaust education that highlights what is distinctive about antisemitism, including what happened to European Jewry during World War II. Next, in chapter 10, comes David Seymour’s analysis of Alain Badiou (“Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition: Alain Badiou and the Radical Tradition of Antisemitism”), in which he looks critically at recent writings by this radical French thinker pertaining to Jews, the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and the question of antisemitism in the early twenty-first century. In the course of his chapter, disturbing continuities emerge between Badiou’s views and what Seymour terms the non-Marxist “radical tradition of antisemitism” that goes back to the mid-nineteenth century and the work of Bruno Bauer (1809–1882). Like many past commentators, Badiou strongly disavows earlier manifestations of antisemitism, while strenuously denying that any significant phenomenon of Jew-hatred exists today. Unfortunately, as Seymour amply demonstrates, Badiou himself at the same time writes about Jews in a deeply problematic way—­maintaining, in essence, that Jews can only be part of the “universal” if they cease to be Jews. But Seymour highlights how Badiou also makes a dramatic innovation; Jews in the early twenty-first century must now, in addition, give up their sense of national self-determination through attachment to the State of Israel. That attachment, according to Badiou, amounts to a denial of the universal human struggle for emancipation by insisting on special privileges for the Jews. It necessarily follows for Badiou, furthermore, that Jews must likewise abandon the belief that the Holocaust is especially significant for them, since it is imperative that that tragic event be viewed as of universal human import. On such issues, as Seymour makes clear, Badiou’s positions carry unmistakable echoes from the past; in fact, it is difficult not to see Badiou’s ideas as part of a long tradition of radical antisemitic thought. Seymour points out, moreover, that the connection between Badiou’s writing and past expressions of anti-Jewish prejudice presents just one example of how hard it is for scholars of contemporary antisemitism to make a firm distinction between “classic” (i.e., racial) and “new” (i.e., Israel-centered) antisemitism. And sadly, Badiou’s writings present us with an instance of how perverse some radical commentary on the Holocaust has become. Lastly, the eleventh chapter by Robert Fine (“On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s ‘Jewish Writings’”) turns to the work of Hannah Arendt

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(1906–1975). More precisely, he considers her “Jewish Writings”—essays on Jewish matters that appeared individually between the 1930s and 1960s and were published as a collection after her death8—which nowadays tend to be read from two rival viewpoints. Fine explains how, on the one side of the argument, Arendt is criticized for attributing responsibility to Jews for the rise of antisemitism, for making use of antisemitic sources as evidence for the behavior of Jews, for focussing only on the wrongdoing of Jews, for her exaggerated and sneering tone in relation to Jewish collaboration during the Holocaust, for her lack of understanding of Zionism, and in general for her “lack of love” for the Jewish people. On the other side, she is celebrated as a Diaspora Jew, an anti-Zionist before her time, a voice for the universality of Jewish ethics, and an opponent of ethnic nationalism in all its forms—including that of the Jewish state. These contradictory readings of Arendt are very much part of a political struggle today, as Fine observes, waged especially but not exclusively within the Jewish community, between what might be called the Jewish establishment and oppositional Jewish voices. Arendt has, in other words, become a weapon in a kind of contemporary Left-Right dualism. However, Fine helpfully shows that neither of these split readings of Arendt’s work does proper justice to her essentially phenomenological approach to the problems facing Jews in modern times, nor to her analysis of the diverse Jewish responses to those problems. Although there are undoubtedly some errors and biases in her work, it is nonetheless important to realize that Arendt’s goal was not to be prescriptive regarding how Jews should think or act. Rather, she was concerned to come to an understanding of Jewish political consciousness, with all its inevitable contradictions, forged as it was in response to the radical antisemitism of the first half of the twentieth century. Fine unpacks Arendt’s quest for such understanding by examining her exposure of the ambiguities of the Enlightenment, assimilation and Zionism, as well as of the cosmopolitanism of which she was herself an advocate. She was critical of those assimilationists unable to deal honestly with the reality of antisemitism, for example, while simultaneously criticizing a tendency among some Zionists to reify antisemitism as a necessary given among non-Jews. According to Fine, Arendt’s observations on these and related matters are potentially very useful for grasping antisemitism’s nature in the early twenty-first century. We, the editors, hope that those who delve into this book’s studies of various aspects of contemporary antisemitism will find that doing so increases their grasp of the diverse forms that Judeophobia takes in the early twenty-first century, as well as the key constants—especially its focus on alleged Zionist and

Introduction

Israeli wrongdoing—in its current iterations in different parts of the world. By aiding readers’ understanding in that way, it is also hoped that this volume will help, at least indirectly, in the vital struggle to expose and undermine contemporary manifestations of this longest of hatreds, wherever they occur.

NOTES   1 The interview took place on 11 January 2015 and can be found in full on YouTube, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhtUUmSwSJc.   2 See further Deborah E. Lipstadt, “Hypocrisy after the Paris Terror Attacks,” Tablet, 16 ­January 2015, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/188387/hypocrisy-after-the-paris-­terrorattacks.   3 Note inter alia Alvin Rosenfeld, ed., Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013); Alvin Rosenfeld, ed., Deciphering the New Antisemitism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015); and Robert S. Wistrich, ed., Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel (Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press, 2016).   4 Didi Herman, An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness & English Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).   5 Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000).   6 Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).   7 Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (New York, NY: Metropolitan Books 2009).   8 Hannah Arendt, The Jewish Writings, ed. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman (New York, NY: Schocken, 2007).

13

CHAPTER 1

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitism DAVID HIRSH

INTRODUCTION

T

his paper focuses on struggles over how antisemitism is defined. Struggles over definition are themselves part of the wider struggle between those who say that hostility to Israel is important in understanding contemporary antisemitism and those who say that these two phenomena are quite separate. A key question, therefore, is what kinds of hostility to Israel may be understood as, or may lead to, or may be caused by, antisemitism? In this paper I analyse three case studies of struggles over how antisemitism is defined. First, I trace a genealogy of the EUMC (European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, now the Agency for Fundamental Rights, FRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. The definition, in a slightly evolved but functionally identical form, was later adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and is now generally referred to as the IHRA definition. I show how this definition emerged out of a process of splitting between the global antiracist movement, on the one hand, and Jewish-led opposition to antisemitism, on the other. At the Durban “World Conference against Racism” in September 2001, there was a largely successful attempt to construct Zionism as the key form of racism on the planet; this would encourage people to relate to the overwhelming m ­ ajority of Jews who refuse to disavow Zionism, as if they were racists. In response, some Jewish NGOs found that they could get a hearing for their concerns within the structures of the Organization for Security * I would like to thank Eve Garrard for her help and advice with this paper; also Alan Johnson, who edited and published an earlier version of some of this material in Fathom; also the group of scholars of antisemitism that I met in Bristol at the invitation of Jonathan Campbell and Lesley Klaff in September 2015; also Claire Garbett; and also Monique Ebell, Dora Hirsh, and Eddie Hirsh.

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Defining Antisemitis

and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union. If Durban is thought of as a non-white global forum and if the OSCE and the European Union are thought of as networks of white states, then the antagonism between non-white antiracism and white anxiety about antisemitism becomes visible and concerning. The clash between anti-Zionism, on the one hand, and the claim that anti-Zionism is related to antisemitism, on the other, plays out within the realm of discourse and then it is also mirrored institutionally in these global struggles over the definition of antisemitism. Second, I go on to look at a case study of alleged antisemitism within the University and College Union (UCU) that was related to the partial success within the union of the campaign to boycott Israel. The explicit disavowal of the EUMC definition during the 2011 UCU Congress can be understood as the climax of a process of struggle within the union over the recognition of a relationship between hostility to Israel and antisemitism. The third case study is an analysis of two formal processes that were asked to adjudicate whether hostility to Israel had become antisemitic: the UCU v Fraser case at the Employment Tribunal in 2012 and the Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry into Antisemitism and Other Racisms in the Labour Party in 2016. The EUMC definition of antisemitism offers a framework for understanding the potential of certain kinds of hostility to Israel to be antisemitic. The further argument was made within the UCU, as well as to the Employment Tribunal and to the Chakrabarti Inquiry, that cultures of hostility to Israel and of support for boycotts tend to bring with them, into institutions that harbour them, cultures of antisemitism. The structures of the Union, as well as the two inquiries, wholeheartedly rejected both the claims: first, that a politics of hostility to Israel manifests itself in antisemitism in these cases; and second, that a cultural or institutional antisemitism, analogous to institutional racism, could be identified in the UCU or the Labour Party. This paper asks whether these wholehearted rejections of claims about antisemitism are themselves implicated in the functioning of contemporary antisemitism. Denial of racism is a necessary element of those kinds of racism that do not see themselves as racist. Perhaps the hostility to the EUMC definition and to arguments about cultural or institutional antisemitism is a necessary component of the anti-Zionist discourses and cultures themselves that arguably relate in complex ways to antisemitism.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Defining a concept cannot be done independently of understanding that which the concept seeks to encapsulate. Defining is a process that requires us to begin

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

by looking at the world outside of ourselves. Gold, for example, is easy to define because its properties are clearly delineated in nature. Any element with atomic number 79 is gold and having that atomic number is enough to define it as such. That is to say that having the atomic number 79 is both necessary and sufficient for a substance to be gold. To define gold it is necessary to know something about the nature of gold. Antisemitism, a complex and contested social phenomenon, is more difficult to define than gold, but here too the work of definition must begin with an investigation into the phenomenon itself. Antisemitism is objective and external to the subjective feeling of individuals. This means that in order to shed light on debates around the definition of the concept, it is necessary to look at the actualization of the concept in the social world, as well as the ways in which the processes of definition happen there. But the procedure appropriate for natural concepts such as chemical elements cannot be used exactly as it stands when we want to define more complex social phenomena. One principal reason for this is that, whereas a natural concept such as gold has instances that are universally agreed upon as being cases of gold, the same is not true of socially contentious phenomena such as racism in general and antisemitism in particular. What counts as a case of racism is a matter of dispute; indeed, it is precisely those disputes, with all their political implications and consequences, that create the need for a clear definition of what it is we are disagreeing about. We need a more complex method if we are to make progress in defining the social phenomenon we are interested in. As before, we must start by looking at the world outside of us; antisemitism is not simply a matter of what is inside people’s heads, either their linguistic knowledge of how the word is used or their psychological states, such as feelings of hatred and contempt for Jews. Hatred may be a sufficient condition for antisemitism, but it is not at all a necessary one: antisemitism is also, and primarily, a matter of what people do, and what consequences their actions have. These points are widely accepted in the more general study of racism, but what people know about racism is sometimes forgotten when they turn their attention to antisemitism. And although there may be agreement about some cases of antisemitism, such as Nazi antisemitism, other cases, especially contemporary ones, are the subject of hot political dispute. So we would need to move constantly between our emerging definition of what antisemitism is and our reflective sense of which cases are properly to be seen as constituting antisemitism, using a tentative definition to correct our intuitions about cases and using our increasingly reflective sense of which cases really count as antisemitism to help us to revise and refine our definition.

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This paper is an effort to understand what is at stake in struggles over how antisemitism should be defined. The inbuilt methodological complexity is that analysing and understanding the struggles around definition is also a process of analysing and understanding the phenomenon of antisemitism itself. Observing efforts to define certain kinds of attitudes and actions as not antisemitic may at the same time also be observing the very functioning of antisemitic discourse. Observing struggles over definition in this way may require us to take sides in some of those struggles. It involves a constant interplay between our emerging definition of antisemitism and our understanding of which cases can plausibly be seen as examples of it. So methodologically, an inquiry into defining antisemitism begins with empirical observation and analysis of cases, some hotly disputed, of the social phenomenon in question, as it is manifested in living, changing social movements and as it is produced through struggle and contestation over how things are understood and described. Analysis of the three case studies below leads me to suggest that the quest for an automatic and uncontested formula that can tell us what is and is not antisemitic is going to be unsuccessful. We are not going to be able to find necessary and sufficient conditions for the presence of antisemitism. It may, however, be possible to look towards the development of a set of criteria that can help us to make, and to debate, difficult judgments regarding particular cases. We will remain aware that any such criteria will be angrily contested. The case studies in this paper show why there is unlikely to be even broad agreement over how to define antisemitism, even amongst antiracists who broadly agree on how to recognize other forms of racism. There is a polarization around definition because the phenomenon itself is highly polarized. Some scholars and antiracists argue that hostility to Israel is related to antisemitism; others insist that relating the two is not merely erroneous but also a malicious attempt to silence and delegitimize criticism of Israel.

CASE STUDY 1: A GENEALOGY OF THE EUMC WORKING DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM The EUMC Working Definition1 is controversial because it states that particular kinds of hostility to Israel “could, taking into account the overall context” be antisemitic. It offers examples: “accusing Israel as a state of exaggerating or inventing the Holocaust” and “accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

than to their own nations.” It offers examples of the kinds of things that may be judged antisemitic, “taking into account the overall context,” as follows:2 • Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. • Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. • Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. • Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. • Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state [sic] of Israel. The definition then makes it clear that, on the other hand, “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”3 Mike Whine traces the prehistory of the Working Definition back to the immediate aftermath of the fall of Communism.4 The OSCE was a preexisting international forum in which Europe, East and West, the USSR, later Russia and the secession states, and the USA could talk to each other. It was a forum that lent itself to the project of attempting to shape the new Europe, in particular by formulating states’ commitment to the principles of human rights and democracy. At the 1990 Copenhagen conference, commitments were made to combat “all forms of racial and ethnic hatred, antisemitism, xenophobia and discrimination.”5 These commitments were subsequently endorsed by heads of state in the “Charter of Paris for a New Europe.”6 It was ten years later when the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians broke down decisively with the outbreak of the Second Intifada and after the failure of peace talks at Taba in January 2001. The coalition of propeace forces in Israel and in Palestine collapsed into opposing national consensuses, each of which portrayed the other nation as being responsible for the renewal of conflict. In September 2001, there was a United Nations (UN) “World Conference against Racism” (WACR) and it was held in newly democratic South Africa. At that conference there was a formidable campaign to construct Zionism

21

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Defining Antisemitis

as the key manifestation of racism in the modern world. A number of factors came together that week—in the conference venues, on the city streets, and on the beachfront of Durban. There was a UN intergovernmental forum. There was also a parallel NGO conference, a huge event in a cricket ground bringing together tens of thousands of activists. Something of the atmosphere can be understood from this contemporaneous account from ICARE, a participating European antiracist NGO: Jews were actively discriminated [against], shouted down, meetings on Antisemitism were hijacked by Palestinian Caucus members and supporters, and people who protested against all this were branded “Zionist pigs lovers” and “Jewlovers.” Some NGOs were intimidated into silence. There was fear to be branded as “Zionist.” There were NGOs and people who openly agreed with the antisemite slogans …    The big September 1st demonstration had a lot of slogans, covered a lot of issues, but one was most dominant: Free Palestine. In the march, slogans were carried like “Kill all the Jews” and “the good things Hitler did.” Pamphlets were handed out with a portrait of Hitler, displaying the text: “What if I had won? The good things: There would be NO Israel and NO Palestinian’s blood shed—the rest is your guess. The bad things: I wouldn’t have allowed the making of the new beetle—the rest is your guess.’”    This march ended at the Durban Jewish Club, which was another sign that the organisers not only see the state of Israel as the enemy but all Jewish people. The Jewish club had been evacuated a few hours earlier and the South African police had the building screened-off with riot police and armoured cars. A big demonstration during a World Conference Against Racism that ends as an Antisemitic rally. …7

There was an organized and hostile anti-Israel fervor throughout the weeklong conference. Some of it was expressed in openly antisemitic forms, some was legitimate criticism of Israel expressed in democratic antiracist forms, and some was antisemitism expressed in ostensibly democratic and antiracist language. The Conference ended on Saturday 8 September. For some of the participants the traumatic experience of finding that global allies in the struggle against racism were prepared to tolerate antisemitism was heightened by the attacks, three days later on 11 September, on the USA. Ronald Eissens of ICARE editorialized as follows:

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis There is a dark cloud of hate descending upon this world. … We are an antiracism NGO, so it is our duty and our moral obligation to speak out against racism. Especially, I would say, when an antiracism conference becomes the scene of racism. The fact that racism was allowed to run rampant during the WCAR is astonishing. What is even more astonishing, shameful and harmful for the antiracism cause and for the victims of racism is that the majority of the organisers and participants let that happen, did nothing to stop it and did not speak out during or after the WCAR.8

The collapse of the peace process, Durban and 9/11, as well as the reverberating symbolic representations of them, can be understood as heralding what some have called “the new antisemitism.” As well as attempts to raise the issue of antisemitism in the OSCE, says Whine, there were also attempts to raise it within the European Union.9 A series of meetings took place between the EUMC director Beate Winkler and European Jewish Congress (EJC) officials that resulted in the commissioning of a report on antisemitism in each country. The Centre for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at Berlin’s Technical University was asked to analyze the reports and publish a composite analysis. However, Whine notes, the report was badly received by the EUMC board because it apportioned much of the blame for the rise in antisemitism to Muslim communities. It was leaked to the press by the EJC in December 2003. A second report was published side by side with the main country-by-­ country analysis. “Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002–3’”10 was released on 31 March 2004 and the accompanying press release said that the far-Right remained the main promoter of antisemitism within Europe, contradicting the body of the first report. Whine writes: In its 2004 report on antisemitism, the EUMC noted the lack of a common definition and requested one from a small group of Jewish NGOs. This [was] intended as a template for police forces and antiracist campaigners, for use on the streets. The definition was disseminated in March 2004, and although not directed at governments for incorporation into national legislation, it [was] nevertheless expected that it [would] seep into universal usage via adoption by the relevant parties.11

This in fact happened. Delegates to the OSCE Cordoba Conference in May 2005 constantly referred to it and the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into

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Defining Antisemitis

Antisemitism in the UK recommended its adoption,12 as did a number of similar initiatives around the world.13 In 2010 the US State Department adopted a variant as its own official definition of antisemitism.14

The “Whitening” of Jews and the Schism between Anti-Antisemitism and Antiracism Back in 1968, Franz Fanon, in his Black Skin, White Masks, wrote: At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: “When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.” And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.15

There is a strong tradition on the antiracist Left of understanding racism and antisemitism as closely related phenomena and of opposing both equally and on a similar basis. Exemplars of this tradition include Karl Marx’s critiques of antisemitism within the movement in his day,16 August Bebel’s characterization of antisemitism as the “socialism of fools,” the anti-Fascist tradition, and the Black–Jewish alliance during the civil rights movement in the USA. At Durban in 2001, however, racism had been defined such that “Zionism” was its archetypal and most threatening form, and the reality of antisemitism was not only denied but was also practiced with impunity. A significant number of antiracist activists and thinkers were subsequently willing to lend implicit or overt support to organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, judging those groups’ antisemitism either to be exaggerated or of little political significance (e.g., Judith Butler17 and Jeremy Corbyn).18 Durban illustrated the possibility of the emergence of a schism between the worldviews of antiracism and anti-antisemitism. The issue of “whiteness” is key to the understanding of contemporary antisemitism and it is linked to a number of developments in the twentieth-century Left. The first is a tendency for parts of the Left to understand “the oppressed,” with whom it sides, more and more in terms of nations and national movements, which are fighting for liberation against the “imperialist states” or “rich states,” “the West,” “the North,” or the “white” states. This is a different f­ ramework from

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

the one in which the left thought of itself as supporting the self-liberation of the working class, of women, and of other subordinated groups within each nation and state. Some found that the logic of this position was to understand whites as the oppressors and non-whites as the oppressed and to subordinate other forms of stratification to this central one. Jews occupy an ambivalent position with respect to the black–white binary. On the one hand, antisemitism is a racism, arguably the prototype of European racism, and provides perhaps the clearest lesson about where racism can lead. On the other hand, antisemitism has often functioned, in the words of Moishe Postone, as a “fetishized form of oppositional consciousness,” through which Jews are thought of as conspiratorially powerful and lurking behind the oppression of others.19 In the USA, Karen Brodkin’s 1998 book, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America, presented a narrative of the “whitening” of American Jews, and it fed into a new picture of Jews as part of the Judeo-­Christian white bourgeois elite.20 Israel—which in the early days was understood by some to be a life raft21 for oppressed victims of racism, a national liberation movement against European colonialism, and a pioneer of socialist forms like the kibbutz— later came to be conceived as a keystone of the global system of white imperialist oppression of black people. In April 2009, when President Ahmadinejad of Iran made an antisemitic speech at the UN in Geneva, Seumas Milne, later to become Jeremy Corbyn’s communications chief, asked in his Guardian column, “what credibility is there in Geneva’s all-white boycott?”22 A number of Jewish communal NGOs responded to the defeat and the trauma experienced at Durban by withdrawing into the OSCE and the European Union where they had some success in getting a positive hearing for their concerns. In this way the ideational polarization between black and white came to be mirrored institutionally. Durban, dominated by states that thought of themselves as non-white, represented one way of defining antisemitism; the Jewish organizations retreated into the OSCE, which could be seen as the international coalition of white states, and won it over to quite a different way of defining antisemitism. Opponents of the EUMC Working Definition have pointed to the fact that the definition was the result of purposive political action by international Jewish groups, and so it was. But this genealogy can only cast shadows over the definition if there is thought to be something inappropriate about their input. Normally it would be unremarkable for communal groups to be involved in defining a racism of which they are the object. But in this case Jewish groups are

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Defining Antisemitis

accused by anti-Zionists of acting in bad faith. The accusation implicit in this understanding is that Jewish groups are not really working in the interests of the struggle against antisemitism. Rather, they are secretly prepared to sacrifice the struggle against “real” antisemitism by co-opting its political capital to a dishonest attempt to delegitimize criticism of Israel.23 In sum, the case study of the genealogy of the Working Definition illustrates the extreme polarization of efforts to define antisemitism and it relates that polarization to problematic notions and practices of “blackness” and “whiteness” in contemporary antiracist movements. It shows how the polarization in struggles over definition reflects the phenomenon of contemporary antisemitism itself.

CASE STUDY 2: STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING ANTISEMITISM IN THE UCU In May 2011, UCU Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass a motion which alleged that the “so-called” EUMC Working Definition is “being used” to “silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus.”24 Congress resolved to make no use of the definition “[for example,] in educating members or dealing with internal complaints” and to “dissociate itself from the EUMC definition in any public discussion.” Representatives of the institutions of the Jewish community in Britain judged this disavowal to be the last straw. Jeremy Newmark, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said “[a]fter today’s events, I believe the UCU is institutionally racist.”25 His view was echoed by Jon Benjamin, the chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who said “the UCU has … simply redefined ‘antisemitism’ … [t]he truth is apparent: whatever the motivations of its members, we believe the UCU is an institutionally racist organisation.”26 Since 2003, there has been an influential campaign within the UCU, as well as in its predecessor organizations, to boycott Israeli universities as a protest against alleged Israeli human rights abuses, while there has been no such campaign against the universities of any other state. Some opponents of the boycott campaign argued that this singling out of Israel was antisemitic in effect and that it brought with it into the union antisemitic ways of thinking and antisemitic exclusions.27 Supporters of the campaign, as well as some opponents, objected strongly to the raising of the issue of antisemitism, arguing that it constituted an ad hominem attack against “critics of Israel.”28

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

From the beginning, the boycott campaign sought to protect itself against a charge of antisemitism by including clauses in its boycott motions that defined antisemitism in such a way as to exonerate itself of the charge. At the 2003 Council of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), one of UCU’s predecessor organizations, Motion 54 was passed: Council deplores the witch-hunting of colleagues … who are participating in the academic boycott of Israel. Council recognises that anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism, and resolves to give all possible support to members of AUT who are unjustly accused of anti-semitism because of their political opposition to Israeli government policy.

A witch hunt involves accusing individuals of witchcraft, something that could not possibly be true. To characterize an accusation of antisemitism as a witch hunt implies that it, similarly, could not possibly be true. The statement that “anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism” is formally true and nobody could argue against the resolution to support members who are unjustly accused of antisemitism. However, it is clear that the formulation functions as a way of defining all accusations of antisemitism that relate to Israel as unjust. At the June 2005 conference of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), the other UCU predecessor organization, a motion was passed that included the text: “To criticise Israeli policy or institutions is not anti-semitic.”29 The first Congress of the newly merged UCU passed a motion which stated that “criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic.” While the motion supported a boycott without resolving actually to implement one, the antisemitism clause referred only to “criticism of Israel.” The implication here is that boycott falls within the protection afforded to “criticism.” The “cannot be construed as” element implies that there is somebody who is trying to construe criticism as antisemitic. It is an implicit allegation of the collective bad faith of those who raise the issue of antisemitism. The ambiguity of the motion was not accidental, since Congress explicitly rejected the following amendment to clarify the wording: “While much criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, criticism of Israeli state policy cannot necessarily be construed as anti-semitic.”30 UCU Congress in 2008 passed a similar motion, which was supportive of a boycott, but which stopped short of implementing one. This time the wording on antisemitism was: “criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are [sic] not, as such, anti-semitic.”31 This form of words raised a straw man by subsuming anything

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Defining Antisemitis

that may be thought to be antisemitic into the category of “criticism” and then legislating that in virtue of its being “criticism” it could not be antisemitic. This long prehistory to the UCU’s 2011 disavowal of the EUMC definition is consistent. Each new form of words refuses the straightforward position that some kinds of hostility to Israel are antisemitic, while other kinds are not. Instead, each specifies that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, and it implicitly subsumes all kinds of hostility and exclusions under the category of “criticism.”32 Practically, the result has been to open up a loophole in the union’s guarantees against racism and bigotry. One kind of racism is excluded from these guarantees, and that is any antisemitism that can be construed as criticism of Israel. Instead of addressing the UCU’s culture, recognizable according to the Working Definition as antisemitic, the definition’s disavowal allows the union to carry on treating “Zionists” as disloyal, to single out Israel and only Israel for boycott, to hold Israeli universities and scholars responsible for their government, and to allow “Zionist” union members to be denounced as Nazis or supporters of apartheid. Israel murders children? Israel controls USA foreign policy? “Star of David=Swastika” stuck on your office door? Jews invent antisemitism to delegitimize criticism of Israel? Host a man found guilty of hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission? Exclude nobody but Israelis from the global academic community? All of these are considered, implicitly by UCU motions, and clearly by UCU norms, to constitute “criticism of Israel” and so are defined, in practice, as not being antisemitic. This case study shows how this anti-Zionist movement sought, at each step of its campaign, to preempt accusations of antisemitism by refining its own critique of claims about what constitutes antisemitism. It felt the need to incorporate its claims over definition into its motions; it fought for its own conception of antisemitism within its wider constituency; and it sought to inoculate itself in advance against being associated with antisemitism.

CASE STUDY 3: FRASER V UCU AND THE CHAKRABARTI INQUIRY Ronnie Fraser, a Jewish UCU member, brought a legal action against the UCU. His letter to the UCU General Secretary, written by his lawyer Anthony Julius, said that the union had breached paragraphs 26 and 57 (3) of the Equality Act 2010: The UCU has “harassed” him by “engaging in unwanted conduct” relating to his Jewish identity (a “relevant protected characteristic”), the “purpose

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis and/or effect” of which has been, and continues to be, to “violate his dignity” and/or create “an intimidating, hostile, degrading humiliating” and/ or “offensive environment” for him.33

The letter alleged a course of action by the union34 that amounted to institutional antisemitism,35 and it gave examples: annual boycott resolutions against only Israel; the conduct of the debates about them; the moderating of the online activist list amongst union members and the penalizing of anti-boycott activists; the failure to engage with people who raised concerns about antisemitism; the failure to address resignations; the refusal to meet the OSCE’s special representative on antisemitism;36 the hosting of Bongani Masuku;37 and the repudiation of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism. The UCU defended itself vigorously. It said that it was an antiracist union, that it vigorously opposed antisemitism and that Fraser was illegitimately trying to frame his political defeat as a “friend of Israel” in terms of antisemitism. The union had done nothing inappropriate, it claimed. The Tribunal sat in the autumn of 2012. It accepted evidence on behalf of Fraser from 34 witnesses: union activists, scientists, sociologists, historians, lawyers, philosophers, MPs, Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, academic experts on antisemitism, and ­Jewish communal leaders. Witnesses gave written statements and were subjected to cross-examination. The Tribunal found against Fraser on everything: on technicalities, on legal argument, and on every significant issue of substance and of fact.38 The Tribunal found everything the UCU said in its defence to be persuasive and it found nothing said by Fraser or any of his witnesses to have merit. The culture, the practices and the norms inside the union were found not to be antisemitic, either in intent or in effect. Indeed, everything that Fraser and his witnesses experienced as antisemitic the Tribunal judged to have been entirely appropriate. In particular, what was appropriate was the way that union staff, rules, structures, and bodies operated. Fraser said that there was a culture in which antisemitism was tolerated, but the Tribunal did not accept that even one of the very many stories that it was told was an indicator of antisemitism. Instead, the Tribunal found that “at heart” the case represented “an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means.”39 The only possible political end that it could have had in mind was an attempt to defeat or silence campaigns critical of Israel by crying antisemitism. The Tribunal went on in the next paragraph: “We are also troubled by the implications of the claim. Underlying it we sense a worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and

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f­ reedom of expression.”40 The Tribunal said that Fraser was trying to fool it into outlawing and branding criticism of Israel as antisemitic. Of course, every racist claims that antiracists undermine their right to free speech. True, sometimes the Tribunal appeared to veer towards the view that those who complain of antisemitism are simply oversensitive and lacking in objective judgment; but the central findings, that this is politics dressed up as litigation and that this is an attempt to disallow free criticism, are allegations of bad faith on the part of those who said that there was antisemitism. The activists, structures and officials of the UCU judged that nothing that ever happened in the union was antisemitic. The Tribunal agreed. It wrote the following on the question of defining antisemitism: The Claimant bases his case in part on the rejection by the Respondents’ Congress (in 2011) of the “Working Definition” of anti-Semitism. … He was content with that definition. Others disagreed, regarding it as exposing critics of Israel to the unfair accusation of anti-Semitic conduct. They pointed to the fact that the definition might be read as branding attacks on Zionism as anti-Semitic and precluding criticism of Israel save where “similar” to that levelled against any other country. We cannot escape the gloomy thought that a definition acceptable to all interested parties may never be achieved and count ourselves fortunate that it does not fall to us to attempt to devise one.41

The Tribunal was confident in judging that nothing that happened within the UCU constituted antisemitic harassment under the meaning of the Equality Act; this seems to be contrary to its professed reluctance to come to a judgment about how antisemitism ought to be defined. The Tribunal attempted to position itself neutrally between the polarized positions on what defines antisemitism, yet it judged that there was no antisemitism under the meaning of the Equality Act within the union. In this way it threw its weight behind one of the positions on what constitutes antisemitism, and it came down strongly against the other.

The Chakrabarti Inquiry into Antisemitism in the Labour Party In the summer of 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party. During his election campaign, a number of people raised the issue of Corbyn’s record in relation to antisemitism.42 On 12 August 2015, the Jewish

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

Chronicle gave over its front page to ask seven questions of Corbyn relating to antisemitism.43 A number of people kept on raising these issues after Corbyn became leader.44 Conservative politicians, bloggers, and newspapers also began to raise the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn was criticized for having referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends” and for having said that they were dedicated to peace and justice in the Middle East.45 Corbyn had intervened against those who had accused Raed Salah46 and Steven Sizer,47 for example, of the blood libel and conspiracy theory respectively. Corbyn had hosted a show on the Iranian regime’s propaganda channel Press TV.48 When Corbyn’s allies accused those who raised the issue of antisemitism of doing so to silence criticism of Israel and to hinder opposition to austerity,49 and when it became clear that Corbyn had supported a boycott of Israel,50 Corbyn’s reputation remained intact among his supporters in the Labour Party. Nevertheless, because Corbyn’s own record on antisemitism made the Labour Party vulnerable to attacks on that issue, and because there was no shortage of examples of Labour members saying and doing antisemitic things, the criticism of antisemitism became more and more mainstream. In 2014, for instance, Vicki Kirby, a Labour parliamentary candidate, was warned by the party for posting antisemitic tweets. “We invented Israel when saving them from Hitler, who now seems to be their teacher,” she wrote. She also asked why ISIS was not attacking the “real oppressor,” “evil” Israel.51 It then emerged that she had been reinstated as a party member and that she was active in the Corbyn support network Momentum; she was then suspended. A picture of Kirby and Jeremy Corbyn smiling happily together was circulating online. Only after David Cameron raised the case of another Labour Party activist, Gerry Downing, at Prime Minister’s Questions on 9 March 2016, was Downing expelled from the party, after having been allowed to rejoin following a previous expulsion. Downing has argued that Zionism is at the heart of global capitalism and he advocates reopening “the Jewish Question.”52 He also said explicitly what Kirby implied—that terrorism is the violence of the oppressed and should never be condemned.53 The co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club, Alex Chalmers, wrote on his resignation in February 2016 that a large proportion of club members had “some kind of problem with Jews.” There was a culture in which the politics of peace between Israel and the Palestinians was mocked as “Zio.” A politics of war against Israel was considered more appropriate and the “Zios” were routinely

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baited with the song “Rockets over Tel Aviv.” Jewish students were treated as defenders of racism and apartheid and attempts were made to deny “Zio” members the right to vote in club business. Alex Chalmers wrote that the antisemitic incidents he witnessed were less troubling than the culture which allowed such behavior to become normalized.54 The public scandal of antisemitism in the Labour Party came to a head when Ken Livingstone repeatedly declared that he had never seen any antisemitism in his forty-five years in the party and when he made the claim that Hitler had supported Zionism in 1933. Consequently, Jeremy Corbyn felt constrained to suspend from Labour Party membership a number of people who had been accused of antisemitism, including Ken Livingstone. On 29 April 2016, he called a party inquiry into the issue of antisemitism, appointing Shami Chakrabarti and David Feldman to chair the inquiry; later Jan Royall was added as a third co-chair.55 Many people related to the Chakrabarti Inquiry in good faith and offered written submissions that were serious, thoughtful, scholarly and politically nuanced.56 The report57 was written by Shami Chakrabarti herself, while the other two chairs were somewhat sidelined. It was published quickly, within six weeks of the Inquiry being called and within only about two weeks of the deadline for submissions. The report recommended that some kinds of language should be put outside of what is appropriate within the Labour Party and it recommended some modernization of disciplinary procedure. What Chakrabarti did not attempt was either a definition of antisemitism or a description of the political problem which led to the specific scandals triggering the inquiry. She did not attempt to connect the politics of hostility to Israel with antisemitism. Antisemitism was treated as a kind of personal failing and, indeed, the report congratulated Labour on having been the only party to conduct such an inquiry. The fact that Labour seemed to be the only party that needed to conduct such an inquiry was missed. In sum, both the Employment Tribunal and the Chakrabarti Inquiry were asked to adjudicate the question, which had been raging between activists and scholars, about how antisemitism should be defined. But both were positioned outside of the fray; both had the opportunity to take the time coolly to examine the arguments and the evidence that were submitted to them; both were somewhat insulated from the heated atmosphere of political debate. Both came to conclusions that were similar to those that had been arrived at within the wider social movements concerned and that were starkly at odds with the consensus view within the Jewish community.

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

CONCLUSION The genealogy of the EUMC Working Definition sheds light on contemporary struggles over the definition of antisemitism and its relationship to hostility towards Israel. The possibility of a departure from a standard antiracist understanding of the relationship between opposition to racism and opposition to antisemitism may be significant indeed. Glynis Cousin and Robert Fine identify a “methodological separatism,” which has challenged the political and conceptual unity between antiracism and anti-antisemitism.58 They argue that “sociology is broken by the schism between racism and antisemitism.”59 First, it downplays the similarity in structure and the connectedness of the histories of antiblack racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia. And second, it brings with it temptations to engage in competitive identity politics, which may even reproduce some of the racist ways of thinking which sociology and antiracism had formerly made every effort to deconstruct and overcome. The EUMC’s definition is a case study of the dangers about which Cousin and Fine worry. In the 1980s, there was an antiracism that sought to build a rainbow alliance of everybody who suffered racism, defining itself as “black” against a category of “whiteness,” where the latter was understood as an identity of privilege and power. While this kind of simplification brought with it some unity and clarity, it tended to ossify: it contained within it a danger of collapse into fixed binary categories of blackness (goodness) and whiteness (badness), which did damage to how we understand the complexity and diversity of social and ethnic identity, and also conflict, across the globe. This process was exacerbated by a tendency for radical thought to conceptualize the world as being increasingly split between oppressor and oppressed nations and nationalisms. These tendencies created fertile conditions for the splitting off of Israel and Jews from the community of the oppressed and for conceiving of them as white, imperialist, and the enemy of the oppressed. In this model there is a danger that antisemitism itself is misconstrued as the passionate cry of the oppressed against their oppressors, while opposition to antisemitism is misconstrued as an attempt to silence the oppressed. These ways of thinking, which are replicated and reinforced by the organizational and political schisms that have been described in this paper, contain within themselves a tendency to repeat some of the tropes and discourses of earlier antisemitisms. First in discourse and then in the culture of institutions, these ways of thinking also reproduce themselves in practices of defining, understanding, and denying antisemitism.

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This paper’s second case study traces the struggle over a number of years by the anti-Zionist factions within the UCU to legitimize their discourse by encoding their own definitional requirements regarding antisemitism into the official policies, structures, and practices of the union. For them, the struggle over how to define antisemitism was embedded into the activity itself—namely, boycotting Israel, which was to be, or was not to be, defined as antisemitic. And this preemptive struggle over definition also encompassed behavior, language, exclusions, and hostility that predictably came in the wake of the campaign to boycott. The third case study pertains to the judicial and the political adjudications of the Employment Tribunal and the Chakrabarti Inquiry, both of which further seal the legitimacy of disproportional and irrational hostility to Israel. Both formal processes of adjudication were asked to recognize and to act against antisemitic behavior, yet both explicitly refused to enter into the discussion of how antisemitism should be defined. But this did not stop either of them from working with “common sense” definitions of their own making, and ones that they were unable to make explicit. Antisemitism must be studied empirically before it can be defined. It is necessary to see how it operates within the complexity of human and social movements, how elements of rhetoric move from one discursive field to another, and how modes of denial and reassurance operate. Thus, it is interesting to note that, in the week after the Chakrabarti report was published, Jeremy Corbyn appeared in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee. With Chakrabarti sitting just behind him, Corbyn defined antisemitism as follows: Antisemitism is where you use epithets to criticize people for being Jewish; you attack Jewish people for what they are. It is completely unacceptable and I would have thought it was very obvious what antisemitism is.60

This “definition” is reminiscent of the one proposed by anti-Zionist and pro-boycott activist Sue Blackwell in the debate in which the UCU voted to disavow the EUMC definition: “I recommend Brian Klug’s ‘hostility towards Jews as Jews.’”61 Insofar as there is great resistance to recognizing and understanding antisemitism, it would seem that there is a preference for simplistic a priori definitions that do not reflect a deep and detailed study of the phenomenon itself. As such, they narrow the concept down to one single aspect of the phenomenon and focus the definition only on those manifestations on which it is easy for

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis

antiracists to agree. These definitions could not be based on a profound and thoughtful study of a phenomenon of which these protagonists are keen to deny the significance or even the existence. Jeremy Corbyn invented a definition of antisemitism under cross-­ examination; Sue Blackwell’s definition is five words long; Shami Chakrabarti’s account of antisemitism begins in the dictionary; the members of the Employment Tribunal say with all banality: “we count ourselves fortunate that it does not fall to us to attempt to devise” a definition.62 By contrast the antiracist NGOs, scholars and activists who have studied and tried to map the features of this kind of contemporary antisemitism—many of whom have themselves experienced the shock of being summarily expelled from the antiracist and scholarly community—have tried to set up more subtle and elaborate parameters and frameworks for the understanding of this rather complex and difficult to encapsulate phenomenon.

NOTES   1 European Forum on Antisemitism, “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” http://european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/definition-of-antisemitism/english-english.   2 The bullet points to follow are a direct quotation from the definition.   3 Note that there is a number of USA spellings in the definition and this fact was later mobilized in the UCU debate to demonstrate its illegitimacy as a European and an antiracist document. See David Hirsh, “Live Blogging from the UCU Congress: The EUMC Working Definition,” Engage, 30 May, 2011, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/ live-blogging-from-ucu-congress-the-eumc-working-definition/.  4 Michael Whine, “International Organizations: Combating Anti-Semitism in Europe,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16, nos. 3–4 (Fall 2004), http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phaswhine-f04.htm; “Progress in the Struggle against Anti-Semitism in Europe: The Berlin Declaration and the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism,” Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, February 1, 2006, http://jcpa.org/article/progress-in-the-struggle-against-anti-semitism-in-europe-the-berlin-declaration-and-the-european-union-monitoring-centre-on-racism-and-xenophobias-working-definition-of-anti-semitism/; “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Diplomatic Progress in Combating Antisemitism,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 4 (2010): 91–102.   5 Whine, “Two Steps Forward.”  6 Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, “Charter for Paris for a New Europe,” November 21, 1990, http://www.osce.org/node/39516.   7 Ronald Eissens, “The Morning After,” ICARE, October 2001, http://www.icare.to/wcar/.   8 Eissens, “Morning After.”   9 Michael Whine, “A Short History of the Definition,” in Tenth Biennial Seminar on Antisemitism (Tel Aviv: Kantor Centre, 2011), http://kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/sites/default/files/ proceeding-all_3.pdf.

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Defining Antisemitis 10 European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, “Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002–2003,” 31 March 2004, http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ fra_uploads/184-AS-Main-report.pdf. 11 Whine, “Progress in the Struggle against Anti-Semitism in Europe.” 12 All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, “Report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism,” September 2006, http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/All-Party-Parliamentary-Inquiry-into-Antisemitism-REPORT.pdf. 13 United States Department of State, “Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the United States Congress,” March 2008, http://www.state.gov/documents/ organization/102301.pdf. 14 United States Department of State, “Defining Anti-Semitism,” June 8, 2010, http://www. state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm. 15 Franz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1968), 122. 16 Robert Fine, “Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Antisemitism,” Engage Journal 2 (2006), https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/karl-marx-and-the-radical-critiqueof-anti-semitism-robert-fine-engage-journal-issue-2-may-2006/. 17 Undine Zimmer, Marie Heidingsfelder and Sharon Adler, “Interview with Judith Butler,” Aviva-Berlin.de, 9 July 2010), http://www.aviva-berlin.de/aviva/content_Interviews. php?id=1427323. 18 Jeremy Corbyn, “Jeremy Corbyn on Hamas and Hezbollah,” 15 June 2015, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=pGj1PheWiFQ. 19 Moishe Postone, “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism,” Public Culture 18, no. 1 (Winter 2006), 99. 20 Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999). 21 Isaac Deutscher, The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays (London: The Merlin Press, 1981). 22 Seumas Milne, “What Credibility is There in Geneva’s All-White Boycott?,” Guardian, 23 April 2009. 23 David Hirsh, “How Raising the Issue of Antisemitism Puts You Outside of the Community of the Progressive: The Livingstone Formulation,” Engage, 29 April 2016, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/the-livingstone-formulation-david-hirsh-2/. 24 See David Hirsh, “Instead of Addressing its Antisemitism, UCU Proposes to Change the Definition of Antisemitism,” Engage, 20 May 2011, https://engageonline.wordpress. com/2011/05/20/instead-of-adressing-its-antisemitism-ucu-proposes-to-changethe-definition-of-antisemitism/. 25 See Martin Bright, “UCU Antisemitism Motion Passes,” Jewish Chronicle Online, 30 May 2011, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/49660/ucu-antisemitism-motion-passes. 26 See Jonny Paul, “UK Academic Union Rejects EU Definition of Anti-Semitism,” ­Jerusalem Post, 1 June 2011, http://www.jpost.com/International/UK-academic-union-rejects-EUdefinition-of-anti-Semitism. 27 Ben Gidley, “The Politics of Defining Racism: The Case of Anti-Semitism in the University and College Union,” Dissent, 26 May 2011, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/ the-politics-of-defining-racism-the-case-of-anti-semitism-in-the-university-and-collegeunion.

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis 28 For discussion of this viewpoint, see David Hirsh, “Accusations of Malicious Intent in Debates about the Palestine-Israel Conflict and about Antisemitism: The Livingstone Formulation, ‘Playing the Antisemitism Card’ and Contesting the Boundaries of Antiracist Discourse,” Transversal 1 (2010): 47–77, https://engageonline.files.wordpress. com/2010/10/4958_transversal_2010_01_innenteil_beitrag_hirsch.pdf. 29 See Mark Osborn, “Now Mobilise for NATFHE Boycott!” Workers’ Liberty, 5 June 2005, http://www.workersliberty.org/node/4219. 30 Stan Cooke, “Boycott ‘Apartheid Israel’?” Workers’ Liberty, 27 October 2007, http://www. workersliberty.org/story/2007/10/27/boycott-apartheid-israel. 31 For discussion, see Norman Geras, “Criticism of Israel or Israeli Policy Are Not, As Such, Anti-Semitic,” Engage, 20 April 2008, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/ criticism-of-israel-or-israeli-policy-are-not-as-such-anti-semitic-a-commentary-by-norman-geras/. 32 See Hirsh, “Raising the Issue.” 33 Anthony Julius, “Anti-Semitism in the UCU” (letter to Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU), Normblog, 1 July 2011, http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/07/ ucu-facing-possible-legal-action.html. 34 David Hirsh, “The Legacy of Hope: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Resistance, Yesterday and Today,” Engage, 18 January 2010, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/. 35 Richard Gold, “Letter to Sally Hunt,” Engage, 26 May 2011, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/letter-to-sally-hunt/. 36 David Hirsh et al., “UCU Snubs Concerns,” Times Higher Education, 3 August 2007, https:// www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/letters/ucu-snubs-concerns/209828.article. 37 Board of Deputies of British Jews, Community Security Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council, “Bongani Masuku, Hate Speech and the University and College Union,” CST, 8 December 2009, https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2009/12/08/bongani-masuku-hatespeech-and-the-university-and-college-union. 38 “Mr R Fraser v. University and College Union,” Judgment of the Employment Tribunal Case Numbers 2203390/2011, March 25, 2013, https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/fraser-uni-college-union/. 39 “Mr R Fraser v. University and College Union,” para. 178. 40 Ibid., para. 179. 41 Ibid., para. 52. 42 See, for example, Alan Johnson, “Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn,” Left Foot Forward, 16 June 2015, http://leftfootforward.org/2015/06/an-open-letter-to-jeremy-corbyn/. 43 “Jeremy Corbyn Responds to the JC’s Seven Questions,” Jewish Chronicle, 19 August 2015, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142656/jeremy-corbyn-responds-jc%E2%80%99sseven-questions. 44 See, for example, Dave Rich, “The U.K. Labour Party Must Decide if It’s a Political Home for Anti-Semitism or for British Jews,” Haaretz, 21 March 2016, http://www.haaretz.com/ opinion/.premium-1.710070; Jonathan Freedland, “Labour and the Left Have an Antisemitism Problem,” Guardian, 18 March 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/18/labour-antisemitism-jews-jeremy-corbyn. 45 Corbyn, “Corbyn on Hamas and Hezbollah.” 46 Johnson, “Open Letter.”

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Defining Antisemitis 47 “Jeremy Corbyn Responds.” 48 Comment with Jeremy Corbyn, YouTube video from a programme on Press TV, 3 June 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEKuMtxKTs (no longer available). 49 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, “Fling Mud if You Must But Don’t Call Jeremy Corbyn an Anti-­ Semite,” Independent, 17 August 2015; this article has been removed from the newspaper’s website but is available at https://archive.is/pqExP (accessed 7 April 2017). 50 David Hirsh, “Jeremy Corbyn Supports BDS,” Engage, 25 September 2015, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/jeremy-corbyn-supports-bds/. 51 Natasha Culzac, “Labour Candidate Vicki Kirby Suspended for Anti-Israel Tweets,” Independent, 21 September 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ labour-candidate-vicki-kirby-suspended-for-anti-israel-tweets-9746713.html (accessed 7 April 2017). 52 Dave Rich, “Gerry Downing’s ‘Jewish Question,’” Community Security Trust website, 10 March 2016, https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2016/03/10/gerry-downings-jewish-question. 53 Gerry Downing, “The Social and Political Meaning of 9/11 Conspiracy Theory,” Socialist Fight website, 24 January 2016, https://socialistfight.com/2016/01/24/the-­social-andpolitical-meaning-of-911-conspiracy-theory. 54 Alex Chalmers, “Antisemitic Antizionism and the Scandal of Oxford University Labour Club,” Fathom (Spring 2016), http://fathomjournal.org/antisemitic-anti-zionism-and-the-scandal-of-oxford-university-labour-club/. 55 “The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry,” http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/chakrabarti. 56 For examples of the submissions, see David Hirsh, “Submissions to the Chakrabarti Inquiry into Antisemitism in the Labour Party,” Engage, 2 July 2016, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/submissions-to-the-chakrabarti-inquiry-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party/. 57 Shami Chakrabarti, “Report: The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry,” 20 June 2016, http://www. labour.org.uk/page/-/party-documents/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf. 58 Glynis Cousin and Robert Fine, “A Common Cause: Reconnecting the Study of Racism and Antisemitism,” European Societies 14, no. 2 (2012): 166–85. 59 Cousin and Fine, “A Common Cause,” 181. 60 “Home Affairs Committee,” Parliament Live TV, 4 July 2016, http://parliamentlive.tv/ event/index/89a8f38d-0676-4873-b388-46666415e8bf?in=17%3A25%3A25&out=17% 3A26%3A04. 61 Hirsh, “Live Blogging from the UCU Congress.” 62 “Mr R Fraser v. University and College Union,” para. 52.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cousin, G. and Robert Fine, “A Common Cause: Reconnecting the Study of Racism and Antisemitism,” European Societies 14, no. 2 (2012): 166–85. Chakrabarti, Shami. “Report: The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry,” 20 June 2016, http://www.labour. org.uk/page/-/party-documents/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf. Deutscher, Isaac. The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays. London: The Merlin Press, 1981.

Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitis Eissens, Ronald. “The Morning After,” ICARE, October 2001, http://www.icare.to/wcar/. Gidley, Ben. “The Politics of Defining Racism: The Case of Anti-Semitism in the University and College Union,” Dissent, 26 May 2011, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/the-politics-ofdefining-racism-the-case-of-anti-semitism-in-the-university-and-college-union. Postone, Moishe. “History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism,” Public Culture 18, no. 1 (Winter 2006), 99. Whine, Michael. “Progress in the Struggle against Anti-Semitism in Europe: The Berlin Declaration and the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism,” Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, February 1, 2006, http://jcpa.org/article/ progress-in-the-struggle-against-anti-semitism-in-europe-the-berlin-declaration-and-the-european-union-monitoring-centre-on-racism-and-xenophobias-working-definition-of-anti-semitism/. “Mr R Fraser v. University and College Union,” Judgment of the Employment Tribunal Case Numbers 2203390/2011, March 25, 2013, https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/fraser-uni-college-union.

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CHAPTER 2

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic? What do British and French Jews Think about the Link between Antisemitic and Anti-Israel Attitudes among Non-Jews? L. DANIEL STAETSKY

INTRODUCTION

I

s criticism of Israel antisemitic? Do anti-Israel views and attitudes constitute a “new antisemitism”? These questions have occupied the minds of many ­academics and pubic intellectuals—both Jewish and non-Jewish—since the beginning of the twenty-first century. So far, no consensus has emerged. The definitions of antisemitism are many, but all have been contested to varying degrees. The definitional difficulty stands in sharp contrast to the relatively straight­ forward manner in which similarly complex and multifaceted social phenomena (e.g., racism against black and Asian people) are defined. Whether or not the situation is due to the lingering presence of cultural sensitivities around “Jewishness” or to the politicization of the social sciences remains an open question. This paper offers a brief survey of the definitions of antisemitism and the way in which these definitions accommodate anti-Israel and/or anti-Zionist views and attitudes. This is done, however, by way of introduction and without any assessment of the quality of the definitions in scientific terms, or their acceptability in political terms. The overview simply provides the background and the motivation for the main subject of the paper: the Jewish public’s perception of the

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

link between antisemitism and anti-Israel/anti-Zionist attitudes. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that this subject has been treated in a strictly empirical, quantitative manner using large datasets. The academic and intellectual debates around the definition of antisemitism and, in particular, the place of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist attitudes, are best understood with reference to their historical context. The debates erupted in the second half of the twentieth century. The twentieth century as a whole was undoubtedly one of the most dramatic in the history of Jews. It contained two of the most extreme events of Jewish history: the physical destruction of about one third of world Jewry during World War II and the reconstitution of Jewish sovereignty in the State of Israel. With the near disappearance of European Jewry, the center of political conflict involving Jews relocated to the Middle East and the newly-born Jewish state. Conflict and violence are not unusual as part of the process of achieving ethnic self-­ determination. Sometimes, as is the case with the Jews, they do not stop upon the achievement of statehood by a particular ethnic group. Israel’s existence continued to be contested by its neighbours and the wider Arab and Muslim political community. However, Jewish independence in Israel marked a departure from the position of a vulnerable minority which was always characteristic of Jews in the Diaspora. At the same time, Europe was entering a new era of postcolonial politics and mass migration from former colonies. The reality of the recent genocide against Jews made old-style antisemitism untenable. Whilst the nationalist movements in Europe never lost their ground completely, the scope and intensity of their antisemitic sentiments decreased. At this point in time, their role in defining the Western European antisemitic agendas is unclear. Jews, however, remained the center of attention for the politically minded circles among the European public. Only now it was left-wing movements, those espousing a universalist vision often in combination with socialist economic principles, that focused on the Jews and, specifically, on the new Jewish state. The exact nature of anti-Israel and/or anti-Zionist views and attitudes has been a subject of considerable debate in recent years. Many commentators point out the presence of old antisemitic ideas, imagery, and styles in anti-Zionist and anti-Israel texts and activities.1 Such similarities, parallels, and continuities justify, in their view, labelling anti-Zionist and anti-Israel attitudes as antisemitic, or as the “new antisemitism.” Others reject such a characterization, either by questioning the idea of continuity or by indicating that the ­characterization of anti-Israel/anti-Zionist attitudes as antisemitic is

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Defining Antisemitis

only a rhetorical device serving to justify Israeli policies or promote Israeli interests.2 However, what does the Jewish public, as opposed to the intellectual elite, think about the link between antisemitism and anti-Zionism? This question has so far remained unexplored, and so in this paper I attempt to answer it utilizing a newly created dataset. In summer 2012, a survey of experiences and perceptions of antisemitism among Jews took place in selected European countries. The survey was conducted jointly by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research ( JPR) and the polling company, Ipsos MORI, on behalf of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Convenience samples of Jews in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Latvia, and Romania were asked whether they considered selected statements on Jews and Israel to be antisemitic. The selection of statements was developed by a panel of experts in Jewish history and society, convened by JPR in the course of the preparation of the survey instrument. The statements deliberately included a number of classic antisemitic canards alongside neutrally formulated criticisms of Israel. Using advanced statistical techniques, it is possible to explore the extent to which the Jewish public makes a distinction between classic antisemitic and anti-Israel/anti-Zionist statements. Are anti-Israel/anti-Zionist statements perceived as antisemitic by Jews? Are they perceived to be antisemitic to the same extent as other, more classic, antisemitic statements? What characteristics impact on these perceptions? Does the degree of distinction being made in relation to antisemitism versus anti-Zionism vary with age, level of education, and personal experience of antisemitism? The paper addresses these questions by focusing on the British and French samples of Jews and by comparing and contrasting insights produced by these two contexts.

DATA SOURCE A survey of the experiences and perceptions of antisemitism among Jews took place in nine European countries between 3 September 2012 and 3 October 2012. The survey was conceived and financed by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, with Ipsos MORI and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research acting as contractors for communal liaison, survey fieldwork, questionnaire development, sampling process, and data analysis. The reader seeking a full account of the survey process and the results is advised to peruse the methodological sections of the summary of the survey results in the British case3 and the general survey summary.4

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

In the UK and France the survey was conducted exclusively online. It was not possible to use a random probability sampling approach because suitable sampling frames for the Jewish population are not available in these two countries. Thus, the survey relied on a non-probability convenience sample. The respondents were required to self-identify as Jewish, to be resident in the core survey countries, and to be aged 16 or over. They were contacted initially through “seed” organizations, which represented different religious and geographical segments of the Jewish community. Each “seed” organization held a substantial email database of its members, subscribers and/or clients. All those contacted were asked to fill in the survey and to bring it to the attention of other Jews eligible to take part. The British and the French samples number 1,468 and 1,193, respectively. These are certainly large samples that render great reliability to the estimates. Given the approach to sampling, however, the essential question is: what population exactly is represented by the samples? To put it differently: do the samples represent the total populations of British and French Jews? Due to the nature of the sampling process, one cannot conduct a formal test of representativeness. It is clear, for example, that because the survey utilized membership and subscriber lists held by Jewish community organizations (followed by referrals made by people on these lists), those Jews on the community lists may have had a larger probability of inclusion in the sample. It is reasonable to suspect that the communally uninvolved may be underrepresented. The samples were compared to other sources of data on the demographic and social characteristics of British and French Jews. In the UK, the 2011 Census of England and Wales (for sex, age, and geography) and the records from the Board of Deputies of British Jews (for the type of synagogue affiliation) were employed for this purpose.5 In France an earlier survey of French Jews, conducted in 2002, was used for obtaining the distributions of age, sex, geography, Ashkenazi/Sephardi identity, and pattern of community participation.6 There are grounds to believe that, due its sampling methodology, the earlier survey accurately represents the French Jewish population.7 On the basis of these sources, survey weights were developed and experimentally applied to the samples. Then the post-adjustment distributions of the principal indicators of the perceptions and experiences of antisemitism were compared to the pre-adjustment distributions. Adjustments did not change the results of the survey and/or the conclusions that one can reasonably derive from the results. For the principal indicators of perceptions and experiences of antisemitism, the difference between the unadjusted and adjusted percentages is at most four ­percentage points.

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Defining Antisemitis

Given that finding, the decision was made not to weight the dataset and to present the findings in their unadjusted form. The reader can be reasonably confident that the sample respondents’ perceptions and experiences of antisemitism are broadly reflective of the communally engaged segment of Jewish populations in the UK and France.

METHOD The survey did not offer the respondents any ready definition of antisemitism. Instead, the respondents were asked whether or not they had experienced certain expressions of hostility (including harassment, violence, vandalism and/ or discrimination) because they were Jews. In addition, the respondents were presented with a list of fourteen statements expressing attitudes towards Jews and Israel. The list included eleven relatively well-known statements about Jews, which, hypothetically, could be perceived as antisemitic by a large proportion of the Jewish public. These are statements expressing criticism of the collective Jewish feeling towards the Holocaust, attributing to Jews excessive power and influence, and presenting Jews as some sort of foreign element in the national landscape of a given survey country. The respondents were asked whether or not they consider a non-Jewish person making these statements to be antisemitic, with the following answer structure: (1) yes, definitely; (2) yes, probably; (3) no, probably not; (4) no, definitely not; (5) don’t know. Alongside these statements three anti-Israel statements were submitted for the respondents’ judgement. These had the same answer structure, but the chief difference between the two sets of statements was that the second set focused exclusively on attitudes to Israel and Israelis rather than to Jews. The table below presents the list of fourteen statements as they appeared in the survey (with the anti-Israel statements shaded). The proportion of respondents saying “don’t know” in relation to any of the statements is relatively low, both in the UK and France. This, in itself, is an indication that the statements were well understood by the respondents. The general approach taken in this paper is as follows. First, respondents’ perceptions of all statements are analysed in detail. Second, I focus on the anti-Israel statements and develop a summary measure of the degree to which the Jewish public distinguishes between antisemitic and anti-Israel statements. The development of the summary measure is aided by factor analysis, a method of testing for correlations between groups of variables in an attempt to reduce a large number of variables to a smaller number and reveal latent patterns behind the variables (see Appendix 1 for detailed results of factor analysis).8 Third, the

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

extent of variation in the distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel views are explored by age, sex, place of residence, place of birth, education, religiosity, subgroup (Ashkenazi or Sephardi), and exposure to harassment due to Jewishness in the 12 months prior to the survey. This task is carried out using multiple regression analysis, a method that simultaneously tests the strength, direction, and statistical significance of associations between a variable of interest (a dependent variable, here the degree of distinction) and a number of socio-demographic predictors (independent variables, here age, sex and others mentioned above). Effectively, multiple regression analysis allows for the estimation of the impact of each socio-demographic predictor in isolation, with other predictors held at constant values. The original results of the multiple regression analysis appear in Appendix 2. All analyses are applied to 1,179 cases in the UK sample and 1,036 cases in the French sample, with those respondents answering “don’t know” in relation to at least one statement in Table 1 omitted from the analysis. Table 1.  Antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudinal statements tested in the survey. In your opinion, would you United Kingdom France consider a non-Jewish person Valid Don’t Don’t Valid Don’t Don’t to be anti-Semitic if he or she answer, Know, Know, answer, Know, Know, says that: number number % number Number % Jews are responsible for the 1459 9 0.6 1183 10 0.8 current economic crisis Jews have too much power 1458 10 0.7 1185 8 0.7 in [COUNTRY] (economy, politics, media) 1436 32 2.2 1182 11 0.9 Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes The Holocaust is a myth or has 1461 7 0.5 1182 11 0.9 been exaggerated Israelis behave “like Nazis” 1432 36 2.5 1181 12 1.0 towards the Palestinians Jews are only religious group 1389 79 5.4 1144 49 4.1 and not a nation Jews are not capable of 1445 23 1.6 1183 10 0.8 integrating into [COUNTRY] society The interests of Jews in 1432 36 2.5 1169 24 2.0 [COUNTRY] are very different form the interests of the rest of the population Always notes who is Jewish 1378 90 6.1 1156 37 3.1 among his/her acquaintances (Continued)

45

46

Defining Antisemitis Table 2. (Continued) In your opinion, would you consider a non-Jewish person to be anti-Semitic if he or she says that: Criticizes Israel Does not consider Jews living in [COUNTRY] to be [COUNTRY NATIONALITY] Would not marry a Jew Thinks that Jews have recognizable features Supports boycotts of Israeli goods/product

United Kingdom France Valid Don’t Don’t Valid Don’t Don’t answer, Know, Know, answer, Know, Know, number number % number Number % 1412 56 3.8 1157 36 3.0 1447 21 1.4 1188 5 0.4 1367 1425

101 43

6.9 2.9

1157 1175

36 18

3.0 1.5

1421

47

3.2

1181

12

1.0

The dependent variable, a summary measure of the Jewish public’s degree of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel views, is developed in the course of the analysis below and is presented in Figure 3. It takes values 1 to 4, with 1 denoting the highest degree of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes and 4 denoting the lowest. Multiple linear regression is used for the analysis of variation in the distinction being made by respondents. Table 2.  Socio-demographic predictors of the degree of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel views among the Jewish public. Variable

Categories

Sex

Male Female 16–39 years 40–59 years 60+ years Capital city (London or Paris) and surrounding areas Outside the capital Survey country (United Kingdom or France) Born abroad Academic degree No degree Orthodox Jew (including the Strictly Orthodox) Non-Orthodox Jew

Age

Place of residence Place of birth

Education Religiosity

United Kingdom France Number % Number % 491 41.6 654 63.1 688 58.4 382 36.9 260 22.1 203 19.6 423 35.9 340 32.8 496 42.0 493 47.6 895 75.9 658 63.5 284 946

24.1 80.2

378 695

36.5 67.1

233 856 323 181

19.8 72.6 27.4 15.4

341 804 232 105

32.9 77.6 22.4 10.1

998

84.6

931

89.9

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic? Variable

Categories

Jewish subgroup Ashkenazi Sephardi, mixed or other Experience of Experienced harassment in the harassment due last 12 months to Jewishness* No experience of harassment

United Kingdom France Number % Number % 973 82.5 380 36.7 206 17.5 656 63.3 228 19.3 221 21.3 951

80.7

815

78.7

* This relates to instances of physical attack and/or verbal abuse experienced by the respondents because of their Jewish identity in the 12 months prior to the survey.

DO JEWS DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ANTISEMITIC AND ANTI-ISRAEL ATTITUDES? In this section, I conduct a step-by-step investigation into the ways selected statements relating to Jews are perceived by the Jewish public in the UK and France. In Figure 1, all statements are arranged in hierarchical order, starting with the statements identified as definitely antisemitic by the largest proportion of Jews. Both in the UK and France, the statements seen as definitely antisemitic by the largest proportion of Jews are about (1) Holocaust denial and (2) the attribution of the responsibility for the economic crisis to Jews. Nearly 80% of Jews in the British and the French samples indicated that these statements are definitely antisemitic. In contrast, simple criticism of Israel is perceived as definitely antisemitic by a small minority of the respondents: 6% in the British sample and 13% in the French sample. Further, in both contexts, simple criticism of Israel is perceived as definitely antisemitic by the smallest proportion of respondents in comparison to all other statements. The status of other, more specific, criticisms of Israel is different. They occupy an intermediate place in between the two extremes—clearly, not being perceived as unambiguously antisemitic to the extent of Holocaust denial, but also being seen as antisemitic by a much larger proportion of Jews when compared to simple criticism of Israel. Support for a boycott of Israeli goods and services, for example, is perceived as definitely antisemitic by one-third of the respondents in the British sample and 60% of the respondents in the French sample. It follows that the Jewish public appears to be quite discerning in relation to various criticisms originating among nonJews: simple criticism of Israel is rarely considered unambiguously antisemitic, whereas criticism of Israel calling for boycotts or, especially, criticism coloured by Nazi-Israel comparisons is perceived as antisemitic far more often. The difference in status of three anti-Israel statements is further illustrated by Figure 2. Both in the UK and in France, simple criticism of Israel is ­considered

47

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Defining Antisemitis

as definitely not antisemitic by approximately one in five respondents, a significant minority. Similarly, in both contexts, an even larger minority (39–44%) tends to think that simple criticism of Israel is probably not antisemitic. Together these two groups form a majority: 56–65% in both contexts think of criticism of Israel as not antisemitic. Note that the tendency to perceive anti-­Israel attitudes as antisemitic is much stronger in the Jewish public in relation to expressions of support for a boycott of Israeli goods and stronger still in relation to attitudes containing Nazi-Israel parallels. About one in five respondents in the UK and one in ten in France consider the statement comparing Israelis to Nazis not to be antisemitic. Panel A. United Kingdom 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

The Holocaust is a myth

90

100

90

100

79.4

Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis

76.3

Jews have too much power in the UK

66.6

Does not consider Jews living in the UK to be Bri‚sh

65.9

Jews exploit Holocaust vic‚mhood

60.6

Jews are not capable of integra‚ng into Bri‚sh society

53.7

Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Pales‚nians The interests of Jews in the UK are different from the interests of the rest of the popula‚on Supports boycoŽs of Israeli goods

46 45.7 33.3

Thinks that Jews have recognisable features

27.5

Would not marry a Jew

25.9

Always notes who is Jewish

14.8

Jews are only a religious group and not a na‚on

13.4

Cri‚cises Israel

6.2

Panel B. France 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

The Holocaust is a myth

79.8

Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis

76.5

Does not consider Jews living in France to be French

73.1

Jews exploit Holocaust vicmhood

72.2

Jews have too much power in France

68.4

Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Palesnians

67.6

Jews are not capable of integrang into French society

62.9

Supports boycos of Israeli goods The interests of Jews in France are different from the interests of the rest of the populaon Thinks that Jews have recognisable features

58.8 56.1 55.7

Would not marry a Jew

32.1

Jews are only a religious group and not a naon

25.8

Always notes who is Jewish Cricises Israel

24.7 13.2

Figure 1.  Proportion of respondents who would consider a non-Jewish person to be definitely antisemitic if he/she said that …

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

Finally, in Figure 3, a summary measure of the Jewish public’s degree of distinction between anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views is presented. This was developed on the basis of respondents’ perceptions of all three anti-Israel statements. Those who perceived all three to be either definitely or probably not antisemitic make the highest degree of distinction. Those who perceived that all three were either definitely or probably antisemitic make the lowest. Those who perceived any two, or any one, out of three as antisemitic represent intermediate levels. A few observations stand out. The perception of all anti-Israel statements as antisemitic is a minority view among Jews, and it is characteristic of a significant minority of the respondents in both countries. But about one in five of the respondents in the UK and close to one in ten in France think that all three anti-Israel statements are not antisemitic. Thus, the perception of anti-Israel statements as unambiguously not antisemitic is also a minority view, albeit a smaller minority compared to those who think that anti-Israel views are unambiguously antisemitic. Further, about half of the respondents in both countries hold nuanced views: for them, one or two statements—but not all three—appear as antisemitic. There are many ways to read this set of findings, and the readers can be expected to see them through the lenses of their own political predispositions. Consequently, different readers may emphasize different aspects of the findings. One conclusion, however, seems to be inevitable: the Jewish public’s opinion on anti-Israel attitudes and their relationship with antisemitic attitudes is not homogenous. Instead, it is varied and rich in nuance. In the section that follows, I explore additional aspects of variation in Jewish opinion. In particular, which demographic, socio-economic and Jewish identity factors are associated with different degrees of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes?

WHO MAKES MORE AND FEWER DISTINCTIONS? In this section, I present the principal aspects of variation in distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. The variation was tested using multiple regression analysis. Multiple regression analysis is an efficient way of testing the extent to which, if at all, the degree of distinction is associated with various individual characteristics, such as the age, sex, education, degree of religiosity of the respondent, alongside other characteristics deemed relevant in the given context.

49

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Defining Antisemitis

Cricises Israel

UK

7

28

Supports boycos of Israeli goods

35

13

16

39

Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Palesnians

26 69

0%

10%

20%

30%

19 40%

No, probably not

50%

60%

5 17

60

Yes, probably

10

30 31

Supports boycos of Israeli goods

Yes, definitely

22

49

Cricises Israel

21

33

Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Palesnians

France

44

70%

80%

8

6

6

6

90%

100%

No, definitely not

Figure 2.  The pattern of responses in relation to three anti-Israel statements. ­Proportion of respondents who would consider a non-Jewish person to be antisemitic if he/she said that … lowest discernment UK

highest discernment

33

32

18

lowest discernment France

highest discernment

42

0%

10%

20%

17

42

30%

40%

50%

60%

8

70%

80%

90%

All 3 statements are ansemic

2 out of 3 statements are ansemic

1 out of 3 statements is ansemic

All 3 statements are NOT ansemic

8

100%

Figure 3.  A summary measure of discernment between antisemitic and anti-­ Israel attitudes.

A separate analysis was carried out for each sample (UK and France), with age, sex, education, place of residence, place of birth, Ashkenazi identity, degree of religiosity and having an experience of harassment in the last 12 months as predictors (independent variables) and the degree of distinction as a predicted (response) variable. Thus, the impact of all independent variables was assessed simultaneously and the impact of each single variable could be assessed, as though all other variables were held at constant values (i.e., controlled for). Below I present the principal findings in graphic form. Only statistically significant results are shown here.9

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

In the UK sample, four out of eight predictors were found to be statistically significant at a conventional level.10 Age, level of education, degree of religiosity and exposure to harassment are significantly associated with the degree of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. Young respondents tend to make more of a distinction than the middle-aged and elderly. Respondents with a degree also make more of a distinction than those without. Orthodox Jews tend to make less of a distinction than the non-Orthodox. Finally, those who experienced anti-Jewish harassment in the 12 months prior to the survey tend to make less of a distinction than those who did not. Sex, place of residence, place of birth, and belonging to the Ashkenazi subgroup did not show significant associations with the degree of distinction being made between antisemitic and anti-Jewish attitudes. To illustrate the effects of various significant predictors of the degree of distinction, I define a particular set of characteristics here as constituting a “typical Jew” in statistical terms. This construct is used purely for the convenience of exposition. A “typical Jew” is a middle-aged Jewish male of Ashkenazi descent, born in the UK and residing in London, in possession of an academic degree, not Orthodox, and without an experience of antisemitic harassment in the last 12 months. The expected distinction score of such an individual, on the basis of the model developed in this study, is 2.59. This figure should be seen in the context of the entire range of 1 to 4, where 1 denotes the highest degree of distinction (all three anti-Israel statements are perceived as not antisemitic) and 4 denotes the lowest degree of distinction (all three are perceived as antisemitic). Thus, a “typical Jew” is found roughly in the middle of this scale. This would mean, in practical terms, that he perceives as antisemitic one or two out of three anti-Israel statements. In Figure 4, the score of a “typical Jew” is shown alongside other combinations of individual characteristics. To put it differently, I modify slightly the profile of the “typical Jew’” to demonstrate how education, degree or religiosity, exposure to harassment and age impact on the degree of distinction. So, a “typical Jew” has a score of 2.59. If all characteristics of a “typical Jew,” except for his level of religiosity, remain the same (i.e., a “typical Jew” is now Orthodox), then the distinction score increases to 2.95. The difference of 0.36 between 2.95 and 2.59 is the impact that being Orthodox has on the degree of distinction: it decreases by 0.36 units. Not having an academic degree has a similar effect. Exposure to harassment in the past 12 months decreases the distinction rate by 0.45 units, placing a “typical Jew” experiencing harassment just above the score of 3 on the scale. Therefore, a “typical Jew” with an experience of harassment finds about two in three anti-Israel views to be antisemitic.

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Defining Antisemitis 3.97

4 4 3

2.95

3.04

2.95

2.59

3

2.25

2.25

Typical, young adult

The most discerning type

2 2

1 Typical Jew

Typical, Orthodox

Typical, harassed

Typical, no degree

The least discerning type

Figure 4.  Predicted scores of the degree of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. Effects of different predictors in the UK sample illustrated.

The results of the multivariate analysis also allow the creation of examples of types that make the most and the least distinction. One example of the type with the most is identical to the “typical Jew” in all but one characteristic: he is a young adult, not middle-aged individual. The type that makes the least distinction is a middle-aged Orthodox Jewish male without an academic degree who had an experience of harassment in the course of the 12 months prior to the survey. Associations identified by the regression analysis cannot be straight­ forwardly interpreted in causal terms. For that to happen, one would need to make sure, first, that all variation in the degree of distinction being made is accounted for. Second, some variables inherently do not allow for a single causal interpretation. In the UK sample, for example, being a young adult is associated with greater discernment between antisemitic and anti-Israel views. This, however, can hypothetically be a result of age as such—that is, possessing a different worldview, say a particularly optimistic, innocent and/or liberal predisposition, which can be expected to fade in the course of life and to be replaced by a more pessimistic, knowledgeable and/or conservative view. On the other hand, age can be a marker of a cohort effect; young adults can be especially prone to distinguishing between antisemitic and anti-Israel views because they have been exposed to educational programmes, which endowed them with a particular view on antisemitism and the nature of anti-Israel attitudes. Such an effect is

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

not necessarily expected to dissipate with age; it is an outcome of being born and brought up in a particular place and time. Other significant predictors in the UK sample do not possess the ambiguity of the age variable, but other ambiguities are present. Being Orthodox is associated with the lower distinction, and this can be attributed to the presence of a particular religious worldview or to the simple fact that an Orthodox individual is more visible, making him an easy target for an antisemitic attack. A link between exposure to harassment and a lower rate of distinction can be seen as a result of the nature of the incident itself, which could have provided clarity on the relationship between antisemitic and anti-Israel views. Equally, the perception of an anti-Israel view as antisemitic could have solidified in the aftermath of the incident as a result of discussions held with family members, other members of the Jewish community or the police. Having an academic degree is linked to making a greater distinction, and, as with the previous examples, there is more than one candidate explanation for the link: it can form as a result of exposure to particular educational content, or to a particular way of thinking—for example, critical and analytical thought—or simply be the result of exposure to antisemitism within the context of a particular social class. Let us now turn to the findings from the French sample. They are somewhat similar to the findings from the UK sample, but not identical. Being born abroad is not a significant predictor of the degree of distinction made. Age, education, degree of religiosity, and experience of harassment have effects similar to those found in the UK sample. The degree of distinction decreases with age and increases with an increase in religiosity; it is also greater among those with an academic degree when compared to those without a degree, and among non-­ Orthodox Jews when compared to the Orthodox. These effects are presented in Figure 5. I continue to use the construct of a “typical Jew,” drawn up this time in the French context. A “typical Jew” is a middle-aged locally born Sephardi male living in Paris, educated to a degree level and non-Orthodox. The discernment score of such a type is 3.09. If just the level of religiosity of a “typical Jew” is modified (i.e., a “typical Jew” becomes Orthodox), then the score increases to 3.24, moving in the direction of making less distinction. The difference of 0.15 between 3.09 and 3.24 is the impact that being Orthodox has on the degree of distinction in the French sample. Not having an academic degree has a similar effect, both in direction and in size. The exposure to harassment in the past 12 months decreases the discernment of a “typical Jew” by 0.29 units; a “typical Jew” with an experience of harassment has a distinction score of 3.38. To put it slightly differently, whilst a “typical Jew” finds about two out of three anti-Israel views to be antisemitic,

53

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Defining Antisemitis

a “typical Jew” who has been harassed (with other characteristics held at constant values) finds that all three anti-Israel views are antisemitic. However, in the French sample some additional variables were found to be significantly associated with the degree of distinction: the sex of the respondent, place of residence, and belonging to the Ashkenazi subgroup. Specifically, men appear to be more like to make a distinction than women; residents of French provinces tend to do so more than the residents of Paris and surrounding areas; and Ashkenazi Jews (currently a minority among the Jews of France) are likely to make a distinction than Jews of Sephardic descent. This is shown in Figure 6, alongside the types that are most and least likely to distinguish between antisemitic and anti-­ Israel views. The type most likely to make a distinction in the context of the French sample is a young, locally born Ashkenazi male living in the provinces, educated to a degree and non-Orthodox. For such a type, one or two out of the three anti-Israel attitudes appear as antisemitic. For the type least likely to make a distinction (an elderly, locally born Sephardi male living in Paris, without a degree, Orthodox and with an experience of harassment), all three statements are antisemitic. 4.0 3.5 3.09

3.38

3.24

3.28

3.0

2.78

2.5

2.0 1.5 1.0 Typical Jew

Typical, Orthodox

Typical, harassed Typical, no degree

Typical, young adult

Figure 5.  Predicted scores of the degree of distinction made between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. Effects of different predictors in the French sample (age, education, degree of religiosity, and exposure to harassment).

CONCLUSION The Jewish public is able to make a distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. This conclusion holds at both extremes of the spectrum when it comes to the extent of anxiety and exposure to antisemitism among

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic? 4.00

4.0 3.5 3.09

3.24 2.97

3.0

2.97 2.54

2.5 2.0

1.5 1.0 Typical Jew

Typical, woman

Typical, from provinces

Typical, Ashkenazi

The most discerning type

The least discerning type

Figure 6.  Predicted scores of the degree of distinction made between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. Effects of different predictors in the French sample (sex, place of residence, subgroup).

Jews: both in the UK, where the levels of anxiety and exposure are relatively low, and in France, where the levels are high. The perception of anti-Israel attitudes as unambiguously antisemitic is a minority view, though it is a numerically significant minority—about 30% in the UK and 40% in France. This is the very first time that the Jewish public’s perceptions regarding the link between anti-Israel attitudes and antisemitism have been empirically documented. This situation stands in stark contrast with the perception of Holocaust denial and the attribution of responsibility for economic crisis to Jews. These latter views are seen as definitely antisemitic by eight out of ten respondents. The analysis has revealed that certain specific anti-Israel attitudes are perceived as antisemitic more often than simple criticism of Israel. An attitude involving the comparison between Israelis and Nazis within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a rhetorical technique known also as “Holocaust Inversion,”11 is perceived as antisemitic by a near-majority of the respondents in the UK and by an absolute majority in France. At the same time, simple criticism of Israel is seen as definitely antisemitic only by one in ten respondents in both countries. Why is that so? One can only speculate on this subject as the data, in itself, does not answer this question. Is that because Holocaust inversion appears as an especially gross and unjust exaggeration? Is it the great sensitivity of the topic of the Holocaust itself and the feeling that metaphorical uses of

55

56

Defining Antisemitis

the concept are inappropriate? Qualitative research should be able to provide greater clarity on the causal mechanisms. For now, however, the important lesson to be learned on the basis of these findings is this: it is not simple criticism of Israel that qualifies as antisemitic in the eyes of Jews, but a particular tone and content of the critical commentary. There is some degree of variation in the Jewish public as to the extent of distinction between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. Age, educational level, degree of religiosity, and having an experience of harassment due to Jewishness are the most important dimensions of variation. Young people, people educated to a degree level, and non-Orthodox Jews make more of a distinction, whereas the elderly, people without an academic degree, Orthodox Jews, and people with an experience of harassment because of their Jewishness tend to do so less. These conclusions apply both in the UK and France. Although this research cannot inform understanding of the causal mechanisms behind the observed associations, it paints a clear enough picture of variation in the distinction discussed that can serve as a starting point for further research into causal mechanisms (should it be felt that such research is warranted) or for ­policy development. Why are these findings important? The importance of any findings depends critically on their uses, both current and future. These findings allow the reader a greater degree of understanding of a particular cultural and social aspect of the British and French Jewish communities in the early twenty-first century—the perception of a link between well-known antisemitic views and newer anti-Israel views. This, in itself, is a valuable analytical insight inasmuch as it is a characterization of these communities at a given point in time. The findings should also be of practical use for the organizations involved in representing Jewish communal interests and combating antisemitism, as well as for the wider circle of organizations dealing with the protection of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. The next obvious question that should be of interest to researchers and policy makers is the extent to which the distinction between antisemitic and anti-­Israel views exhibited by Jews matches the real distinctiveness of attitudes among non-Jews. Do non-Jews holding anti-Israel attitudes of the kind explored here tend also to hold classic antisemitic views, such as Holocaust denial or viewing Jews as having too much power and being responsible for the world economic crisis? Or do non-Jews hold these views separately? This question can be empirically tested by means of a survey of attitudes towards Jews in the non-Jewish populations of the UK and France and the methodology

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

utilised in this paper. Such an investigation, if and when it is carried out, will usefully complement the present study and will be of a major analytical value to all those who are interested in the historical continuities and discontinuities of antisemitic attitudes.

NOTES   1 See Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010); Dina Porat, “The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ and the Middle East,’” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture 12 (2005), http://www.pij. org/details.php?id=343; Daniel J. Goldhagen, The Devil that Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism (New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013); Natan Sharansky, “3D Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16 (2004), http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-sharansky-f04.htm; and Robert S. Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (New York, NY: Random House, 2010).   2 See Brian Klug, “The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism,” The Nation, 2 February 2004, https://www.thenation.com/article/myth-new-anti-semitism/; Tariq Ali, “Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and Palestine,” Conterpunch, March 2004, https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/03/04/notes-on-anti-semitism-zionism-and-palestine/; Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2005); and Antony Lerman, “The ‘New-Antisemitism,’” Open Democracy website, September 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/mirrorracisms/antony-lerman/new-antisemitism.   3 L. Daniel Staetsky and Jonathan Boyd, The Exceptional Case? Perceptions and Experiences of Antisemitism among Jews in the United Kingdom. Institute for Jewish Policy Research report, July 2014.   4 European Agency for Fundamental Rights, Discrimination and Hate Crime against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism (Luxembourg: European Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2013), http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/FRA_Report. November_2013.pdf.   5 For synagogue affiliation patterns, see David Graham and Daniel Vulkan, “Synagogue Membership in the United Kingdom in 2010,” report for the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 2010, http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/ Synagogue%20membership%20in%20the%20United%20Kingdom%20in%202010.pdf. For demographic characteristics of British Jews, see the standard Census table DC2017EW for England and Wales (https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/detailed_characteristics) and table DC2017SC on Scotland’s Census (http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/).   6 Erik H. Cohen, The Jews of France Today: Identity and Values (Leiden: Brill, 2011).   7 The sample of French Jews in 2002 survey was constructed using the method of random sampling, a gold standard of survey methodology. For methodological details, see Erik H. Cohen, “The Jews of France at the Turn of the Third Millennium: A Sociological and Cultural Analysis,” The Rappaport Centre for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish

57

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Defining Antisemitis

  8

  9 10

11

Vitality, Bar Ilan University, 2009, https://www.rappaportcenter.biu.ac.il/Research/PDF/ Hoveret_19-corrected9.11.09.pdf. An introductory text into factor analysis aimed at specialist and non-specialist readership can be found in Paul Kline, An Easy Guide to Factor Analysis (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 1993). The interested reader should consult Appendix 2 for a fuller picture of the status of different variables and the model’s properties. Statistical significance is conventionally set at 5% or lower. 5% denotes the probability of observing an effect of a given variable when, in fact, there is no such an effect in reality (i.e., when the effect is observed purely by chance). Lesley Klaff, “Holocaust Inversion and Contemporary Antisemitism,” Fathom, Winter 2014, http://fathomjournal.org/holocaust-inversion-and-contemporary-antisemitism/.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cohen, Erik H. The Jews of France Today: Identity and Values. Leiden: Brill, 2011. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Discrimination and Hate Crime against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013, http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=3041#.VhF37sLlvmQ. Goldhagen, Daniel J. The Devil that Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013. Klaff, Lesley. “Holocaust Inversion and Contemporary Antisemitism,” Fathom, Winter 2014, http://fathomjournal.org/holocaust-inversion-and-contemporary-antisemitism/. Klug, Brian. “The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism,” The Nation, 2 February 2004, https://www. thenation.com/article/myth-new-anti-semitism/. Sharansky, Natan. “3D Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16 (2004): 3–4. Staetsky, Daniel L., and Jonathan Boyd. The Exceptional Case? Perceptions and Experiences of Antisemitism among Jews in the United Kingdom. Institute for Jewish Policy Research report, July 2014, http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=3592#.VhF3NMLlvmQ. Wistrich, Robert S. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. New York, NY: Random House, 2010.

.322

.276

13

14

38.143

1972

 2.300

 2.649

 2.853

 3.130

 3.603

 3.822

 4.034

 4.265

 5.110

 5.449

 9.302

13.368

100.000

 98.028

 95.728

 93.078

 90.225

 87.095

 83.492

 79.670

 75.635

71371

 66.261

 60.812

51510

 38.143

Cumulative %

Initial Eigen values

% of Variance

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

.399

.371

11

.438

10

12

.535

.504

8

9

.597

.565

6

7

.763

1302

3

.715

1871

4

5.340

1

2

5

Total

Component

Panel A. United Kingdom

 .763

1302

1871

5.340

Total

 5.449

 9.302

13.368

38.143

% of Variance

66.261

60.812

51510

38.143

Cumulative %

Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Total Variance Explained

APPENDIX 1. FACTOR ANALYSIS

3.184

1501

1827

2.765

10.720

13.051

19.747

22.743

% of Variance

66.261

55.541

42.490

22.743

Cumulative %

Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings Total

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

59

60

Defining Antisemitis Rotated Component Matrixa Component 1

2

3

4

Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis

.801

 .025

 .119

 .244

Jews have too much power in the UK (economy, politics, media)

.735

 .202

 .100

 .261

Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes

.605

 .516

 .070

 .102

The Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated

.809

 .175

 .137

 .008

Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Ρalestinians

.360

 .759

-.001

 .096

Jews are only a religious group and not a nation

.015

 .574

 .159

 .538

Jews are not capable of integrating into Βritish society

.547

 .101

 .073

 .608

The interests of Jews in the UK are very different from the interests of the rest of the population

.413

 .049

 .147

 .742

Always notes who is Jewish among his/her acquaintances

.071

 .321

 .665

 .193

Criticises Israel

.000

 .796

 .249

 .034

Does not consider Jews living in the UK to be British

.554

 .016

 .380

 .282

Would not marry a Jew

.192

-.055

 .750

-.056

Thinks that Jews have recognisable features

.101

 .212

 .710

 .146

Supports boycotts of Israeli goods/products

.143

 .850

 .106

.038

*Shadings show two identifiable factors using value of 0.6 as a cut-off point.

.237

14

1696

2.027

2.243

2.348

2.697

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

.314

.284

12

13

.329

11

3.157

.442

.378

9

10

3.582

.501

8

4.305

3.725

.603

.522

6

4.635

6.055

8.531

10.814

44.184

100.000

 98.304

 96.277

 94.034

 91686

 88.989

 85.832

 82.250

 78.525

 74.219

 69.584

 63.529

 54.998

 44.184

% of Variance Cumulative %

Initial Eigen values

7

.848

1194

3

.649

1514

4

6.186

1

2

5

Total

Component

Panel B. France

 .848

1194

1514

6.186

Total

 6.055

 8.531

10.814

44.184

69.584

63.529

54.998

44.184

% of Variance Cumulative %

Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Total Variance Explained

4.566

1172

1781

2.224  8.368

12.719

15.885

32.612

69.584

612.15

48.497

32.612

% of Variance Cumulative%

Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings Total

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

61

62

Defining Antisemitis Rotated Component Matrix Component 1

2

3

4

Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis

.846

.087

.161

.019

Jews have too much power in the France (economy, politics, media)

.770

.230

.207

.026

Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes

.761

.294

.278

-.121

The Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated Israelis behave “like Nazis” towards the Ρalestinians

.799

.158

.258

-.153

.566

.578

.177

-.177

Jews are only a religious group and not a nation

.355

.641

-.114

.311

Jews are not capable of integrating into French society

.769

.120

.016

.325

The interests of Jews in France are very different from the interests of the rest of the population

.779

.147

.061

.261

Always notes who is Jewish among his/her acquaintances

.135

.373

.557

.334

Criticises Israel

.025

.806

.125

.155

Does not consider Jews living in France to be French

.523

-.008

.570

.158

Would not marry a Jew

.052

.092

.325

.785

Thinks that Jews have recognisable features

.182

.120

.781

.134

Supports boycotts of Israeli goods/products

.261

.678

.392

-.191

*Shadings show two clearly identifiable factors using value of 0.6 as a cut-off point.

Is Criticism of Israel Antisemitic?

APPENDIX 2. MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION ANALYSIS Panel A. United Kingdom Model Summary Model 1

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

.345a

.119

.112

1.01430

ANOVAa Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

Regression

 162.385

9

18.043

17.538

.000b

Residual

1202.675

1169

 1.029

Total

1365.060

1178

Model 1

Coefficientsa Unstandardized Coefficients Model 1

Β

Std. Error

(Constant)

3.023

.122

Male

-.051

.061

Age 16_to_39

-.418

.081

Age 40_to_59

-.074

London residence

 .054

Foreign-born

Standardized Coefficients Beta

t

Sig.

24.712

.000

-.023

  -.840

.401

-.161

-5.132

.000

.069

-.033

-1.059

.290

.070

 .022

    .778

.437

 .007

.076

 .003

    .098

.922

Ashkenazi

 .131

.079

 .046

1.664

.096

Academic degree

-.492

.068

-.204

-7.245

.000

Orthodox

 .358

.087

 .120

  4.124

.000

Experience of harassment

 .452

.081

 .166

  5.612

.000

63

64

Defining Antisemitis

Panel B. France Model Summary Model 1

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

.279a

.078

.070

.84681

ANOVAa Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

Regression

 62.048

9

6.894

9.614

.000b

Residual

735.738

1026

 .717

Total

797.787

1035

Model 1

Coefficientsa Unstandardized Coefficients Model 1

Β

Std. Error

(Constant)

3.492

.082

Male

-.150

Age 16_to_39 Age 40_to_59

Standardized Coefficients Beta

t

Sig.

42.643

.000

.055

-.083

-2.741

.006

-.500

.078

-.226

-6.400

.000

-.189

.063

-.101

-3.021

.003

Paris residence

  .123

.055

  .068

 2.223

0.26

Foreign-born

-.029

.064

-.015

 -.454

.650

Ashkenazi

-.121

.061

-.067

-1.993

.047

Academic degree

-.185

.064

-.088

-2.870

.004

Orthodox

  .148

.090

  .051

 1.654

.098

Experience of harassment

  .289

.066

  .135

 4.378

.000

CHAPTER 3

Why Present-Day “AntiZionism” is Antisemitic BERNARD HARRISON

When the American Studies Association (ASA) endorsed a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, scores of institutions, including over two hundred and fifty university presidents, distanced themselves from the ASA’s actions. Some did so in strong language. But almost all framed their argument in terms of the ASA’s encroachment upon the sphere protected by the doctrine of academic freedom. … Nevertheless, if BDS is anti-­Semitic, then criticising it for its violations of academic freedom have something of a busting-Al-Capone-for-tax-evasion quality to them. Kenneth L. Marcus1

1

B

efore World War II, it would have seemed incomprehensible to give the above title to an essay of this type. In those days, Zionism was the name of a controversial, mainly Jewish movement aiming at the creation of a national home for the Jewish People. Its arguments were widely debated in Jewish circles, within which, in those days, dissenters numbered more than supporters. The former would certainly have been amazed at the suggestion that their opposition to Zionism in any way exposed them to a charge of antisemitism. Since 1948, however, a self-governing Jewish National State, Israel, has existed. “Anti-Zionist” is nowadays a term of political self-description brandished by those, mainly on the extreme Left of Western politics,2 who hold that Israel should never have been allowed to come into existence in the first place and that it remains an “illegitimate” state. These views, and in particular the second, commit the “anti-Zionist,” in turn, to denying the possibility

66

Defining Antisemitis

of addressing the alleged “crimes” of Israel by any process of reform short of terminating its existence as a state. Such people, therefore, bend their efforts to the cause of “delegitimizing” Israel, in the hope of bringing to an end its history as a Jewish state and replacing it with a larger, putatively Arab-majority successor-state, in which Jews would be merely one of a number of ethnic and religious minorities.

2 It is arguable that this project is hostile to the interests of the vast majority of Israeli citizens, between 25 and 30 percent of whom are not, as it happens, Jews. But is it, as many of its critics are inclined to think, antisemitic? Media commentators, on the rare occasions when they confront this question, are apt to dismiss it from serious consideration on the ground that it depends what one means by “antisemitism.” And the suggestion floating behind such disclaimers is that the definition of terms as contested as this one, and possibly of terms per se, is at bottom a matter of arbitrary stipulation.3 Is that in fact so? Who, or what, determines the meaning of terms: human stipulation or, to put it grandly, the Nature of Things? Philosophers have frequently tended to opt for one or other of these explanations to the exclusion of the other. There is a case to be made, however, for regarding the fabrication of meaning as a joint enterprise in which both play a part. Consider, for example, the biological term of art, “species.” A species is a group of individual organisms capable of mating to produce fertile offspring. So much is stipulation: the term “species” means that because that is what biologists have collectively decreed that it should mean. “Knowing the meaning” of “species” in that sense is, in effect, a matter of knowing what language-game (Sprachspiel, to borrow Wittgenstein’s term) we human beings have chosen to play with the word: in this case the “game” of sorting organisms into groups satisfying that (stipulative) requirement. However, “knowing the meaning” of a term can also mean knowing how to single out instances of the kinds of thing the term applies to. And at this point Nature enters the picture. We can’t, in other words, just stipulate that this or that collection of organisms shall be held to constitute a species. It only constitutes a species if all its members are capable of interacting sexually to produce fertile offspring. And whether a particular group of organisms meets that specification is clearly a factual question: something, in other words, to be determined, not by arbitrary stipulation, but by empirical enquiry.

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic

3 Is something of the sort also true of that other abstract term “antisemitism”? I think that it is. But to see why, precisely, we need to go back a step and consider a more fundamental term, “prejudice.” Let’s adopt Gordon Allport’s shrewd definition:4 D1.

Prejudice is thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant.

So far, everything is indeed “just a matter of arbitrary stipulation.” D1 just records how we English speakers have decided to use (or better, have fallen into the habit of using) the term “prejudice.” But now, by analogy with the question, “which collections of organisms as a matter of fact satisfy the definition of a species?,” we can ask, “which human phenomena turn out as a matter of fact to satisfy D1?” At this point, just as in the other case, we pass abruptly from stipulation to empirical enquiry. And a very little reflection on the passing scene is enough to dislodge the thought that there are two general kinds of phenomena (no doubt among others) that do so. I shall label them, respectively, social prejudice and political prejudice. These differ from one another in three respects: R1. R2. R3.

Social prejudice targets individuals; political prejudice targets ­collectivities. Social prejudice is driven, emotionally, by contempt; political prejudice is driven by fear. Social prejudice justifies itself merely by appeal to a range of contemptuous stereotypes, to which individuals of the despised group are held to conform. Political prejudice, by contrast, embodies some complex, theoretically elaborated narrative explaining why the targeted group considered as an organised whole is to be feared.

These distinctions can readily be exemplified in common life—for instance, in the differing forms taken by the anti-Catholic prejudice that used to be not uncommon in England.5 Social prejudice against Catholics involves dislike of individual Catholics as superstitious, idol-worshipping, Jesuitical and priest-­ ridden hypocrites, incapable of thinking for themselves—and for all these reasons not at all the sort of person one finds it pleasant to be forced into contact with in daily life or to have brought home to the house by one’s less fastidious children.6 Someone politically prejudiced against Catholics, on the other

67

68

Defining Antisemitis

hand, may find individual Catholics amusing, enjoy playing chess with a Jesuit friend, and so forth, but entertain a holy fear of the hidden power of the Catholic Church, and of such organizations as Opus Dei, concerning whose sinister machinations he or she will be prepared to inform, in some detail, anyone prepared to listen.

4 Prejudice against Jews can also come in either, or both, of these two forms. Social prejudice against Jews—social antisemitism—sees individual Jews as, inter alia, greasy, hook-nosed, money-grubbing, noisy, over-familiar and over-emotional alien vulgarians, too clever, moreover, for their own good: as thoroughly disgusting types, that is to say, with whom no English gentleman, however sadly short of the money that sticks so miraculously to Jewish fingers, would wish to associate either himself or his family. Such an evocation of the mind of the social antisemite is, like my earlier evocation of anti-Catholic animus, to some extent parodic, but does to a degree serve to capture both the content and the essential silliness of the thing. English literature and letters offer plenty of actual examples no less startling in their inanity.7 Political antisemitism, on the other hand, can in principle cohabit easily with friendship towards, and even a high moral regard for, individual Jews; that is to say, the cant phrase, “Some of my best friends are Jews,” uttered by a political antisemite, may at times express no more than the truth. This is the case because political antisemitism is driven, not by contempt for Jews as individuals, but by fear concerning the supposed “threat” posed by the Jewish people considered as an organised community. Like other forms of political prejudice, political antisemitism disposes of a complex, theoretically elaborated explanatory account of what is to be feared from “the Jews,” and why it is to be feared. The detailed contents of this account have varied greatly over the centuries, but can in the bulk of its variants be assimilated to the following four claims: PA1.

The obsessive concern of Jews with their own interests, and their indifference or contempt for the interests of non-Jews, makes them directly and solely responsible for human suffering on a scale far exceeding anything that can be alleged against any other human group, and in particular for whatever specific evil or evils (SE) most concern this or that concrete version of political antisemitism.

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic PA2.

PA3.

PA4.

The Jewish community is conspiratorially organised in the pursuit of its self-seeking and heinous goals to such an extent that, through its semi-miraculous ability to acquire and manage money, it has been able to acquire secret control over most of the main social, commercial, political and governmental institutions of non-Jewish society. Because of the secret control exercised by the Jewish Conspiracy, and also because of the obsessive concern of the Jewish community with its own interests to the exclusion of those of others, it is simply not feasible to remedy the evils occasioned by the presence of the Jews in non-Jewish society (especially the SE currently in vogue) by any means short of the total elimination of the Jews. Once the elimination of the Jews has been achieved, all those social evils for whose existence they are wholly and alone responsible (including, in particular, whatever SE is to the fore) will simply cease to exist, without the need for any further action on the part of non-Jews, whose world will, in the nature of things, return forthwith to the perfect state of order natural to it, from which it would never have lapsed had it not been for the mischievous interventions of the Jews.

Two things (no doubt, among many others) are worth noting at the outset concerning this type of antisemitism. First, the four beliefs central to it are not logically independent but mutually entail and “confirm” one another, composing, in effect, a hermetically self-enclosed and internally defended vision of reality. PA3, for instance, follows necessarily from the conjunction of PA1 and PA2, as does PA4 from PA1. Any doubts that the convert to political antisemitism may entertain concerning the difficulty of finding evidence of Jewish wickedness outside specifically antisemitic websites or newspapers of the type of the Nazi Der Stürmer can be countered by appeal to PA2. In Kenneth Marcus’s words, “as an ideology it [antisemitism] provides a way to make sense of the entire world and all of history, not just the relatively small territory occupied by the descendants of Jacob.”8 The second thing worthy of note is that it is political antisemitism (i.e., antisemitism masquerading as a universally explanatory worldview), and not social antisemitism, that is the potentially lethal form of Judeophobia. Social antisemitism, consisting as it does merely in contempt, nourished by more or less feeble stereotypes, for Jews as individuals, is not essentially eliminationist in character; it can provide no motive, either rational or quasi-rational, for getting

69

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Defining Antisemitis

rid of the Jews once and for all—any more than related kinds of contempt for black people or the Irish necessarily impel those who feel them, however rootedly and stubbornly, to set in train a genocide against either group. It is only acute fear that moves us to great efforts to remove or destroy, at all costs, what we understand as occasioning it. And contempt drives out fear. We precisely do not fear, in other words, those we despise. Political antisemitism, on the other hand, is, by its nature, essentially eliminationist. If one genuinely believes something along the lines of PA1–PA2, then the threat presented by the Jews will appear so serious, and so impossible to combat by other means, that elimination must appear the only possible response to it.

5 We return now to our opening question. Is present-day “anti-Zionism” a version of antisemitism and, if so, why? The usual response to such accusations on the part of “anti-Zionists” is that their purpose is, as the late Tony Judt put it a decade ago in a telephone interview with the New York Times, “to stifle harsh criticism of Israel.”9 Such responses have become standard. The equally standard response of opponents of “anti-Zionism” has been to reply, reasonably enough, that one does not show the falsity of an accusation by impugning its motivation. From time to time, however, in the now massive archive of debate over “anti-­Zionism” and the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement, a better argument than Judt’s makes its appearance. In summary it goes like this: AZA. Antisemitism is a form of racism. Racism is, essentially, hatred of and/or contempt for, individual members of some despised human group, coupled with the desire to exclude such people from the society of, and the advantages enjoyed by, a dominant group. As such, it is logically distinct from, and hence in no way necessarily entailed by, opposition—however violent and rancorous—towards a political entity: towards a state, say, or towards a mode of political organization. Hence, anti-Zionist opposition to the State of Israel in no way entails antisemitism—that is to say, racial hostility to individual Jews as Jews. It may in fact be accompanied by antisemitism in aberrant individual cases, but it need not be, and for the most part is not, since the bulk of present-day anti-Zionists, like others on the Left of politics, are staunch opponents of racism in any shape or form.

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic

To all appearances AZA demonstrates the independence of opposition to Israel from “racism,” with the term “racism” understood, as it virtually exclusively is in contemporary debate, as equivalent to the sort of thing we have here defined as social prejudice. If the terms “antisemitism” and “social prejudice (racism) directed against individual Jews as such” were conterminous, then AZA would indeed be sufficient to demonstrate the logical independence of “anti-­Zionism” from antisemitism. But, as we have seen, the two terms are by no means coterminous. Antisemitism can indeed manifest itself as a form of social prejudice. But it can also manifest itself as a form of political prejudice. It follows that showing “anti-Zionism” to be logically independent of Judeophobic racism (of prejudice against individual Jews as Jews, that is to say) is insufficient to show it to be logically independent of antisemitism tout court. To show that, it would be necessary to show “anti-Zionism” to be logically independent, not merely of social antisemitism, but also of political antisemitism.

6 That is a much harder requirement for present-day “anti-Zionism” to meet. On the face of it, “anti-Zionist” and BDS discourse standardly exhibits versions of all four of the standard dogmas of political antisemitism and does so in ways that are by no means merely accidental but, rather, essential to its coherence. For a start, the bulk of “anti-Zionist” and BDS writing, in tune with PA3, is eliminationist in character. The aim is not to intervene critically, with this or that political end in view, in the politics of an independent, self-governing Jewish-majority state, but to bring about the destruction of that state and its replacement with an Arab/Muslim-majority state. The main ground given by “anti-Zionist” individuals and groups for urging the elimination of Jewish political autonomy is, in line with PA1, that the Jewish state is guilty of iniquity on a scale that beggars description and dwarfs comparison. Two examples will suffice. Here is the “video-journalist” Anthony Lawson, writing in 2013 on the blog Intifada: Voice of Palestine:10 I get incensed when so many people—even intelligent commentators like Paul Craig Roberts and Man of the People Roger Waters—insist on comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, when the comparison is quite absurd. Israel’s policies are far worse than Nazi Germany’s ever were.

And lest one should think that this kind of thing is confined to the blogosphere, here is the leader of the British Labour Party, speaking in 2016 at the

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launch of a report into alleged antisemitism in his party and bracketing Israel, on the moral spectrum, with such groups as Isil (also known as IS or Daesh). Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.11

On a more concrete level, Israel is accused of a range of abuses in connection with the its treatment of the Palestinians, including colonialism, the forcible theft of Arab land, running, or in some political narratives being about to run,12 an Apartheid state, turning Gaza into a ghetto and of using excessive force in response to attacks from Hamas or other jihadist groups based in Gaza or Lebanon If these and similar charges were simply and incontestably correct, then “anti-Zionism” would not be antisemitic since (by D1) it would not be a form of prejudice. But they are not. Comparisons with Nazi Germany or Daesh are easily shown to be absurd. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state ignores the multicultural character of Israeli society, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and the extent to which Israel at present offers almost the only safe space in the ­Middle East for religious and ethnic minorities suffering, elsewhere in the region, acute persecution. Indeed, as Jonathan Adelman notes, Israel is the only Middle Eastern state in which Christians are actually increasing in number.13 The bulk of the above charges can only be protected from troublesome contestation at the cost of circularity. The obvious counterargument against them is that both the Nakba and its subsequent consequences for the Palestinians were and remain in part the result of decisions by neighbouring states and by successive Palestinian political movements, against which the Jewish population has had no recourse but to defend itself. These include the decision on the part of the neighbouring Arab states to refuse partition and instead to embark on a war of extermination against Jews in Palestine, as well as the subsequent determination on the part of Palestinian groups to wage permanent low-level war against the Jewish state with the same end in view. To this “anti-Zionists” are apt to reply that neither the Arab world nor the Palestinians can be held to bear any moral responsibility for these decisions, which are not only fully explicable but fully justified as responses to the “crimes” of the Jews. This is, plainly, to argue in circles. Moreover, it is to do so in a way that directly invokes a version of the final traditional element of political

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic

a­ ntisemitism—PA4. If, in the Arab-Israel conflict the Arabs are wholly the innocent parties, and Jewish Israelis the only guilty ones, then it follows necessarily that the elimination of Jewish political autonomy must bring in its train an immediate return to peace and mutual respect and accommodation between all the communities involved. Given the actual state of Arab politics at present, the tide of bloody persecution against Christians and Yazidis and for that matter Shia and Sunni, now engulfing the region, no conclusion could, realistically, be less plausible. But this, it seems, is what the bulk of “anti-Zionists” believe and build into their utopian accounts of the “one-state solution.”14 The only remaining element of traditional political antisemitism is PA3, the doctrine of Jewish Conspiracy. But a version of that doctrine, in the shape of constantly paraded assertions to the effect that Jews and/or Israel control United States foreign policy, endeavor to suppress all “criticism” of Israel through their control of the media, and so on, has been a central element of “anti-Zionist” and BDS propaganda for at least the past twenty years.

7 I conclude, therefore, that “anti-Zionism” and the BDS movement are antisemitic in character. Moreover, their antisemitism is of the worst kind. They promote, that is to say, a version of political antisemitism indistinguishable, both in its defining elements and their structural interrelations, from the pre-War Nazi version that led to the Holocaust. Like Nazi antisemitism, “anti-Zionism” advances a coherent but delusive theory concerning, not this or that individual Jew, but an imagined or actual Jewish collectivity: for the Nazis “World Jewry” and for “anti-Zionists” the Jewish state. That state, and by extension all those individual Jews and Jewish institutions that support it, are conceived by “anti-Zionists” much as the Nazis conceived “World Jewry”: as productive of vast evil, as conspiratorially organized, and as enjoying a secret control of ostensibly non-Jewish institutions so extensive as to leave no recourse for its supposed victims short of the total elimination of the Jewish cancer from the otherwise healthy body of the non-Jewish world. It might be proposed as a mitigating circumstance that what the “anti-Zionist” wishes to eliminate is not the Jewish people, or even the Jewish population of Israel, but simply Jewish political autonomy in Western Palestine. But the absolute disregard shown by “anti-Zionists” for the consequences of such an event, in a region as dominated as large parts of the Middle East outside Israel at present are by sectarian war, vast population displacements, and mass killing by methods ranging from

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p­ attern-bombing of civilian targets to chemical weapons, accompanied by religious persecution of the most appalling kinds, makes this to my mind a distinction without a difference.

8 By way of postscript, I want to suggest two respects in which this conclusion might usefully promote further discussion. (1) The first concerns the understanding of the nature of antisemitism current in the law. In the case of Frazer v University and College Union (2013), Ronald Fraser, an academic, charged the University and College Union (UCU) with creating an environment of antisemitic harassment, hostile to himself and other Jewish members, through its decision to support the BDS movement. The issue raised by the case was, that is to say, precisely whether the demonization of Israel characteristic of BDS and of contemporary “anti-Zionism” in general is, in fact, antisemitic. The employment tribunal that heard the case, though it refused to rule on the meaning of “antisemitism,” ruled that, since criticism of Israel, of whatever kind, falls within the gamut of political free speech, and hence cannot legitimately be regarded as antisemitic, the Fraser action merely represented an attempt to restrain free speech for political ends.15 But if this chapter’s arguments are sound, then the conclusion of the tribunal seems, at the very least, questionable. If we have argued correctly, that is to say, the bulk of “anti-Zionist” and BDS activity is “political” precisely in the sense that Mein Kampf was a political text and Der Stürmer a political ­broadsheet. (2) My second suggestion for further discussion concerns the capacity of political antisemitism to harm, not only Jews, but also non-Jews. The threat it poses to non-Jews is not, at least in the first instance, a threat to life and property, but it is a serious threat nonetheless. The main advantage offered to non-Jews by political antisemitism, along with the exhilarating but delusive sense of having penetrated to the heart of things afforded by any competently concocted version of PA1–PA4, is that it explains perceived social evils as the fault of forces external to non-Jewish society. In effect, it allows great and powerful nations, as well as political and social movements and ideologies, to avoid responsibility for whatever failures of achievement or expectation happen to haunt them at a given moment, by representing themselves as victims. That the alleged victimiser is a small,

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic

s­ cattered and intensely vulnerable minority matters little, since belief in PA2 allows it to be invested with secret powers of a demonic and unsearchable nature. The advantages of this ignoble manoeuvre are, however, purchased at a price that in part consists in the encouragement of kinds of collective overconfidence that can quite easily prove fatal. The failures and inadequacies exported onto the shoulders of World Jewry, in other words, invariably have causes far closer to home, blindness to which may threaten deeply dangerous consequences. German political antisemitism between the wars no doubt owed much of its attraction for ordinary Germans to the fact that it seemed to explain the German defeat in World War I other than by reference to defects in ­German arms or strategy. On this account Germany should, and would, have won that war, had the German Army and the nation not been “stabbed in the back” by World Jewry. It is arguable that one effect of this belief was to encourage a degree of overconfidence and blindness to German shortcomings, political, military and strategic, twenty years later, that in the event proved fatal. It seems likely that Hitler and the Nazi leadership were confirmed in a range of delusions on all three levels by the idea that, this time around, the success of the War Against the Jews could be relied upon to remove the main threat to ultimate German military success. Of course, as we know, the Jewish “threat” was a fantasy threat: the real threat to German arms was the one presented by the USSR and USA. But that is not how the Germans chose, or were compelled, to see things. In the same way, the widespread belief in Western Europe, prior to the unfolding of the “Arab Spring” and its unexpected consequences, that “the Jews,” this time in the shape of the Israelis, represented the only serious threat to peace in the Middle East, was no doubt not without its role in the series of major political miscalculations that led to the present appalling situation. And the same could be said of the role of Arab political antisemitism in facilitating one political and military miscalculation after another on the part of an Islamic world that seems less and less capable of avoiding total internal collapse with each year that passes. A political Weltanschauung founded in antisemitic fantasy, that is to say, is—albeit in more indirect ways—quite as dangerous in the long run to its non-Jewish fabricators, and for that matter to non-Jews with neither belief in nor responsibility for its hallucinogenic fantasies, as it is to the Jews. A fuller version of the arguments in this chapter will appear in my book entitled Blaming the Jews: Politics and Delusion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming 2018).

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NOTES   1 Kenneth Marcus, The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 29.   2 Represented in Britain at present by such figures, among others, as Ken Livingstone and George Galloway.   3 Thus, Marcus in Definition (6) states: “Some readers may be inclined to dismiss definitional questions as a matter of arbitrary linguistic conventions that may be selected, revised, or replaced at will, and with little consequence.”   4 Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1954), 6–7, cited in Marcus, Definition, 131.   5 For a recent expression of concern on this issue, see Padraig Ready, “I am an Atheist but This Anti-Catholic Rhetoric is Making me Nervous,” Guardian, 22 August 2010, https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/22/pope-visit-catholic-prejudice.   6 I should explain for the benefit of the nervous reader who may feel his or her “safe space” to be infringed by these words, that I was baptised and brought up a Catholic.   7 Many of them collected in Bryan Cheyette, Constructions of “the Jew” in English Literature of Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).  8 Marcus, Definition, 193.   9 See Patricia Cohen, “Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor,” New York Times, 21 January 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/arts/31jews. html. 10 Anthony Lawson, “Immortalising the Myth Comparing Zionist Apartheid Israel to Nazi Germany,” Intifada Voice of Palestine website, 23 December 2013. This site is no longer accessible but Lawson’s article remains available at http://news.alayham.com/content/immortalising-myth-comparing-zionist-apartheid-israel-nazi-germany. 11 See the video in the article by Stephen Pollard, “After Comparing Israel to Isil, We’ve Got to Stop Pretending that Jeremy Corbyn is an Amiable Buffoon,” Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2016, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/after-comparing-israel-to-isil-weve-gotto-stop-pretending-that. 12 John Mearsheimer, for instance, argues that Israel must in due course necessarily become a “fully-fledged Apartheid state” (151) and thus, by implication, that it is not one at present; see “The Future of Palestine,” in After Zionism, ed. Anthony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor (London: Saqui, 2012), 135–53. 13 Jonathan Adelman, “The Christians of Israel: A Remarkable Group,” HuffPost Blog, 28 August 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-adelman/the-christians-of-israel_b_8055770. html. Adalman is professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in the University of Denver. 14 See, for example, the essays in Lowenstein and Moor, After Zionism, as well as Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). 15 I am grateful to Lesley Klaff for correcting the deficiencies of an earlier version of this ­paragraph.

Why Present-Day “Anti-Zionism” is Antisemitic

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cheyette, Bryan. Constructions of “the Jew” in English Literature of Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Harrison, Bernard. The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel and Liberal Opinion. NewYork, NY/Plymouth, MA: Rowman and Littelfield, 2006. Loewenstein, Anthony, and Ahmed Moor, eds. After Zionism. London: Saqui, 2012. Marcus, Kenneth. The Definition of Anti-Semitism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Rich, Dave. The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism. London: Biteback Publishing, 2016.

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CHAPTER 4

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism: A Critical Race Perspective on Fraser v University and College Union LESLEY D. KLAFF

INTRODUCTION

O

n the 25 August 2011, a mathematics lecturer named Ronnie Fraser, through his lawyer Anthony Julius, filed a claim in the Central London Employment Tribunal against the University and College Union (UCU) under sections 57 and 26 Equality Act 2010. The act’s aim is to protect individuals in the public sector from unfair treatment, including harassment and other forms of direct discrimination. Fraser alleged that the union had harassed him as a Jewish member (“Jewish” being a “protected characteristic” in terms of both a race and a religion under section 26 Equality Act) by engaging in “unwanted” antisemitic “conduct” that manifested itself in acts and omissions informed by hostility to Israel and the Zionist project. These were as follows:1 • annual boycott resolutions against Israel and no other country in the world; • the conduct of the debates at the annual UCU Congress; • the moderating of the activists’ lists and the penalizing of anti-boycott activists;

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• the failure to engage with people who raised concerns about antisemitism; • the failure to address members’ resignations on the grounds of antisemitism; • the refusal to meet the OSCE’s special representative on antisemitism; • the hosting of South African trade unionist Bongani Masuku after he had been found guilty of antisemitic hate speech by South Africa’s Human Rights Commission, and; • the repudiation of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, which addresses Israel-related antisemitism; • the dismissive attitude toward the Equality and Human Rights Commission; • the response to Fraser’s “letter before action.” These acts and omissions, alleged Fraser, constituted a “course of conduct” by the union, which amounted to institutional antisemitism. On 22 March 2013, the Tribunal delivered a lengthy judgment dismissing all ten grounds of Fraser’s complaint as unfounded and mostly out-of-time.2 There is a widely held belief in Britain that Jews benefit from the protection of equality legislation. For example, the authors of an online essay, “In These Times: A Statement on Contemporary European Anti-Semitism,” state that “the statutes against discrimination offer sufficient legal guarantees of equality [for Jews].”3 While this is true in theory, this does not appear to be the case in practice. To date, every Jewish claimant in a reported discrimination case in England has failed in their claim against a Christian or post-Christian secular defendant.4 This finding supports the work of critical race theorists who claim that anti-discrimination legislation does not effectively combat racism because it fails to understand the nature of racism, because it is interpreted by judges who fail to understand the experience of racism, and because the racism that pervades our society also pervades our legal system and may, in fact, be uncovered in allegedly neutral concepts, procedures, analytical approaches, and judicial decisions. This chapter will consider a specific critical race theory claim in relation to the judgement in Fraser v UCU, namely, that courts adhere to legal formalism in cases where the claimant is a member of a racial minority, resulting in the law’s failure to address the nature and experience of racism. My concern is not so much with the construction of the legislation, but with the institutional and ideological context in which it is supposed to function.

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

THE COURTS’ ADHERENCE TO LEGAL FORMALISM RESULTS IN THE LAW’S FAILURE TO ADDRESS THE EXPERIENCE AND NATURE OF RACISM In her book An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness and English Law,5 Didi Herman notes the practice of English courts to adhere to legal formalism in a variety of cases involving Jewish litigants and Jewish issues. She believes that legal formalism is a judicial route that is consciously chosen “in order to marginalise extrinsic political factors”—that is, to deem certain facts irrelevant to the legal issue before the court.6 This can be illustrated by the 1947 case of R v Sec of State for Foreign Affairs, ex parte Greenberg.7 The case involved an application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to 4,500 Jewish European passengers on three ships, on the grounds that they were being unlawfully detained by the British Government off the coast of British Mandate Palestine. The judge denied the writ without any reference to the Holocaust, or indeed, without any reference to any of the difficulties that led to the passengers’ flight to Palestine.8 Nor did he once mention the fact that the three ships’ passengers were Jewish, despite their lawyer referring to them throughout the case as “displaced Jews.”9 The judge defined the legal issue before him narrowly so as to make these facts irrelevant to the case’s determination. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that Jewish immigration to Palestine had been acutely controversial for many years, such that the British Government and the Government of Palestine found it necessary to impose restrictions on it, and he referred to the ships’ Jewish passengers throughout as “­illegal immigrants.” Noting that they were intercepted by His Majesty’s ships off the Palestinian coast and returned to the South of France where they were informed that, unless they landed by a certain time, they would be redirected to Hamburg, the judge concluded that the passengers’ refusal to disembark meant that they had remained on the ships voluntarily and, therefore, had not been illegally restrained. He denied the writ of habeas corpus on this narrow ground, ignoring the passengers’ situation at any point prior to their arrival in France. Herman argues that judicial blindness to certain facts serves to impose Christian norms and values, which have become synonymous with English secular norms and values, on the law.10 Norms are the standards of proper or acceptable behavior, and values are the ideals or beliefs shared by a culture about what is good or bad, desirable or undesirable. As illustrated by the Greenberg case, legal formalism’s imposition of Christian norms and values renders the Jewish experience irrelevant. This results in the claims of Jewish litigants being denied justice and their lived experiences marginalized.

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Herman claims that legal formalism is ideologically driven and is informed by “extrinsic projects of racialisation.”11 She defines “racialisation” broadly as the portrayal of Jews as inferior or different. Here, she draws on the work of critical race theorist, Peter Fitzpatrick, who has written about the privileging of legal formalism in cases involving anti-black racism.12 Herman’s work makes a welcome contribution to critical race theory because, despite being an expanding and diverse field, there has been very little scholarship on the law’s relationship with antisemitism until the publication of her book in 2011.

THE PRIVILEGING OF LEGAL FORMALISM IN FRASER V UCU Legal formalism may be described as the liberal position that says that law can be separated from the social world in which it is embedded. It draws a distinction between pure law and its social, economic and political contexts and denies the importance of context in understanding the law. The privileging of legal formalism in cases involving race prevents the law from addressing racism because race or ethnicity is an account of social being; it is the lived experience. A good illustration of the privileging of legal formalism resulting in the law’s failure to address the experience and nature of antisemitism may be found at several points in the judgment of Fraser v UCU. First, we shall consider the Tribunal’s interpretation of the statutory test for “harassment” in section 26 Equality Act. The section defines “harassment” as “unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic.” To qualify as “harassment,” the conduct must “violate the victim’s dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.” In deciding whether the conduct has had that effect, the tribunal must take into account the victim’s perception under section 26 (4) (a). This is a subjective test. It must also take into account the case’s other circumstances and whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have that effect under section 26 (4) (c). This is an objective test. To interpret the subjective component of section 26, the Tribunal was required to focus on Fraser’s realm of experience in the UCU. This it obtained from his written account in his witness statement and his oral evidence during examination and cross-examination. The Tribunal then had to decide whether his account satisfied the statutory language of section 26 (1) (b) so as to amount to unlawful harassment. The Tribunal decided to give the statutory language a strict, narrow construction so as to deny Fraser’s experiences of antisemitism in

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

the union. Stressing that it “must not cheapen the significance of [the] words [used]”13 in the statute, it declared that an effect amounting to “harassment” had not been made out by Fraser who had used words such as “upsetting,” “disappointment,” “troubled,” “hurt,” and “saddened and amazed” to describe the effect the union’s conduct had on him.14 The Tribunal thought that these words indicated “minor upsets” caused by “trivial acts” rather than antisemitic harassment.15 It said, “[N]o doubt [Mr. Fraser] found some of the [anti-Israel] motions and some things said in the course of the debates upsetting, but to say that they violated his dignity or created an adverse environment … is to overstate his case hugely.”16 This was despite the fact that Fraser impressed the Tribunal as a “sincere witness” whose “displays of emotion” during his evidence had not been synthetic.17 The Tribunal attributed Fraser’s emotion to the fact that the outcome of the litigation was important to his “passionate belief ” in the pro-Israel political campaign within the union,18 rather than to his reliving his experiences of antisemitism while giving evidence. In this way, the Tribunal denied Fraser’s experiences of antisemitism within the UCU because he did not relay his experiences using the correct language. This constitutes the privileging of legal formalism. By denying that Fraser’s subjective account satisfied the statutory language, the Tribunal imposed Christian or secular norms and values on the law and this served to marginalize the Jewish experience. The lack of recognition or misrecognition of Fraser’s suffering within the union is deeply problematic. Indeed, it has been observed by critical legal philosophers that the “law’s abstraction and formalism is a type of disrespect that calls for greater sensitivity to social context and to individual need and desire.”19 The question is, why did the Tribunal construe the statutory language so narrowly? It did, after all, have a choice. It is generally acknowledged by legal scholars that, while the meaning of legal text appears to be determinate, judges are free to interpret it as they choose. This is particularly the case with statutory wording, where even the literal interpretation of a word can yield several different meanings. Is it the case that the Tribunal wanted to deny Fraser’s claim because it really did believe that his professed experiences of antisemitism did not amount to anything more than “minor upsets” caused by “trivial acts”? If so, then this might suggest that the Tribunal could not grasp Fraser’s subjective experience of antisemitism in the union because his reality was outside their realm of experience. Critical race theorists have observed that judges cannot understand racial discrimination because it is positional—that is, it requires an understanding of the lived reality of race. In the case of people of color, judges are said to be blind to the reality of the structured disadvantages that cause

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their marginalization and exploitation, and instead individualize and atomize discrimination into a series of disputes. In the case of Jewish litigants, the tendency of judges and other decision makers appears to be to individualize and atomize the Jewish experience of antisemitism into a series of incidents that are insignificant and do not rise to the level of antisemitism. For example, not only did the Tribunal in Fraser’s case characterize his experiences of antisemitism within the UCU as a series of “minor upsets” caused by “trivial acts,” but the Shami Chakrabarti Report concluded that the antisemitism in the Labour Party that led to the suspension of many members—including Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, and Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London— was merely a “series of unhappy incidents.”20 Similarly, in a recent antisemitism complaint brought by a Jewish student against Sheffield Hallam University, the university administrator who decided the outcome categorized a student society’s antisemitic social media output as merely “controversial and provocative,” despite its replication of blood libels.21 In this trivialization process, practices of antisemitism are denied, along with their political importance, and the Jewish complainant is constructed as overly sensitive, not as a victim of harassment. In fact, the Tribunal should have been more sensitive to Fraser’s subjective experiences of antisemitism within the union because his fear, distress, and panic were evident during his cross-examination, just as it had been evident during his speech to Congress in May 2011.22 This was the Congress at which members debated a motion to formally disassociate the UCU from the EUMC Definition on the grounds that it was a tool “to silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus.”23 During the debate, Fraser made an impassioned plea to Congress, and this was made available in evidence to the Tribunal. He said: I, a Jewish member of this union, am telling you, that I feel an antisemitic mood in this union and even in this room. I would feel your refusal to engage with the EUMC [D]efinition of [A]ntisemitism, if you pass this motion, a racist act. … You may disagree with me. You may disagree with all the other Jewish members who have said similar things. You may think we are mistaken. But you have a duty to listen seriously. Instead of being listened to, I am repeatedly told that anyone who raises the issue of antisemitism is doing so in bad faith.24

Given the fact that Fraser demonstrated fear, distress, and panic that ought to have been apparent to the Tribunal, other possible reasons for its failure to

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

accept that his subjective account of his experiences within the UCU constituted antisemitic harassment will be considered.

THE TRIBUNAL’S FAILURE TO ADDRESS THE NATURE AND EXPERIENCE OF ANTISEMITISM One possible reason could be that the Tribunal’s denial of Fraser’s subjective experiences of antisemitism lay in the statutory wording of section 26 Equality Act. Legal theorist Clare Dalton has noted that the law shapes all stories into particular patterns of telling, that it favors certain kinds of stories, disfavors others, and even makes it impossible to tell certain types of stories.25 It may be, on this view, that antisemitism is one story that is impossible to tell because it is not considered to be a serious problem (as in this case). In fact, most people in Britain associate antisemitism with the Holocaust and regard it as a symptom of fascism, an outdated ideology. These people tend to think that all criticism of Israel is legitimate and do not understand the correlation between hostility to Israel and antisemitism. To make matters worse, the telling of the complainant’s story by means of examination in the courtroom is an “impoverishing exercise” because “the infinitely rich potential that we call reality is stripped of detail, of all but a few of its aspects.”26 Not only is reality misrepresented in the courtroom but antisemitism in any event is not as readily recognisable as, say, antiblack racism, sexism, or homophobia. This is especially true of contemporary Israel-related antisemitism, also known as “the new antisemitism,” which is frequently disguised in an anti-Zionist narrative and the language of human rights. As the late Robert Fine helpfully explained: Antisemitism may or may not be openly expressed. It may linger in discursive nooks and crannies of well-honed antisemitic motifs: conspiracy, secret power, blood lust, etc. As in the case in the presentation of self in everyday life, the forms of appearance of the new antisemitism may not immediately reveal what lies behind the scenes.27

Antisemitism is a complex phenomenon. Its interpretation demands a subtle and nuanced approach that resists easy conclusions. Its objective manifestation cannot, therefore, be easily observed from the subjective narration of personal experience.

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A more plausible explanation, however, is that the Tribunal chose to c­ onstrue the statutory wording in section 26 Equality Act to deny Fraser’s subjective experience of antisemitism because it disliked the allegation of contemporary antisemitism, preferring to regard the UCU’s irrational hostility to Israel in terms of free political speech. This preferred explanation has wide support within the judgment. First, the Tribunal refused to rule on a meaning or definition of antisemitism on the grounds that there were legitimately held differences on what constitutes antisemitism, concluding that the range of views presented to the ­Tribunal, including where the line should be drawn in relation to when criticism of Israel becomes antisemitic, is the “stuff of political debate.”28 The ­Tribunal stated that the obvious difficulty confronting anyone seeking to grapple with this controversy is that the arguments cannot meet each other head on unless and until participants agree on what is meant by “anti-Semitism.” … We cannot escape the gloomy thought that a definition acceptable to all interested parties may never be achieved and count ourselves fortunate that it does not fall on us to attempt to devise one.29

This refusal to settle on a definition of antisemitism was curious given the fact that Fraser’s claim was for unlawful antisemitic harassment. As the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Antisemitism in the UK reported in 2016, it is “extremely difficult to examine the issue of antisemitism without considering what sorts of actions, language and discourse are captured by the term” and “defining the parameters of antisemitism [is] central to the question of what should be done to address this form of hate.”30 A similar refusal to define antisemitism was a feature of the Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry. Chakrabarti reported that she saw “no need to pursue an age-old and ultimately fruitless debate about the precise parameters of race hate,” despite the fact that her brief was to examine antisemitism in the Labour Party.31 Further, in the case of the student antisemitism complaint against Sheffield Hallam University, the university was unable to provide a definition of antisemitism and explicitly rejected the EUMC Working Definition, which the student and his legal representatives had asked it to adopt in order to decide the outcome of the complaint.32 It is noteworthy that a definition of antisemitism was considered impossible, unnecessary or ill-advised in cases whose very purpose was formally to decide antisemitism’s presence or absence. It may be logically assumed

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

that the ­rejection of a definition of antisemitism in each case was part of a strategic approach to denying antisemitism. Second, the Tribunal discarded all the evidence of antisemitism as inauthentic or irrelevant. It did this by discrediting as inauthentic the evidence given by many of Fraser’s witnesses as “the mere ventilation of opinions” and by describing some of his witnesses as “playing to the gallery,” as “scoring points,” as “behaving in a tactical manner,” and as being “untruthful.”33 On the grounds that there was no agreement on the meaning of antisemitism, it wholly discarded as irrelevant Julius’ cross-examination of UCU witnesses about the issue of antisemitism, for “without such common ground, questions put to witnesses for the Respondents seeking to elicit a view on whether such-and-such a comment ‘was’ or ‘was not’ anti-Semitic lacked any meaning.”34 It dismissed all the evidence of antisemitism in the union with the words, “[…] we had to remind ourselves frequently that despite appearances, we were not conducting a public inquiry into anti-Semitism but considering a legal claim for unlawful harassment.”35 It was a claim for unlawful antisemitic harassment but this did not prevent the Tribunal from ignoring all evidence of antisemitism. This amounts to a denial of antisemitism. Moreover, the idea that the parties to a claim for antisemitic harassment have to agree on the meaning of antisemitism before the claim can be considered by the Tribunal, makes the protection afforded to Jews by section 26 Equality Act redundant. Despite its denial of antisemitism, the Tribunal did manage to portray itself as sympathetic to Jewish persecution and suffering. It did this by making references to the Holocaust. At the beginning of its judgment, the Tribunal introduced Fraser as “the child of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany in 1939” and noted that “members of his family died in the Holocaust.”36 Later, the Tribunal made an oblique reference to the Holocaust and other atrocities with the words, “so long and terrible has been the persecution of the Jewish people through history.”37 Paradoxically, the Tribunal’s acknowledgement of antisemitism via the Holocaust and other historical persecution only serves to legitimize its denial of Fraser’s claim of contemporary antisemitism against the UCU. The references associate antisemitism with state-sponsored genocide and consign it to history, making it seem like a relic of the past and a symptom of a defunct ideology.38 In this way, antisemitism is removed from contemporary discourse about Israel and Zionism. Herman notes that English judges frequently use the Holocaust in cases involving Jews as a “mnemonic device” to achieve certain purposes.39 And there is little doubt that this achieves a dual purpose: the portrayal of judicial

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sympathy for past Jewish persecution, while denying the r­ eality of contemporary Israel-related antisemitism. To return to the privileging of legal formalism, critical race theorists claim that formalists use abstract concepts like “reasonableness” to mask choices and value judgments. This can be illustrated in the Tribunal’s interpretation of the objective component of section 26 Equality Act. The Tribunal said that, even if it was satisfied that Fraser’s subjective perception satisfied the statutory test for harassment under section 26 (1) (b), it would not be reasonable for it to have that effect under section 26 (4) (c). This was because Fraser was a willing participant in the political arena. The Tribunal stated:40 [Mr. Fraser] is a campaigner. He chooses to engage in the politics of the union in support of Israel and in opposition to activists for the Palestinian cause. When a rugby player takes the field[,] he must accept his fair share of minor injuries. Similarly, a political activist accepts the risk of being offended or hurt on occasions by things said or done by his opponents (who themselves take on a corresponding risk). These activities are not for everyone. Given his election to engage in, and persist with, a political debate which by its nature is bound to excite strong emotions, it would, we think, require special circumstances to justify a finding that such involvement had resulted in harassment.

The Tribunal interpreted the statutory requirement of “reasonableness” from the perspective of a political activist rather than from the perspective of a Jewish union member with a connection to Israel or, indeed, from the perspective of a victim of antisemitism. The Tribunal had a choice as to whose reasonableness to adopt. Its choice wrongly assumes that minorities who are politically active in the fight against racism have greater thresholds of fortitude than those who are not. This shows a marked failure to address the experience and nature of racism. Moreover, David Hirsh has noted that “this reasoning results in the position that since Fraser took on the responsibility of defending Israel, he should accept some antisemitism as part of the game.”41 In other words, Fraser brought the trouble on his own head; he was responsible for his own experiences of antisemitism—except that the Tribunal denied that it was antisemitism that he experienced. The idea that the Jewish claimant brought the trouble on his own head by his own behavior is not new to the English judiciary. In the 1980 case of Seide v Gillette Industries Ltd., a Jewish employee who complained under the

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

Race ­Relations Act 1976 that he had been transferred by his employer to a lower position at a lower wage because of antisemitism, was told by the Industrial Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal that his transfer had been caused by his own inappropriate behavior and that “race” was not an “activating cause.”42 This was despite the fact that he had been on the receiving end of antisemitic remarks by one of his colleagues that, in the words of both Tribunals, were “clearly to be deplored.”43 Similarly, a Jewish claimant’s behavior was declared to be the cause of the problem in another employment case in the early 1980s. In Garnel v Brighton Branch of the Musicians’ Union, the claimant, a Jewish member of the Musicians’ Union, was told by the Industrial Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal that the failure of the Brighton Branch to nominate him to sit on a committee, and his resulting suspension from the union when he complained about it, was not racially motivated. Rather, “if there was discrimination … it was not because the applicant was a Jew but because of his own personal behavior.”44 The Jewish claimant’s behavior took the form of his “engendering a feeling of anti-Semitism which did not yet exist.”45 In other words, the Jewish claimant in Garnel got what he deserved, just as the Jewish claimant in Seide got what he deserved, just as the Jewish Ronnie Fraser got what he deserved. According to Herman, the finding that the harm experienced by the Jewish claimant is self-induced shows the presence of racist thinking in judicial discourse.46 What is interesting is that contemporary English judges do not appear to think of Jews any differently from earlier English judges,47 for the formalist interpretation of the concept of “reasonableness” by the Fraser Tribunal was a vehicle to blame Fraser for his own suffering within the union. In fact, a move away from formalism is required by section 26 Equality Act as it protects the claimant from environmental harassment. As the Fraser Tribunal notes, “legislation that protects from harassment is meant to create an important jurisdiction.”48 The claimant’s experiences and knowledge are important in this jurisdiction and this is why the subjective element of section 26 enables the claimant to speak about his perception and relay his experiences to the law, for these must be taken into account by the Tribunal. The jurisdiction is also constitutive of environment. Indeed, emphasis on environment was considered by Parliament to be an apt approach for identifying and remedying the amorphous nature of sexism, racism, and antisemitism. This involves adopting a contextualized approach to judgment, which formalism rejects. The Tribunal is expected to consider the utterances, attitudes and acts that are usually cast outside of the law’s jurisdiction. The Tribunal did seem to do this in some parts of its judgment. It took note of the “emotional energy” that the conflict had

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generated49 and said it could find no evidence of the “atmosphere of intimidation” alleged by Fraser.50 It acknowledged the whispers and half-heard comments that a microphone would not pick up during a debate51 and, as we have seen, noted with disdain the witnesses for Fraser who “played to the gallery.”52 It appears that the Tribunal was only prepared to move away from formalism and adopt a contextualized approach to judgment when it permitted a finding that went against Fraser. The Tribunal also adopted legal formalism to interpret the principle of third-party responsibility. The principle of third-party responsibility was crucial to the case because section 57 Equality Act provides that a trade union must not harass a member. To satisfy section 57, therefore, a central question in Fraser’s case was “what acts and omissions that Fraser complains of are properly to be regarded as the responsibility of the trade union, the UCU?” In other words, who was the UCU for the purposes of section 57 Equality Act? Fraser argued that the UCU was the union, Congress, officials, and officers who act or omit to act with the authority of the union. That authority was expressed by policies of the union, assurances given to members on behalf of the union, the union’s rules, and the internal “life of the union” over which the union exercises control. In support of this argument, Julius cited the High Court case of Vowles v Evans & Others, which ruled that when an unincorporated corporation makes promises to its members, it can be held to those promises.53 Julius argued that this legal principle mattered because the UCU wanted to be regarded as a union with zero tolerance for antisemitism and wished to promote an environment in which members flourished. It was the gap, therefore, between what was promised by the UCU and what was delivered, as experienced by its members, that was at the heart of Fraser’s case.54 For example, there was an institutional incapacity on the union’s part to recognize resignations due to antisemitism. When cross-­ examined on this point during the Tribunal hearing, the union official in charge of membership matters explained that the reason why a particular member’s resignation was put in the “Israel/Palestine” pigeonhole was because the union did not have a category for resignations when the reason given was “antisemitism.” Also, whenever a Jew in the union wanted to speak about antisemitism, it was as if he was speaking an unintelligible language because there was a structural incapacity to hear what was being said, and this was part of the harassment. Accordingly, for the purposes of section 57 Equality Act, the perpetrator of the harassment includes the department that cannot recognize antisemitism.55 However, the Tribunal did not agree that the perpetrator of the harassment for the purposes of section 57 Equality Act included Congress, officials,

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

and officers. It adopted legal formalism to interpret the principle of third-party responsibility in order to rule that any “unwanted conduct” for the purposes of section 26 Equality Act was not properly to be regarded as that of the UCU. Rather, it was the “unwanted conduct” of the union’s Congress and members, separate from the UCU. The UCU could therefore not be liable for its members’ conduct or for motions passed at Congress because “the concept of institutional responsibility … is not known to our law.”56 This conclusion effectively disposed of Fraser’s case in its entirety. The Tribunal was able to support this conclusion by distinguishing the Vowles case on its cause of action; Vowles was a personal injury case involving the principle of vicarious liability, rather than a claim against a trade union for harassment. This is arguably a narrow technical point that is immaterial to the general principle of institutional responsibility that Vowles promulgated. The practice of distinguishing a precedent case on a narrow technical point, such as the cause of action, in order to avoid its application was noted by the eminent legal realist, Karl Llewellyn, as one of sixty-four “impeccable judicial techniques” for avoiding an awkward precedent—that is, a precedent that the court does not want to follow and apply in the case before it.57 The Tribunal could just as easily have applied the Vowles principle of institutional responsibility to Fraser’s case in order to rule that, for the purposes of section 57, the UCU also included Congress, officials, and officers who act or omit to act with UCU’s authority. This is because of the indeterminacy of legal doctrine, which allows any legal principle to be used to yield competing and contradictory results. Moreover, the principle of institutional responsibility ought to have been applied in Fraser’s case as a policy matter. No claim against a trade union for environmental harassment under sections 26 and 57 Equality Act will succeed without its application. Rejecting the principle of institutional responsibility in Fraser’s case meant that the Tribunal could ignore as irrelevant all evidence of “unwanted conduct” on the part of the officers, officials and Congress, thus disposing of Fraser’s case. This was an exercise in legal formalism insofar as it ignored context and thereby permitted a strategic blindness to the facts presented by the claimant. It was, moreover, ideologically driven because it was a route that facilitated the denial of Fraser’s antisemitism claim. Legal formalism was also evident in the Tribunal’s decision to treat the ten grounds of Fraser’s complaint as ten separate complaints and to declare nine of them out-of-time. A complaint must be presented to an Employment Tribunal within three months of the conduct complained of and only the last ground of Fraser’s complaint, the UCU’s disavowal of the EUMC Definition of

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­ ntisemitism at Congress in May 2011, met that requirement. Fraser argued A that the ten grounds of his complaint should be treated as a single course of conduct and that their cumulative effect amounted to institutional antisemitism. The Tribunal, however, rejected this argument. Noting that harassment can take the form of a series of minor acts and omissions, the Tribunal left Fraser’s “cumulative effect” argument until after it had disposed of each ground of his complaint for substantive reasons, saying that “the difficulty [with this cumulative effect argument] is that the Claimant has failed to show a succession of events (or non-events) about which any complaint against the Respondents can sensibly be made.”58 By treating each ground of Fraser’s complaint as a separate complaint, the Tribunal was denying the overall context of Fraser’s experience that is essential for an environmental harassment claim under section 26 Equality Act. This supports the critical race theory view that the privileging of legal formalism in anti-discrimination cases fails to address the experience and nature of racism, for the latter cannot be atomized into a series of individualized incidents and often presents itself as institutional racism.

CONCLUSION This chapter has addressed several examples of the Tribunal’s adoption of legal formalism in Fraser v UCU in order to justify its denial of Fraser’s claim for institutional antisemitism against the UCU. A common thread in the analysis has been the exclusion of the “political,” albeit with “political” as a dangerously free-floating factor. Thus, Fraser’s passion was merely “political,” hostility to Israel was merely “political,” Fraser was merely a “political campaigner.” We have seen the “political” excluded at the general level of the law with, for example, a strict, narrow interpretation of section 26 (1) (b) Equality Act, which insulated it against policy and thereby prevented different forms of linguistic expression from satisfying the subjective test for “harassment.” We have seen the “political” excluded at the level of legal principle with the strict, narrow application of the principle of “institutional responsibility,” confining it to personal injury cases and the issue of vicarious liability, thereby preventing its application to Fraser’s case on important policy grounds. We have also seen the exclusion of the “political” at the specific level of evidence, with evidence of antisemitism treated as inauthentic or irrelevant. It is the exclusion of the political at the specific level of evidence that is central to the critique offered by critical race theory because it is a strategic blindness to facts on ideological grounds. The mixture of the general and specific exclusion of the political in Fraser v UCU sensitises

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

us to the different ways in which the judicial application of dominant Christian or post-Christian secular norms is exclusionary, harmful and ultimately racist.

NOTES   1 For further details, see David Hirsh, “Fraser v UCU: Tribunal Finds No Antisemitism At All,” Engage website, 18 April 2013, https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/ fraser-v-ucu-tribunal-finds-no-antisemitism-at-all.   2 For the full judgment of Fraser v University and College Union, see https://www.judiciary. gov.uk/judgments/fraser-uni-college-union/.   3 Shalom Lappin et al., “In These Times: A Statement on Contemporary European Anti-­ Semitism,” Fathom (Summer 2015), www.fathomjournal.org/in-these-times-a-statementon-contemporary-european-anti-semitism.   4 Didi Herman, An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness & English Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 126–57.  5 Herman, Unfortunate Coincidence, 126–57.   6 Ibid., 106.  7 R v Sec of State for Foreign Affairs ex parte Greenberg [1947] 2 All ER 550.  8 Herman, Unfortunate Coincidence, 104–6. One of the ships was renamed The Exodus by its Jewish crew.  9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 106. 11 Ibid., 107. 12 Peter Fitzpatrick, Nationalism, Racism, and the Rule of Law (Aldershot; Brookfield, USA: Dartmouth, 1995). 13 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 38. 14 Ibid., para. 158. 15 Ibid., para. 38. 16 Ibid., para. 155. 17 Ibid., para. 147. 18 Ibid. 19 Costas Douzinas and Adam Geary, Critical Jurisprudence: The Political Philosophy of Justice (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005), 186. 20 Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry, 30 June 2016, 27; see www.labour.org.uk/page/-/party-­ documents/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf. 21 Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, Complaint Outcome, 5 October 2016, para. 18, reference number OIA/611513/16. 22 Julius’s Closing Speech for the Claimant, 16 November 2012. 23 David Hirsh, “Defining Antisemitism Down,” Fathom (Winter 2013): 9, www.fathomjournal.org/defining-antisemitism-down. 24 Ronnie Fraser, Speech to UCU Congress, reprinted as David Hirsh, “Ronnie Fraser’s (­Academic Friends of Israel) Speech to UCU Congress,” Engage website, 31 May 2011, http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/ronnie-frasers-speech-to-ucu-congress/.

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Responding to Antisemitism 25 Clare Dalton, “An Essay in the Deconstruction of Contract Doctrine,” Yale Law Journal 94 (1985), 997. 26 Ibid., 1007. 27 Robert Fine, “Fighting with Phantoms: A Contribution to the Debate on Antisemitism in Europe,” Patterns of Prejudice 43 (2009), 476. 28 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 53. 29 Ibid., para. 52. 30 House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, “Antisemitism in the UK,” Tenth Report of Session 2016–17, para. 12, https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/136/pdf. 31 Report of the Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry, 7. 32 Office of the Independent Adjudicator Complaint Outcome, para. 41. 33 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 148. 34 Ibid., para. 52. 35 Ibid., para. 180. 36 Ibid., para. 2. 37 Ibid., para. 51. 38 Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 517. 39 Herman, Unfortunate Coincidence, 101. 40 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 156. 41 Hirsh, “Fraser v UCU.” 42 Seide v Gillette Industries Ltd [1980] IRLR 427. 43 Ibid., 428. 44 Garnel v Brighton Branch of the Musicians’ Union (13 June 1983). 45 Ibid. 46 Herman, Unfortunate Coincidence, 43–45 47 Ibid. There are many other examples of racist thinking about Jews in Fraser v University and College Union beyond this chapter’s scope. 48 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 38. 49 Ibid., para. 50. 50 Ibid., para. 132. 51 Ibid., para. 133. 52 Ibid., para. 148. 53 Vowles v Evans & Others [2002] EWCA 2612 (QB). 54 Para. 12 of the Grounds of Complaint stated: “This course of discriminatory conduct against most Jewish members, comprising a series of acts, omissions, and events as supported by a culture and attitude which is indifferent to, or intolerant of, the complaints of its victims.” 55 Julius’s Closing Speech for the Claimant. 56 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 22. 57 Karl N. Llewellyn, The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals (Little, Brown and Company, 1960). 58 Fraser v University and College Union, para. 168.

Using Section 26 Equality Act to Combat Institutional Antisemitism

BIBLIOGRAPHY Fraser v University and College Union, https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/fraser-uni-collegeunion/. Herman, Didi. An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness & English Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Douzinas, Costas, and Adam Geary. Critical Jurisprudence: The Political Philosophy of Justice. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005. Dalton, Clare. “An Essay in the Deconstruction of Contract Doctrine.” Yale Law Journal 94 (1985): 997.

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CHAPTER 5

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitism R. AMY ELMAN

S

hortly after the murders at Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, the president of the European Commission issued a televised statement to express his “highest solidarity” with France and his outrage over the massacre, which claimed a dozen lives. Two days later, following the murders of four Jews at a kosher supermarket, President Jean-Claude Juncker issued no further communication on terrorism. The culture ministers of the European Union (EU) responded in a similar fashion. A day after the kosher market killings, they issued a unanimous defense of “freedom of expression,” condemned the “senseless barbarity” of the Hebdo massacre and ignored those who were murdered for being Jews.1 It was not until the next month’s terrorist attack on a Copenhagen café and a nearby synagogue resulted in the deaths of a free speech advocate and a Jew that the EU expressly condemned antisemitism. That succinct statement, issued by the European Commission, read: “We stand against anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination. Europe will not be intimidated” (italics added for emphasis).2 Increasingly difficult to oppose on its own, it is as if antisemitism is censured only within contexts that emphasize discrimination against others, in particular that against Muslims. This chapter explores the reluctance of EU leaders to condemn, much less define, contemporary antisemitism. It also considers the potentially devastating consequences of their equivocations for the then twenty-eight Member States whose values these EU officials claim to represent and defend. In responding to the murders in France that January, the European Parliament called for a moment of silence for all victims. Its president at the

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

time, Martin Schultz, then stated that “these 17 cartoonists, journalists, police officers, employees and ordinary Jewish citizens were killed because they represented things that fanatics cannot stand: criticism, humour, satire and free speech.”3 Whether Schultz regarded the murdered Jews as critics, comics, or exemplars of EU citizenship is beside the point. His failure to specifically mention antisemitism signals a dangerous reluctance to confront forcefully the reasons why “fanatics” single out Jews.4 The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), the EU body tasked with countering discrimination (including antisemitism), similarly expressed its “horror at the crime and its sympathy with all those close to the victims.” Referring to the “attacks on the editorial offices of the French magazine … and the subsequent hostage crisis” (emphasis added), the Agency’s website statement further obscured the specific threats faced by Europe’s Jews.5 Ironically, its statement represents the kind of obscurantism Charlie Hebdo rejected. As the French historian Robert Zaretsky notes, the Jews at the HyperCacher market were “no more hostages than the victims at Charlie Hebdo were insurance adjustors.” “The latter were killed,” he explains, “because they were cartoonists, while the former were executed because they were Jews.”6 And tellingly, the only woman not spared by the terrorists at Hebdo was Jewish. The FRA’s failure to explicitly confront antisemitism’s virulence persists in the brief reports and myriad statements it issued in the wake of the carnage.7 In a later meeting with representatives from the Council of Europe, the Agency declared: “The terrorists killed 17 people, they attacked the free press and basic human rights. They increased fear in the Jewish and their own ­Muslim community and injected anxiety into the general population.”8 The FRA’s apparently even-handed approach to the fear within both communities placed the victims and victimizers on the same plane and masked the antisemitism that incites Islamists to target Jews. Having disregarded antisemitism’s centrality to Islamist ideology, the FRA concentrated almost exclusively on those Muslims whose “alienation” it insisted was conducive to their “radicalization.” This classic misdirection was in keeping with previous responses from the EU’s Member States. In 2010, for example, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reported from Sweden: There seems to be little debate among civil society representatives or Government authorities with whom we’ve met that the primary sources of anti-Jewish attacks today stem from the country’s Muslim population. Yet,

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Responding to Antisemitism there is a reluctance to identify this, perhaps as one of the interlocutors suggested, so as to not contribute to the further anti-immigrant sentiment among the population (emphasis added).9

A decade earlier, in the year prior to 9/11, four hundred and fifty antisemitic attacks took place in France and both the government and the media responded with silence. According to a former French Minister of the Interior, government officials had not wanted to “throw oil on the fire.”10 Shortly thereafter, independent researchers exposed the FRA’s predecessor, the European Union Monitoring Centre (the EUMC), for its attempts to revise and later suppress their report containing EU-wide data showing Muslims among the principal perpetrators of such attacks. As one researcher noted, “When I told [the EUMC] that we need to monitor the inflammatory language being used by the Arab press in Europe, this was changed to ‘minority press.’”11 The Centre responded to this and other allegations over the report’s revisions and suppression by characterizing the research as unworthy of publication because it was methodologically weak and “divisive.”12 In each of these instances, Member State and EU officials endeavored to maintain the illusion of unity and public order by discounting the fundamental rights of their Jewish citizens to live in peace and security.13 The wager that their “reluctance to identify” the perpetrators of antisemitism might keep xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment at bay has been disastrous, with unanticipated consequences. Not only did these officials end up squandering the political legitimacy required to combat these scourges, but populist parties have stepped into the political void left by an elite increasingly regarded by the electorate as incompetent and/or deceitful.14 By 2012, Europe’s Jews recognized both the public’s general acceptance of their abuse and their politicians’ disinclination to move against it—such were the findings from the FRA’s own online survey that year. The Agency’s two month-long inquiry focused on the experiences and perceptions of antisemitism among 5,847 self-identified Jewish respondents throughout eight Member States (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, and the UK), where an estimated 90% of the EU’s Jews live. The final report, Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews in EU Member States,15 offered the first comprehensive survey of Jewish perceptions of antisemitism and it is a catalogue of disturbing findings. One in five (21%) survey respondents noted they had personally experienced at least one incident of antisemitic harassment and/or a physical attack

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

in the twelve months leading up to the survey. Hungary, Belgium, and S­ weden had the highest incident rates (with respectively 30%, 28%, and 22%), but the problem of antisemitism extends well beyond these three. On average, three-­quarters (76%) of those surveyed believe conditions for Jews have worsened over the past five years in the country where they live. Two-thirds of the respondents (66%) consider antisemitism an EU-wide problem. When specifically asked about the forms of harassment that they encountered, 75% of the nearly 6,000 respondents identified online antisemitism as the most widespread manifestation of abuse. Writing from Britain, one respondent commented that “the amount of antisemitic material circulating is phenomenal. This is in some ways setting us backwards as now young people are circulating content like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had, prior to the Internet, pretty much died out.”16 Another, from France, remarked on the antisemitic and anti-Zionist character of many YouTube videos. A respondent in Britain lamented: “Since going on Facebook, I have experienced more antisemitic comments in a few years than … throughout my whole life. This is very dispiriting. The speed at which hostile comments and misinformation can be passed around is frightening and leads to a sense of deep unease.”17 With antisemitism now viral, one-third (33%) of those surveyed worried about being physically attacked for their Jewish identity in public and over one-fifth (23%) occasionally avoided Jewish events or sites because of safety concerns. This worry increased significantly when respondents were queried about their family’s well-being. For instance, 66% of parents or grandparents of school-aged children worried their children and grandchildren would be subjected to harassment at school. Such concern is warranted when one considers that the survey’s youngest respondents (between 16–29) were more likely (at 34%) to have experienced verbal and physical abuse than their elders. The survey also asked whether respondents refrained from wearing, displaying or carrying objects in public that might identify them as Jewish. These items include, but are not limited to, kippot (i.e., skull caps), Jewish themed jewelry (e.g., stars of David), and mezuzahs affixed to (external) doorframes. On average, 68% of all respondents acknowledged some reluctance to live openly as Jews; the highest percentage of those who answered that they “always avoid” wearing or carrying such items live in Sweden (34%), followed by France (29%) and Belgium (25%). A woman in Germany explained that as long as one remains “private” about their Jewish identity, “there seems to be no problem. However, as soon as we, like Christians or Muslims, also want to attach importance to our religion and to openly live our religion, the situation changes

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dramatically.”18 Moreover, respondents feared the consequences of attending synagogue, purchasing kosher food or frequenting Jewish cultural events. For Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, the fact that so many “Jews are not able to express their Jewishness because of fear should be a watershed moment for the continent of Europe and the European Union.”19 Conditions have become so threatening that one in ten respondents report that they have either moved or are considering moving from their neighborhoods. Although this response varies markedly across the Member States, roughly a third (29%) of those surveyed thought of emigrating. Respondents in Hungary (51%), Belgium (41%), and France (49%) contemplated emigration more than other respondents, while those in the UK, Italy, and Sweden were less likely to consider this option (with 19%, 21%, and 21% respectively). Nonetheless, it is evident that Jews throughout the EU avoid even visiting neighborhoods where they perceive that they are manifestly unwelcome. Eventually, those imagined departures became a startling reality and, while Europe’s economic woes may mark an additional “push factor,” antisemitism’s virulence proved impossible to deny. Headlines declared that the number of French Jews who left for Israel in 2015 doubled from what it had been in 2013.20 Because they constitute Europe’s largest Jewish population, their departure represents a particularly important case, one that fueled speculation about whether Jews even have a future in Europe.21 In addition to registering the profound (and eerily prophetic) fears of Jewish respondents to escalating antisemitism, the survey exposed the limited confidence that respondents had in any authority or organization to counter it. In fact, 82% answered that they did not report the most serious incident of anti-Jewish discrimination because, as nearly half reasoned, it would change nothing.22 Asked to identify the culprit of that particular abuse, respondents from all eight Member States perceived the perpetrators as those with “rightwing views” (19%), “left-wing political views” (22%), or “Muslim extremist views” (27%).23 Interestingly, these findings were consistent with those the EUMC had endeavored to downplay as “divisive” a decade earlier. Moreover, as the above responses from the EU’s leaders to the Paris attacks reveal, the doubts raised by Europe’s Jews over the willingness and/or capacity of European authorities to address antisemitism were far from misplaced. The FRA’s subsequent emphasis on “nondiscrimination and internal security” cautioned against the blowback that might attend the heightened “security measures seeking to counter violent radicalization.” It further warned, “heavyhanded tactics may serve to enhance recruitment to terrorist organisations if

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

the people concerned are or feel they are treated in a discriminatory or negative way.”24 Thus, the Agency underscored, without specifically identifying, the promotion of fundamental rights for Muslims. It reasoned that it is more vital than ever to combat the ongoing, and in some places worsening, fundamental rights violations in the EU and beyond.”25 If one knew nothing about the attacks in France, euphemistically depicted ­ uslims by the FRA as “the events of January 2015,”26 one might suppose that M were the largest group of victims. Indeed, France’s president, François H ­ ollande, helped buttress this perception. Within days after the attack at the kosher market, he insisted that “Muslims are the first victims of fanaticism, fundamentalism, and intolerance.”27 For Shmuel Trigano, a renowned French intellectual, such rhetoric is diversionary and typifies a nearly ritualistic refusal to confront the Islamist motivations for terrorism. The result, he explains, is that “instead of showing support for the victims, the weight of public support is thrown behind innocent Muslims” and any consideration of a specifically Islamist form of antisemitism is obliterated.28 Even after the attacks in Denmark left a Jew murdered outside a Copenhagen synagogue, the then director of the FRA, Morten Kjaerum, remained diffident about ascribing blame to the Islamist perpetrator. Instead, he insisted that all religious leaders unite in a condemnation of the attacks to avoid “polarization.” Kjaerum further advised political leaders “to use the momentum to formulate far-sighted policy that tackles the root causes of radicalization.”29 Sensitive to the implications of this emphasis, Eve Garrard, an authority on antisemitism, warns: “What counts as the root cause may itself be a matter of dispute.” In her experience, “prior political commitments and pre-judgments … ensure that the blame for the problem lands exactly where the observer has already decided it belongs” (e.g., in the lap of Jews).30 Days later, a Swedish Public Radio reporter, Helena Groll, stepped into the void left by EU leaders in their reluctance to apportion guilt and queried Israel’s ambassador about whether “Jews themselves have any responsibility in the growing anti-Semitism that we see now.”31 When the ambassador offered to explain why he “reject[ed] the question altogether,” an undaunted Groll attributed the attacks in Copenhagen to the conflict in the “Middle East”—code for Israel, the Jewish state. Thus, she had just expressed, however inadvertently, “two of the oldest of anti-Semitic tropes”—that Jews are to blame for the hatred against them and that “Jews anywhere are responsible for the actions of Jews everywhere.”32 As political scientist Daniel Goldhagen explains, “looking to Israel and its conduct to explain antisemitism … is akin to looking to some of

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the horrors perpetrated by some African countries to explain racism against African Americans.”33 Still, offensive as Groll’s comments were, they are in step with those of a European elite steeped in a paradoxical post-nationalism that condemns J­ ewish national self-determination while defending jihadists as if they were secular democrats in need of greater understanding. On the same morning that an estimated 3.7 million people demonstrated solidarity against the “barbarians” who terrorized Paris days earlier, France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius glossed over antisemitism and placed blame on the “Middle East.”34 Perhaps more concerning are those public pronouncements that have long-standing legal consequences. Consider, for example, the precedent established in 2006 by Sweden’s former chancellor of justice, Göran Lambertz. That year, Lambertz ruled that the threats of extermination emanating from a Stockholm mosque against (Swedish) Jews were “permissible” and did not constitute racial incitement because such “battle cries and invectives are a commonplace feature of the rhetoric surrounding the [Middle East] conflict.”35 Four years later, hating Israel supported a valid criminal defense in Britain, where a jury acquitted five vandals who had targeted an arms factory for doing business with the Israeli army.36 “Incredibly,” writes the late Robert Wistrich, the judge “had instructed the jury that Gaza was a hell on earth (for which Israel was held exclusively responsible) thereby almost licensing the actions of the accused in breaking the law.” More recently, in February 2015, a German court similarly surmised that the 2014 firebombing of a synagogue was motivated not by antisemitism but by a desire to bring “attention to the Gaza conflict.”37 The main effect of these rulings has been to make hating Israel a defense for (otherwise) criminal offenses. While such justifications for the “killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion” are those the EU had informally established as “anti-Semitic” in its 2005 “working definition of antisemitism,”38 the FRA’s removal of this definition from its “updated” website in 2013 suggests that it is ill-suited to buck the growing trend in rationalized antisemitism. In fact, the agency’s earlier reports sometimes stumbled into explanations one might have thought it would avoid. Consider, for example, its overview of antisemitism’s emergence within Europe’s Muslim communities (between 2001–2008). Before conceding that “some research evidence” exists to suggest that Muslim antisemitism has “acquired a presence independent of underlying national conflicts,” the 2009 report states the problem is likely “directly linked with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.”39 Its 2015 report on antisemitism

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

abandons previous caution about the animus that is independent of “national conflicts” and simply reiterates the causal “link” it implies was established in 2009.40 It thus attributes the rise in antisemitic incidents to Israel’s Protective Edge military operation in Gaza in 2014.41 In continuing to proffer its (as yet untested) explanation, the Agency disregarded the possibility that anger over Israel’s policies can serve as a pretext for attacks against Jews in Europe. Instead, it helped perpetuate the widespread assumption that antisemitism among Muslims stems from (recent) Middle East conflicts—a position that conveniently ignores the Muslim community’s collaborationist past with the Nazis and the Quran-based hostility toward Jews that preceded Israel’s founding.42 While the 2009 report implied the Agency’s retreat from the 2005 working definition, its conspicuous absence from all of the FRA’s reports on antisemitism indicates the Agency may never in fact have embraced it at all. When the Simon Wiesenthal Center challenged the Agency over its 2013 withdrawal of the Working Definition, a spokeswoman for the FRA denied the existence of an “official definition.”43 It was a credible prevarication because the Definition had languished in EU obscurity for nearly a decade after its informal adoption by the FRA’s predecessor, the EUMC, enabled its neglect. However, the controversy that ensued over the Definition’s removal appears to have provoked a greater interest in it, including both calls for and against its official endorsement. To grasp these vastly different positions requires an examination of the text. According to the EUMC, the stated purpose of the Working Definition of Antisemitism was to provide a “practical guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism.”44 The Definition reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”45 In making clear that such manifestations “could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” the text continued: “antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for ‘why things go wrong.’”46 In addition to the compact Definition, the Centre issued two sets of examples for clarification. The first contained illustrations of antisemitism throughout public life, the media, schools, workplaces, and within religious institutions. These included, but were not limited to, making “mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypical” claims about Jews as a group and accusations that

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Jews invent or exaggerate the Holocaust.47 The Definition also established that the denial of the fact or scope of that genocide is, likewise, antisemitic. Controversially, the Centre’s second set of examples recognized antisemitism’s increasing convergence with anti-Zionism and thus covered the rhetoric that specifically targets Israel while “taking into account its overall context.”48 The first, and perhaps the most important, of these examples states: “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”49 It also found that “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” and presenting caricatures of contemporary Israeli policy that draw comparisons to Nazi policy is antisemitic.50 The Centre explained that, when criticism of Israel is like that leveled against any other country, such criticism cannot be regarded as antisemitic.51 However, it also made clear that the application of “double standards” for Israel (standards not expected of any other democratic state) is antisemitic.52 While the first list of examples recognized that antisemitism may be expressed “in the form of a direct assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of the non-Jewish societies which they inhabit,” the second underscored the ways in which antisemitism is expressed in “the denial of the rights of the Jewish people to live as an equal member within the family of nations.”53 The clear and explicit acknowledgment of Israel’s vilification as a manifestation of antisemitism that rendered the Definition an appealing model for countless activists opposed to antisemitism,54 also inspired ambivalence and the ire of fervent “anti-Zionists” determined to discredit it.55 According to Electronic Intifada (EI), the pro-Palestinian website which broke the news of the Definition’s removal, the Working Definition had been “invoked in a number of cases in bids to muzzle Palestine solidarity activism and speech, particularly on campus.”56 Angered, for instance, that “Israeli Apartheid Week” efforts and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement had been condemned as antisemitic,57 EI and its allies insisted on the Definition’s repudiation and called on the FRA to focus on fighting “real racism” instead.58 Claiming that attention to antisemitism constitutes a departure from authentic struggles against racism is hardly novel. In 1965, in efforts that preceded the United Nation’s (UN) International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Arab delegates to the UN succeeded in having antisemitism withdrawn from the final convention after they insisted that the Jewish homeland was itself tantamount to Nazism.59 In 2006, the EU appears to have bowed to similar pressure when it withdrew consideration of antisemitism from its

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

o­ riginal conference program, “Racism, Xenophobia and the Media: Toward Respect and Understanding of all Religions and Cultures.”60 That conference was precipitated by the incendiary protests over the Danish publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed, as well as the occupation of the EU’s Gaza office by Islamists threatening to murder Scandinavians.61 Conference organizers called for a “dialogue” between the media representatives of all the Member States, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and eight Arab countries. Israel’s refusal to attend a conference that initially excluded Jews and Israelis from the panels prompted the last-minute inclusion of a Jew. Despite this dispute and Israel’s absence from the gathering, the EU claimed the event a success.62 While objections to efforts against antisemitism are hardly new, they have gained their most notable traction within academic circles where BDS has made inroads.63 Consider, for instance, the response of the British University and College Union (UCU) to the 2006 UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism. Depicting the inquiry as “misconceived and unhelpful,” the union argued, “it seems inappropriate to have taken as a topic [antisemitism] in isolation at a time when Islamophobia is also on the increase and when the two issues surely need a balanced approach.”64 The legal scholar, Kenneth L. Marcus exposes the invidious character of this argument when he reasons, “Those who accept the principal of non-discrimination are compelled to oppose discrimination against all groups, rather than to balance one against the other.”65 Yet, for Marcus, a principled opposition to all discrimination does not mean that one regards all of its manifestations as if they are the same. Indeed, he argues the contrary. In viewing antisemitism as either a nuisance that can be ignored or as a matter largely indistinguishable from and an inextricable part of the broader struggle against racism, EU officials have been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to grasp antisemitism’s particular virulence and its embrace by those who are themselves the victims of racism and/or its self-proclaimed opponents. In consequence, from the EUMC’s attempted suppression of those findings it deemed “divisive” to the FRA’s later efforts to avoid “polarization,” EU officials have consistently downplayed the devastating impact that Muslim antisemites have had, while overstating the importance of those joint actions taken by Muslims and Jews against “intolerance.” This trend is likely to continue, following the EU’s 2015 first Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights, “Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Growing Hatred in Europe.” The title itself outraged countless Jewish organizations in advance of the meeting.66 Critics argued that the juxtaposition of a­ ntisemitism

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with anti-Muslim sentiment obfuscates the terror that extremist Muslims in Europe have dispatched against European Jews. Michael Whine, Director of Director of Government and International Affairs for Britain’s Community Security Trust, a charity that protects Jews in Britain from antisemitism, remarked that “Muslims are suffering in Europe, and that is being monitored, but it’s certainly not coming from the Jews, whereas many of the attacks against Jews are coming from the Muslims.”67 Rather than address such concern and/ or provide a satisfactory explanation of why the conference and ongoing efforts entailed this dual emphasis, EU officials ignored their critics. In opening the event, Frans Timmermans, vice president of the Commission simply referenced both Muslims and Jews as persecuted minorities, “targeted when scapegoats are sought,” and then announced the appointment of separate “czars,” one to address each plague.68 The appeal of such evasions is that they bolster a self-satisfied European elite convinced that prejudice belongs almost exclusively on the shoulders of a nationalistic Far Right. Having embraced a selective post-nationalism that implies that Europe’s political integration is a guarantee against discrimination, antisemitism’s persistence serves as an awkward reminder of the European Union’s shortcomings. According to the Polish-born German Jewish polemicist Henryk Broder, conditions in Europe will inevitably worsen. “Toulouse was a prelude to Brussels, Brussels led to Paris, and Copenhagen will not be the last stop.”69 In 2012, a French jihadist murdered three children and their rabbi outside a Jewish day school in Toulouse. Two years later, during the four-day election period for the European Parliament and mere blocks from EU institutions, another French terrorist, returning from action with Islamic State (IS) in Syria, murdered four inside the Brussels Jewish Museum. One of the victims was a French woman who had just left her home country for Belgium two months earlier because of France’s escalating antisemitism.70 Taken together, one wonders whether these four Brussels murders are “somewhat emblematic” of the crisis Europe faces.71 Perhaps unsurprisingly, 2015 ended much as it began—with lethal antisemitism and its related reverberations. Paris was attacked again by Islamists in November 2015. Of 130 casualties, 89 lives were taken at the Bataclan Theatre. The former owners of the legendary theatre moved to Israel months earlier because they had been harassed for years by anti-Zionists opposed to their pro-Zionist programming. Three days later, Shimon Samuels, Director of International Relations for the Simon Wiesenthal Centre explained that “what began with the Jews crossed a new threshold for Europe.” He further observed

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis

that “all jihadists view the Jew as a tactical target within a consortium of enemies.”72 Within a week, the EU capital, Brussels, was locked down for days as authorities searched for the perpetrators of the Paris attacks. A mother of a Belgian jihadist who belonged to the same brigade as the earlier Paris attackers commented that one of the ringleaders of the second attacks in Paris, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, “was in the data base of every single European country but he returned to Europe like he was going on vacation to Club Med.”73 Weeks later, capitals throughout the EU were under high alert as they welcomed in a new year. The terror continues, with no end in sight.

NOTES   1 European Commission, “Fight against Terrorism/Freedom of Expression—Joint Statement Issued by the European Union Culture Ministers on Freedom of Expression,” 11 January 2015, https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/eu-ministers-culture-issue-joint-statement-freedom-expression.  2 European Commission, “Statement by the European Commission Following the Attacks in Copenhagen,” 15 February 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT15-4431_en.htm.  3 Quoted in “EP Pays Tribute to Victims of Paris Terrorist Attacks,” European Parliament News, 12 January 2015, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/newsroom/20150109IPR06302/EP-pays-tribute-to-victims-of-Paris-terrorist-attacks.   4 In an interview with Mathew Yglesias, President Obama similarly referred to the jihadists who massacred Jews in Paris as “a bunch of violent vicious zealots” who “randomly shot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” See “Obama: The Vox Conversation,” Vox, 23 January 2015, http://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-foreign-­ policy-transcript.   5 Fundamental Rights Agency, “EU Agencies Express Full Solidarity with Victims of Attacks in Paris,” 8 January 2015, http://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2015/eu-agencies-­express-fullsolidarity-victims-attacks-paris. The agency’s website communication is dated incorrectly as 8 January, for the kosher market was not attacked until 9 January. Less than six hours later, France’s president acknowledged that, although fifteen hostages had survived, four Jews had been murdered.   6 Robert Zaretsky, “Why ‘Jew’ Is Rarely Spoken Word in France—Even after Kosher Grocery Terror,” Forward, 13 January 2015, http://forward.com/opinion/world/212611/why-jewis-rarely-spoken-word-in-france-even-aft/#ixzz3twtKeN00.   7 For further information on the whitewashing of Muslim involvement in antisemitism’s resurgence by this agency and its predecessor, see R. Amy Elman, The European Union, Antisemitism and the Politics of Denial (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 63–77.   8 Fundamental Rights Agency, “FRA speaks on cooperation with Council of Europe in the wake of Paris attacks,” 23 January 2015, http://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2015/fra-speakscooperation-council-europe-wake-paris-attacks.

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Responding to Antisemitism   9 Andrew Baker, “Country Visit: Sweden Report of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office on Combatting Anti-Semitism June 13–16, 2010,” 16 August 2010, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 4, http://www.osce.org/what/tolerance/73266?download=true. 10 The former minister of the interior, Daniel Vaillant, quoted in Shmuel Trigano, “A Journey through French Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Review of Books 6 (2015): 5–7 (6). 11 Victor Weitzel quoted in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “EU ‘Covered Up’ Attacks on Jews by Young Muslims,” Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2004, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/europe/1458300/EU-covered-up-attacks-on-Jews-by-young-Muslims. html. 12 Hannah Cleaver, “Race Report Team ‘Told to Change Findings on Muslims,’” Daily Telegraph, 27 November 2003, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/1447915/Race-report-team-told-to-change-findings-on-Muslims.html. With limited evidence to suggest the resulting controversy had been satisfactorily resolved, the Commission nevertheless expanded the Centre’s original remit. No longer charged with monitoring only “racism, xenophobia and related intolerance” (e.g., antisemitism), the Centre was renamed the Fundamental Rights Agency and its responsibilities now include responsibility for all of the “thematic areas” covered by the EU’s Charter for Fundamental Rights. 13 Trigano, “French Anti-Semitism,” 6. 14 Populism has been best defined by Cass Mudde as a “thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté général (general will) of the people.” Populism is, thus, opposed to liberalism and pluralism. See “The Populist Zeitgeist,” Government and Opposition 4 (2004): 541–63 (543). While the economic and financial crises affecting Europeans since 2008 cannot be discounted, the popularity of populist parties in prosperous states (like Denmark and Sweden) demonstrates that other factors are at play. 15 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism (Vienna: European Commission, 2013), http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2013-discrimination-hate-crime-against-jews-eu-member-states_en.pdf. The FRA’s second survey (in 2018) repeated the deep fears of the Jewish community six years earlier, thus findings from 2012 remain pertinent to this discussion. 16 FRA, Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews, 20. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 36. 19 Bethany Bell, “Antisemitism ‘On the Rise’ Say Europe’s Jews,” BBC News Europe, 8 November 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24857207. 20 Arutz Sheva Staff, “2015 Aliyah to Top 30,000 Jews,” Israel National News, 16 October 2015, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201982#.VnbiZkv_RNg. 21 Jeffrey Goldberg, “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?,” The Atlantic, April 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-toleave-europe/386279/.

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis 22 47% said that nothing would have changed by reporting antisemitism, a finding that suggests that respondents recognized the public’s general acceptance of their abuse; see FRA, Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews, 51. 23 Ibid., 13. 24 FRA, “Embedding Fundamental Rights in the Security Agenda,” 11 February 2015, http:// fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2015/embedding-fundamental-rights-security-agenda. 25 FRA, “FRA Speaks on Cooperation with Council of Europe in the Wake of Paris Attacks,” 23 January 2015, http://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2015/fra-speaks-cooperation-council-europe-wake-paris-attacks (italics original). 26 FRA, “Embedding Fundamental Rights.” 27 “Charlie Hebdo Attack: Hollande Says Muslims ‘Victims of Fanaticism,’” BBC News, 15 January 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30830498. 28 Shmuel Trigano, “Paris—January 11: A Disturbing Event,” New English Review, April 2015, http://www.newenglishreview.org/Shmuel_Trigano/Paris_-_January_11:_A_Disturbing_Event/. Trigano explains elsewhere that reflexive warnings after each Islamist attack about “a threat to Muslims erases the recognition of the hatred to which Islamic texts and doctrines have given rise, as expressed by the terrorists themselves.” There is, he concludes, “a long history of Islamic anti-Judaism, and it is the reason for the attacks against Jews.” See also his “French Anti-Semitism,” 5. 29 FRA, “FRA Mourns Deaths in Copenhagen, an Attack on the Rights to Life, Dignity and Freedom of Expression,” 16 February 2015, http://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2015/framourns-deaths-copenhagen-attack-rights-life-dignity-and-freedom-expression. 30 Eve Garrard, “Anti-Judaism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism,” Fathom, Autumn 2014, http:// fathomjournal.org/anti-judaism-anti-zionism-antisemitism/. 31 Yair Rosenberg, “Swedish Public Radio Asks: Are Jews Responsible for Anti-Semitism?” Tablet Magazine, 18 February 2015, http://tabletmag.com/scroll/189064/swedish-public-radio-asks-are-jews-responsible-for-anti-semitism. This link contains a video of the original interview. 32 Rosenberg, “Swedish Public Radio Asks.” 33 Daniel Goldhagen, The Devil that Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism (New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013), 177. 34 In Trigano, “French Anti-Semitism,” 5. 35 In R. Amy Elman, The European Union, Antisemitism and the Politics of Denial (Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 92. Whether the minister proved politically myopic or too deluded to denouce the death threats, we cannot know. What we do know, however, is the dangerous precedent established in denying Sweden’s Jews access to proper legal recourse. 36 Robert S. Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), 538. 37 In Goldberg, “Is It Time?” 38 European Union Monitoring Centre, Working Definition of Antisemitism, Vienna, 2005. Kenneth L. Marcus offers a compelling analysis of this definition and others in his latest book. After noting that the US State Department’s definition is deeply indebted to the 2005 working definition, he mentions the latter’s “critical amendation.” It reads: “‘the killing or

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Responding to Antisemitism harming of Jews’ whether it is in the name of a radical ideology or not” (italics original). See The Definition of Antisemitism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), 198. 39 FRA, Antisemitism: Summary Overview of the Situation in the European Union 2001–2008, Vienna (2009), 24. Matthias Kuentzel argues for an entirely different perspective from those who “believe that … antisemitism results from the bloody conflicts in the region,” maintaining that “the bloody conflicts have resulted from that antisemitism, again and again.” See “Western Intellectual Attitudes towards Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim World,” paper delivered to The Bristol-Sheffield Hallam Colloquium on Contemporary Antisemitism, 16–18 September 2015, 3. 40 See FRA, Antisemitism, 68. 41 Ibid. 42 Meir Litvak and Ester Webman, From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009); Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-­ Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, trans. Colin Meade (New York, NY: Telos Press Publishing, 2007); Jeffrey Herf, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). 43 JTA, “EU Drops Its ‘Working Definition’ of Anti-Semitism,” Times of Israel, 5 December 2013, http://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-drops-its-working-definition-of-anti-semitism/. 44 The European Union Monitoring Centre’s Working Definition of Antisemitism is printed in Elman, European Union, Appendix, 141–2. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Still, Israel receives more than its fair share of criticism, a point evidenced by comparing casualties since World War II. Since then, 25 million people were killed in internal conflicts, of them 8,000 in the Israel–Palestinian conflict—ranking 46th in a list of victims. Nonetheless, the UN and other international groups have condemned Israel more than all the other nations combined. See Walter Laqueur, The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006), 8. 52 European Union Monitoring Centre’s Working Definition of Antisemitism in Elman, European Union, Appendix, 141–2. 53 Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal, 1. 54 For instance, when the US Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, in response to rising antisemitism worldwide, it mandated a one-time investigation into antisemitic acts. That report’s authors then adopted the EUMC’s working definition for their research (https://www.state.gov/s/rga/resources/267538.htm), as did Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism two years later (see http://www. antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/All-Party-Parliamentary-Inquiry-into-Antisemitism-REPORT.pdf, 5). More recently, when the Australian Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) established itself in 2012 to combat cyber hate, they too cited the EUMC’s definition (see http://ohpi.org.au/working-definition-of-antisemitism/).

Evading Terror: The European Union’s Response to Lethal Antisemitis 55 In 2015, the EU’s new point person for antisemitism acknowledged that the “main dissent” to defining antisemitism “revolves around the question of manifestations against the State of Israel.” In that connection, she insisted that “when the right of the existence of Israel is doubted—that is a clear case [of antisemitism].” What she may either not grasp or not wish to note is that antisemites may support the existence of Israel, while denying it is a “Jewish state.” See Raphael Ahren, “Interview: EU Mulls Adopting Definition of Jew Hatred, Says New Anti-Semitism Czar,” Times of Israel, 22 December 2015, http://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-mulls-adopting-definition-of-jew-hatred-says-newanti-semitism-czar/. 56 Ben White, “Israel Lobby Uses the Discredited Anti-Semitism Definition to Muzzle Debate,” Electronic Intifada, 28 September 2012, http://electronicintifada.net/content/ israel-lobby-uses-discredited-anti-semitism-definition-muzzle-debate/11716. 57 White, “Israel Lobby Uses the Discredited Anti-Semitism Definition.” 58 Ben White, “Pro-Israel Groups Keen to Revive Discredited Anti-Semitism Definition,” Electronic Intifada, 10 November 2013, http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ben-white/pro-­ israel-groups-keen-revive-discredited-anti-semitism-definition. Even after the definition’s withdrawal, the threat of its reinstatement inspired this article. 59 Michael Banton, International Action against Racial Discrimination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 53. Given the working definition’s recognition of the antisemitic character of this claim (see below), it is clear that “anti-Zionists” would oppose it. 60 Herb Keinon, “EU ‘Regrets’ Israeli Snub of Racism Conference,” Jerusalem Post, 21 May 2006, http://www.jpost.com/Israel/EU-regrets-Israeli-snub-of-racism-conference. 61 Austrian Presidency and the European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC), Racism, Xenophobia and the Media: Towards Respect and Understanding of all Religions and Cultures, Conference Report and Documentation, 2006, http://www.miramedia.nl/media/files/ Racism%20and%20Media%20Seminar_REPORT.pdf, 3. 62 Austrian Presidency, “EU Statement on the Tolerance and Implementation Meeting on Promoting Inter-Cultural, Inter-Religious and Inter-Ethnic Understanding” (Almaty, 2006), http://www.osce.org/cio/19440?download=true, point 9. 63 Insofar as antisemitism was the creation of Europe’s intellectual elite, this is hardly surprising. The FRA’s reluctance to confront professors and/or students for their antisemitism was evident in their summary of the perpetrators it chose to identify. The 2015 overview of data on antisemitism states, “The main perpetrators of antisemitic incidents are neo-Nazis, sympathizers of the far right and far left, Muslim fundamentalists and the younger generation, including school children.” It continues, “There are also incidents of public antisemitic discourse on university campuses.” Notably, no one is specifically identified as responsible for that campus discourse. See Agency for Fundamental Rights, Antisemitism: Overview, 11. 64 Quoted in Marcus, Definition, 114. 65 Marcus, Definition, 114. 66 In Sam Sokol, “EU Rights Conference to Give Equal Billing to Anti-Semitism and Anti-Muslim Hatred,” Jerusalem Post, 5 April 2015, http://www.jpost.com/International/ EU-rights-conference-to-give-equal-billing-to-anti-Semitism-anti-Muslim-hatred-396235. 67 Sokol, “EU Rights Conference.”

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Responding to Antisemitism 68 European Commission, “Opening Remarks of Frans Timmermans at the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights,” 1 October 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_ SPEECH-15-5754_en.htm. 69 Cited in Kenneth Waltzer, “Reflections on Contemporary Anti-Semitism in Europe,” Fathom, Summer 2015, http://fathomjournal.org/reflections-on-contemporary-anti-semitism-in-europe/. 70 Robert S. Wistrich, “Summer in Paris,” Mosaic Magazine, 5 October 2014. 71 See Geoffrey Harris, “The Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe—A Sign of the Times or an Enemy within the Gates,” unpublished paper presented to the EUSA Biennial Conference, Boston, 5–7 March 2015. 72 S. Samuels, “What Began with the Jews Has Crossed a New Threshold for Europe,” Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2015, http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/What-began-with-theJews-has-crossed-a-new-threshold-for-Europe-434290. 73 Quoted in Rukmini Calimachi, Katrin Benhold, and Laure Fourquet, “A Plot Honed by Trial and Error,” New York Times, 1 December 2015, A12. Soon after, the Commission recognized that “many of the perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks, starting from Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, stayed or were trained abroad in the areas controlled by the terrorist organisations.” It continued that “detecting and preventing travel to and from conflict zones [with the intention to support terrorist organizations] has been identified as a priority already in 2014” (European Commission, “Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council amending Regulation No 562/2006 (EC) as Regards the Reinforcement of Checks against relevant Databases at External Borders,” COM (2015) 670 final, 15.12. 2015, para. 5. Thus, in 2017, the EU adopted a regulation obliging its Member States to implement systematic checks on all persons crossing Europe’s external borders.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Elman, R. Amy. The European Union, Antisemitism and the Politics of Denial. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism. Vienna: European Commission, 2013, http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2013-discrimination-hate-crimeagainst-jews-eu-member-states_en.pdf.  Goldberg, Jeffrey. “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” The Atlantic, April 2015, http:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/. Goldhagen, Daniel. The Devil that Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013. Wistrich, Robert S. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. New York, NY: Random House, 2010. Wistrich, Robert S. From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012.

CHAPTER 6

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism ALAN JOHNSON

In my youth I was a Maoist, a political tendency prone to crude anti-­ intellectualism. Norman Finkelstein.1 It’s long past time that these antisemitism mongers crawled back into their sewer. Norman Finkelstein, speaking in 2015.2

INTRODUCTION: THE MUTATIONS OF ANTISEMITISM

T

he concept of a “new antisemitism” directs our attention to some of the ways in which some people talk about Israel, Israelis, and “Zionism,” suggesting that these ways have left the terrain of “criticism of Israeli policy” and become something much darker. The concept is concerned to distinguish between legitimate criticism of that policy (most obviously, of the occupation of the territories, the settlement project, the treatment of minorities in Israel, and the degree of force Israel uses to restore deterrence against Hamas rockets) and an essentializing, demonizing and dehumanizing discourse that bends the meaning of Israel and Zionism (and most Jews) out of shape until they are fit receptacles for the tropes, images, and ideas of classical antisemitism. The concept alerts us to antisemitism’s tendency to shape-shift through history. And to the possibility that since the creation of a Jewish state, in some quarters, what the demonized and essentialized “Jew” once was, demonized and essentialized Israel now is: malevolent in its very nature, all-controlling, full of blood lust, and the obstacle to a better, purer, and more spiritual world. The new antisemitism, which might also be called antisemitic anti-­ Zionism, has three components: a political program to abolish the Jewish

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homeland, a discourse to demonize it, and a movement to make it a global pariah state. The old antisemitism—which has not gone away but comingles with the new form—believed “the Jew is our Misfortune.” The new antisemitism proclaims “the Zionist is our misfortune.” The old antisemitism wanted to make the world Judenrein, free of Jews. The new antisemitism wants to make the world Judenstaatrein, free of the Jewish state, which all but a sliver of world Jewry either lives in or treats as a vitally important part of their identity. We have no right to be disbelieving of this development. After all, antisemitism has never really been about the Jews but about the need of some non-Jews to scapegoat Jews. As those needs have changed throughout history, the physiognomy of antisemitism has also changed. David Nirenberg, in his seminal 2013 work, Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking, showed in exhaustive detail that the supposed content of Jewish malevolence changes with the times and the ideological preoccupations of the antisemites—so that in a religious period Jews are God-killers and in a period dominated by supposed race science Jews are racial degenerates.3 For the ethnic nationalist the Jew is the rootless cosmopolitan dissolving the unity of the Volk, while for the Enlightenment liberal the Jew is the clannish and obscurantist particularist. Some who fear communism have seen the Jew as the world-controlling arch-Bolshevik, while some who have sought to abolish capitalism have seen the Jew as the world-controlling arch-capitalist. As Ben Gidley has noted, this protean quality of antisemitism is why it has always been promiscuous in the language games through which it expressed itself and the modes of justification it employs to legitimate itself, often advancing through ever-changing euphemisms that mark out the Jew for destruction.4 Today, the euphemism is “Zionist.” In an era of postcolonialism, “the Jew” is Israel, no longer a nation-state like other nation-states, guilty (or not) of particular human rights abuses, but much more: a Racist-Imperialist-­ApartheidNazi-Baby Killing-Genocidal State, whose all-powerful lobby controls global media, politics, and finance, and whose destruction will finally clear the way for world peace. This Israel is an antisemitic projection, anathematized in a manner eerily similar to the ways in which “the Jew” was anathematized in previous manifestations of antisemitism: as a malignity to be eradicated, routinely compared to the ultimate evil, the Nazis; as a cosmically powerful force, able to bend global politics, media, and finance to its will; as an essentially violent force, a blood-lust state, a “baby killer” state, seeking to start wars and send Gentile boys off to fight them; as a conspiracy against the Gentile, its power hidden, operating in the shadows and by pulling the strings of the “dumb goys.”

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

When Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said of Israel in 2014 that “this barbaric wolf-like and infanticidal regime, which spares no crime, has no cure but to be annihilated,” it should be clear that we are not listening to “criticism of Israel” but rather to the new antisemitism.5 But it is not clear. The reality of this latest mutation of antisemitism is denied by some, mostly on the liberal and academic left, who refuse to engage with either its day-to-day expressions or with the large scholarly literature about its manifold historical roots, several ideological tributaries, and its multiple contemporary modes and discursive forms.6 Instead, the deniers claim that the new antisemitism is nothing but a Zionist fabrication, a politicised and manipulated thing, a club wielded instrumentally, with malice aforethought, by bullying Jews for Jewish ends. One of the leading voices in this school of “new antisemitism denial” is the writer and polemicist Norman Finkelstein.7 It has been suggested that campus activists in America are influenced most by him and Noam Chomsky.8 This chapter picks up the threads of a debate between the author and Finkelstein that took place in London in 2015, during which he mocked the entire idea of a new antisemitism as “non-existent, pseudo and contrived,” and afterwards attacked this author as a “stupid goy” on social media.9 My hope is that this short critique will encourage readers to question the merits of Finkelstein’s intellectual police action and engage with the concept of the new antisemitism.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN VERSUS THE “HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY” To plumb the gist of Finkelstein’s new antisemitism denial, the central text of which is his 2005 book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, we must begin with Finkelstein’s controversial bestseller entitled The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, published in 2000. For Finkelstein, the rise of Holocaust memory in Western culture since the late 1960s took place, not because of a welcome and overdue effort to come to terms with the Shoah, but due to a deliberate effort by ­Zionists and their allies to create an “ideological weapon to delegitimise criticism of Israel,” which he dubs the “Holocaust Industry.”10 And for Finkelstein, the new antisemitism is only “a variant of this Holocaust card.”11 His argument about the “Holocaust Industry” went thus: for two decades after World War II no one in America, not even the Jews, paid that much attention to the Holocaust or Israel.12 American Jews were fearful of the dual loyalty charge and, anyway, were too busy “making it.” Besides, the West Germans were

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now our Cold War allies. In the era of McCarthyism, why risk being seen as serving Communist ends by harping on about what our new friends did back then? In short, “Israel didn’t figure in American life … it never came up.”13 Everything changed, however, when Israel won the Six Day War in 1967, inflicting defeat on a Cold War adversary of the US in an oil-rich region. ­Jewish-American identification with Israel was embraced as their status in America was transformed. With Jewish warriors now fighting and winning America’s wars in the Middle East, people welcomed the super-loyalty of ­Jewish-Americans, rather than worrying about their supposed dual-loyalty. However, there was a problem in that the international community was pressuring Israel to leave the occupied territories. So, in response, and with relative ease, Israel and its apologists weaponised Jewish suffering by creating the “Holocaust Industry.” Finkelstein’s thesis really is that crude. The Nazi genocide happened, but the promotion of “The Holocaust” was a stage show, a “theatrical” designed to shut up Israel’s critics. The “huge resources and power of the American Jewish community” was poured into this production. Jewish ­Americans, and Israel apologists everywhere became “agencies for promoting … H ­ olocaust mania.”14 The “Holocaust Industry,” claimed Finkelstein, was created for a “very specific, calculated, political purpose”—to morally blackmail the non-Jewish world. “If no one in the history of humanity suffered the way Jews suffered,” he observed, “then ordinary standards of right and wrong shouldn’t be applied to them,” including in the Palestinian territories.15 In addition, the book accused the “Industry” of “extorting” Swiss banks by overstating the number of survivors to increase compensation payments.16

ENZO TRAVERSO ON NORMAN FINKELSTEIN’S THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY In 2003, as a member of the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism, I invited Enzo Traverso, the Italian intellectual historian and author of Understanding the Nazi Genocide: Marxism after Auschwitz, to review Finkelstein’s book. Traverso took his critical distance, to put it mildly.17 Of Finkelstein’s claims about Holocaust compensation payments, Traverso judged the book guilty of lumping together the Jewish Claims Conference, about which “most” of his points are “probably correct,” and the national commissions that were established in Europe which were based on “completely different ethical and political rules” and which “aimed to establish the truth and

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

make amends for justice, not to seek profit.” Traverso noted that Finkelstein “takes the side of Swiss banks, portraying them as victims of a Jewish ‘racket.’” In effect, he had issued “an absolution and whitewash” by portraying the banks as “victims, even though they were the first to practice extortions and … not against powerful economic institutions … but a persecuted community, just before and during its extermination!”18 Traverso didn’t stop there. Finkelstein’s denunciatory zeal, he observed, was not “circumscribed and contextualised” but was a “simplistic, sectarian, polemical and provocative” form of argumentation. His writing “often seems to parody, in a very unpleasant way, the stereotype of a once-flourishing anti-­Semitic literature.” The very title of Finkelstein’s book, he pointed out, “recall[ed] the old anti-Semitic myth of a ‘Jewish Conspiracy,’” observing that the book was welcomed in Berlin by “an enthusiastic public of nationalists.”19 Traverso noted “the simplistic and unilateral character” of Finkelstein’s claim that the “Holocaust Industry” was a plot to fend off criticism of Israel. Finkelstein had failed to reconstitute the complex “itinerary of the Judeocide’s collective remembrance within American society.” Instead, he had just trashed the very idea of collective memory and substituted “a conspiratorial vision of history” in order to explain the rising salience of Holocaust remembrance in the culture. In doing so, he had ignored several research paths, each with an impressive literature, that had explained the rising importance of the Holocaust in Western culture in various ways: “the return of repressed memory,” the “age of the witness,” “the birth of a particularist ethos among American Jews,” and a “generational shift in Germany and Europe.” All were “unworthy in Finkelstein’s eyes.” Hence, in lieu of a genuine historical analysis, we find only a gross simplicity verging on a conspiracy theory to account for the increased attention given to the Shoah—“an alliance between US imperialism and the State of Israel, with the support of American Jewish elites.”20 Traverso found repulsive Finkelstein’s claim that Holocaust representations in books, poems, plays, paintings, and films were nought but “products of a propaganda machine.” What of the works of “Andre Schwartz-Barth, Primo Levi, Jean Amery, Ruth Kluger, Imre Ketez and Victor Klemperer?” Traverso demanded to know. He was shocked that Finkelstein “seems indifferent” to the fact that many expressions of Holocaust memory have been “a powerful motor for the antifascist, anti-colonialist and antiracist struggles of several generations.”21 Traverso’s summary judgement of Finkelstein’s book was damning: a “caricatural simplification of the historical process.”22

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NORMAN FINKELSTEIN VERSUS “THE NEW ANTISEMITISM SCAM” Most of the above criticisms also apply to Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, the book Finkelstein offered in 2005 as a follow-on to The Holocaust Industry. To that second volume I now turn. His argument is essentially that the concept of a new antisemitism is nothing but a “variant” of the “Holocaust card.” Playing the card has been simple enough for the Zionists: “A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a ‘new anti-Semitism’ is upon us.”23 His argument proceeds as a triple unmasking: of the agencies that promote the fraud of the new antisemitism, of the motivations of the fraudsters, and of the components that make up the fraud. The chapter will now examine Finkelstein’s claims about all three.

Agencies Finkelstein asks who has “foisted the new antisemitism on the international agenda”? His answer: not “honest and decent people” with “ordinary moral values” but Israel’s apologists.24 He indicts Jewish “impresarios” such as former ADL director Abraham Foxman and Jewish “ancient divas” like the novelist Cynthia Ozick for creating “the new antisemitism scam” with the backing of “well-heeled ‘pro’ Israel organisations and foundations”—the “de facto agents of a foreign government”—supported by “the Bush administration and Israel.”25 Everybody is in on this scam! From the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the left-wing veteran Todd Gitlin; from the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to the National Executive Committee of the UK Labour Party; from successive US administrations to those US university presidents that are strapped for cash; from “entrepreneurial black professors” like Henry Louis Gates Jr.26 to the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, “a hack who regularly plays the antisemitism card;”27 from all the “organisations directly or indirectly linked to Israel or having a material stake in inflating the findings of antisemitism”28 to “stupid Goys” such as the present author.29

Motivations Why have Israel’s apologists invented the new antisemitism? To “taint any criticism of Israel as motivated by antisemitism” and to “turn Israel (and Jews) not Palestinians, into the victim.”30 Decent moral people wishing to oppose the occupation are faced with a conspiracy by tricky Zionists to “cry wolf” in order to shut

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

them up.31 A “smear campaign”32 has been designed “not to fight antisemitism but rather to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunise Israel against criticism.”33 It is all a “sham,” designed to “whip up hysteria” and to function as a “club … to assail Israel’s critics” by portraying those critics as “classical Jew-haters.”34 In short, the game is “political blackmail.”35 That assertion, endlessly repeated, is as far as Finkelstein’s analysis of the motivations of the fraudsters goes.

Components And how does the new antisemitism fraud work? How does it manage to “silence … media,” “muzzle academic freedom,” and “undermine the most basic principles of human rights”?36 According to Finkelstein, there are three components: “exaggeration and fabrication; mislabelling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy; and the unjustified yet predictable ‘spillover’ from criticism of Israel to Jews generally.”37

Component 1: “Exaggeration and Fabrication” Finkelstein argues that “most” claims of antisemitism “prove on investigation to be wildly overblown.”38 He thinks they are “trivial, nebulous, exaggerated and a lot just fabricated.”39 David Hirsh, a leading UK scholar of contemporary antisemitism, accepts that “the issue of antisemitism is certainly sometimes raised in an unjustified way, and may even be raised in bad faith,” noting as an example those on the Israeli right who characterize advocates of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as antisemitic.40 Our responsibility (at once analytical, political and moral) is to make a good-faith effort to distinguish between times when exaggeration or falsification is happening and times when it is not.41 But ­Finkelstein spurns this labor of distinction: “the hysteria over a new antisemitism hasn’t anything to do with fighting bigotry—and everything to do with stifling criticism of Israel.”42 Hirsh has further observed that the typical form of the denial of the new antisemitism is the “ad hominem attack which leaves the substance of the question at issue unaddressed.”43 To be sure, Finkelstein’s work is replete with that kind of thing. He smears the global campaign in the 1980s to free Soviet Jewry as a plot designed to “vilify the Soviet Union;”44 he questions the mental health, as well as the good-faith, of those who claim to see a new antisemitism;45 he dismissed the 2006 UK All-Party Parliamentary Report into Antisemitism because its author, Dennis Macshane MP, is a “notorious Israeli Firster;”46 he attacked Jonathan Freedland, the widely respected Guardian journalist, and

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critic of Israeli policy, as a “dull-witted creep;”47 he avers that all the “antisemitism mongers should crawl back into their sewers; ” and so on. Closely related to his love of the ad hominem is Finkelstein’s addiction to what Freud called “the tendentious joke.” As opposed to the “innocent joke” that depends on verbal dexterity, the tendentious joke depends on the indirect expression of hostility or obscenity and is a very serious thing because it makes possible “the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way.”48 After posting a map on his website that suggested that Israel and Israelis should be transferred en masse to the USA, Finkelstein said that it was “funny.” Another favorite joke is that his sister got him onto Netflix only for him to discover that “every third movie is about the Holocaust.” Although Netflix offers around 2,500 movies, all he found was “Holocaust, Holocaust, Holocaust! Crazy!”49 Another favorite is this: “To quote Gloria Gaynor’s inspirational refrain, Jews ‘will survive’ this onslaught of nonexistent, pseudo and contrived anti-Semitism.”50 Similarly, Finkelstein put on a political stand-up routine when I debated him about the new antisemitism in March 2015. To a few hundred students he told a rolling “gag” about the 2014–2015 YouGov poll of antisemitic attitudes in the United Kingdom. His “punch line” was that agreement to statements about Jews can’t be an indicator of antisemitism if those statement are … true. Or again, Finkelstein told the students that the 17% of people who agreed with the statement “Jews think they are better than other people” are not antisemitic because Jews do think that. Between “the spectacular secular success of Jews in the Western world, and their theological chosen-ness, most Jews believe in their group’s superiority.”51 Likewise, the 17 percent who agreed that “Jews have too much power in the media” are not antisemitic because Jews are over-represented in the media and they do use that over-representation for Jewish ends. For example, it is the over-representation of Jews in Hollywood that leads to the “media’s obsessive focus on the Holocaust.”52 “My impression is that every third film available for download, even in romantic comedies, seems to be about the Holocaust,” he says, to laughter, asking his audiences, “Who can seriously believe that the pro-Jewish bias of the corporate media has nothing whatever to do with the influential Jewish presence at all levels of it?”53 Of the 13 percent who agreed that “Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy,” Finkelstein said there must be something wrong with the mental faculties of the 87 percent who didn’t agree. To more laughter, he asks, “doesn’t every sane person think that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust?”54

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

Taboos fell like nine pins that night. “Jews are tapped into the networks of power and privilege,” he said, and are “the richest ethnic group in the United States” and “if you marry a Jew, it opens doors.” If some Jews faced a little stigma, so what? Such stigma is “socially inconsequential,” he reassured the hall. It is more socially consequential to be “short, fat, bald or ugly than to be J­ ewish,” he said, to more laughs. “Look,” he added, “most people carry on in life, bearing these stigmas. It’s called life. Get used to it.” (Sitting next to Finkelstein that evening, I was struck by the fact that he had not mentioned to the students that Jews had been singled out for murder by Islamists two months earlier in Paris, as well as in Copenhagen only a month before. When I pointed this out, I thought he looked uncomfortable.) So blasé was Finkelstein during the debate that a press officer from the Stop the War coalition, not a group known to be friendly to Israel, stood up and objected: “Hold on, we do need to take antisemitism seriously!” And there lies a defining quality of Finkelstein’s writings and speeches—an adamant refusal to take contemporary antisemitism seriously.55 Does he think that the leadership of the Iranian regime, with its Holocaust Denial cartoon competitions and its call for Israel to be wiped off the map, is antisemitic? No, though “it might be true that Iran’s leadership has directed inflammatory (if ambiguous) rhetoric at Israel.”56 How about parts of the Far Left? It doesn’t matter if they are antisemitic because “their combined constituency could have comfortably fit [sic] into a telephone booth.”57 The Far Right? There are a few boneheads but what Finkelstein is most concerned to point out is that Anti-Defamation League (ADL) director Abraham Foxman only included them in his book about the new antisemitism because he needed “standard props, like chapters on rightwing loonies.”58 Can the new antisemitism be found in any parts of the US black community, perhaps among people under the influence of Louis F ­ arrakhan’s Nation of Islam? Again, no. It is only “class conflict … a lack of lockstep support for Israel … [and] an ugly just barely repressed, racism among many Jews” that explains the hostility between the communities, nothing else.59 Is there a resurgence of antisemitism in Germany? No. Only a ridiculous and “never-­ending German passion play.”60 How about Hamas? Well, their record is “ambiguous and ambivalent.”61 Hezbollah? “I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians.”62 Should Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, be suspended from the UK Labour Party for his comments on Hitler and “the Zionists”?63 No. Maybe ­Livingstone “wasn’t precise enough, and lacked nuance” but he was right about the “common ground” and “degree of ideological affinity” between Zionists

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and Nazis.64 And anyway, the entire antisemitism scandal in the UK Labour Party is “transparently a smear campaign.”65 About this latter claim John Rose, a fiercely anti-Israeli writer from the Socialist Workers Party, admonished Finkelstein: “there can be no ‘common ground’ or any ‘degree of ideological affinity’ between the master race and the satanic race it intends to exterminate, except in the literal sense of a cat and mouse game played on common ground.”66 When Finkelstein’s refusal to take actually existing antisemitism seriously is combined with his relentless and effective public speaking, the effect is to change the terms of discussion amongst his audiences. About the 54% of US Jewish college students who said in 2013–2014 that they had personally experienced or witnessed antisemitism, Finkelstein expresses his contempt: the finding is a “tasteless joke.” To the laughter of his audience, he quips that these ­students have not arrived at “Kristallnacht, let alone Auschwitz.” As for the Jewish students who said they had received antisemitic emails, he is incredulous: “you get an email that is antisemitic and the sky is falling? I wish someone would vet my email and I still feel safe (laughter).” The truth he teaches is that once “Jewish hypersensitivity” is discounted, decent people must admit that “antisemitism has been vanquished on college campuses.”67

Component 2: “Mislabelling of Legitimate Criticism of Israeli Policy” The second component of the antisemitism scam, according to Finkelstein, is the mislabelling of perfectly legitimate criticisms of the state of Israel as “­antisemitic.”68 The most thoroughgoing attempt to distinguish between legitimate criticisms of Israel and the new antisemitism is the Working Definition of Antisemitism produced by the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (now the Agency for Fundamental Rights, or FRA).69 The European Parliament, the UK College of Policing, and the US Department of State have adopted the EUMC Definition. In turn, the Definition has influenced the closely related International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which was adopted by the UK Government in 2017.70 The Definition is explicit that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic,” before going on to specify five ways in which hostility to Israel “could, taking into account the overall context”—a vital caveat that is often missed—“be a manifestation of antisemitism.” The EUMC Definition proposes that we consider it possible that “antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel” if discourse

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

about Israel, Israelis, Zionism and Zionists falls under one or more of the following five headings: • Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. • Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. • Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. • Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. • Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel. Finkelstein’s response has been to trash the EUMC Working Definition in one word—“nonsense.” “No serious person,” he has said, “could give them [i.e., the five examples of new antisemitism cited above] the time of day.”71 The failings identified in Finkelstein’s earlier book by Enzo Traverso are again visible in his response to the EUMC Working Definition. For example, we find once more a “caricatural simplification of the historical process” in the sense that he pays no attention to the ideological tributaries of the new ­antisemitism—the long tradition of left-wing antisemitism that began in the nineteenth century, denounced at the time by the German Social Democrat leader August Bebel as “the socialism of fools”; the decades long, heavily-funded, state-sponsored and globally influential antisemitic “anti-Zionist campaigns” organised by the Stalinist bloc from the 1940s to the 1980s; the profoundly antisemitic character of some parts of post-War Arab nationalist movements, especially Baathism; and to varying degrees, the antisemitism of the Islamist movements.72 Astonishingly, Finkelstein breezily swishes aside the three main drivers of the new antisemitism—the 1970s-era United Nations and its networks; the post-War Stalinist states; and Islamism. And he dismisses all three in three words: these are nought but “the usual bogeys” of the Israel lobby.73 And that is it; incuriosity is taken to its limit. As Traverso observed about his earlier book, by doing this Finkelstein again ignores the outputs of several scholarly research programmes. In place of that intellectual labor, Finkelstein offers his own conspiracy theory about the new antisemitism: the Zionists cooked it all up. He then makes the trite argument that the Nazi analogy cannot be antisemitic, as

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EUMC claims it might be (depending on context), because some Israelis have on occasion compared Saddam to Hitler, and so that would mean Israel itself is antisemitic.74 This argument is frankly pathetic, and little better than the playground retort “yeah well, you too!” Finkelstein defends the use of the Nazi analogy on the grounds that he was educated by his parents, both Holocaust survivors, to “always compare” and be willing to “gladly and generously make the imaginative leap.”75 But are we really looking at a generous imaginative leap when, for example, the events at Jenin in the West Bank in 2002, when 52 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military operation to stop terrorist attacks, of whom half were combatants, as well as 23 IDF soldiers, are routinely equivalenced to the events at the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940–1943, when approximately 300,000 Jews were murdered? Or when the Israeli Defence Forces are compared to the Nazi SS? Or when Mick Napier, chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, declares that “an accurate understanding of the Nazi Holocaust is essential to grasp modern Israeli savagery towards the Palestinian people”?76 No, in each case the function of the Nazi analogy is not to extend our sympathies by a generous act of comparison. It is to Jew-bait.77 At his most candid, Finkelstein admits that the Nazi analogy is about Jew-baiting and he defends it as such: “If you invoked that analogy, it shook Jews, it jolted them enough, that at least you got their attention.” There is a touch of pride in his own use of the Nazi analogy: “If you wanted to touch a nerve regarding Palestinian suffering, you had to make the analogy with the Nazis, because that was the only thing that resonated for Jews.” Finkelstein identifies with former London mayor Ken Livingstone: “I can understand his motivation, because I’m of roughly his generation. If he was ‘baiting,’ it was a reflexive throwback to the factional polemics in the 1970s–80s. … [T]hat’s how we used to fight this political battle: by dredging up those sordid chapters in Zionist history.”78 Finkelstein baits himself: “people like Abraham Foxman … resemble stereotypes straight out of Der Sturmer.”79 Jew-baiting, it seems, is a strictly tactical question; if it is judged a “distraction” today, well, it may prove useful again tomorrow.80 Finkelstein’s absolute dismissal of the fundamental EUMC claim that “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” can be an expression of antisemitism—“nonsense”—is a rejection of a blindingly obvious statement about the nature of racism. After dismissing the EUMC claim he then, contradictorily, says it is Israel’s fault when Jews outside Israel are held responsible for Israel’s actions or existence because Israel insists on

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

“­representing itself as the state of the Jewish people, thus collectively implicating Jews in its actions.”81 He evades the question posed by the EUMC, and this evasion is crucial to his treatment of the third form taken, in his view, by the new antisemitism fraud—“spillover.”

Component 3: “Spillover” According to Finkelstein, the third form in which a hysteria about a non-­existent new antisemitism is spread by tricky Zionists is through their cynical exploitation of the fact that criticism of Israel does sometimes “spillover” into an animus towards all Jews.82 Finkelstein seems not to be aware that in making this argument he is conceding one part of the case for the validity of the concept of the new antisemitism. Casually, after a sustained assault on a “circus” staged by “apologists” who belong in a “sewer,” and so on, he tells us that they have a point after all! For all his bluster, ad hominem attacks and tendentious jokes, it turns out that there is a new form of antisemitism, it is focused on the Jewish state, and it is practiced by—this mysterious actor appears for one sentence before disappearing, never to be seen again!—those “exploiting Israeli policy as a pretext to demonise Jews.”83 He even makes a normative claim about the new antisemitism—this spillover is “unjustified”—in the very act of dismissing the very concept of the new antisemitism.84 Of course, the new antisemitism is only marginally about an overreaction to “Israel’s repression.” Much more central to the phenomenon is a long-­ standing and ideologically grounded hostility to Israel’s existence. Finkelstein’s notion of “spillover” misses more or less everything we need to study about the intellectual roots, emotional charge and human impact of that knowing and systematic dehumanization and demonization of Israel, Israelis, and Zionists as a unique evil in the world, as Nazis, as cosmically powerful, as controlling the world’s media, banks, as the puppeteer running the “Jew.S.A.,” and so on. Finkelstein makes matters worse by focussing on the predictability of the spillover rather than the spillover itself. “When Muslim youths in Europe take [Netanhayu] at his word, and they exact revenge on those whom he claims to represent, it might not be right, but it’s not surprising either.” (In passing, note that weasel word “might”).85 And predictability can tip over into justification, as in his purely rhetorical question: “Should it really surprise us if the cruel occupation by a self-declared Jewish state engenders a generalised antipathy to Jews?”86 Indeed, Finkelstein comes close to justifying antisemitism, suggesting that not every manifestation of antisemitism is irrational. “Israel and its Jewish

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s­upporters themselves might be causing anti-Semitism,” he claims, “because Israel and its Jewish supporters are in the wrong.”87 He goes on: “Just as it’s too simple (and convenient) to label accusations of Jewish responsibility for Israeli policy anti-Semitic, so it’s too simple (and convenient) to label the notion of Jewish power anti-Semitic.” After all, Jews are “the wealthiest ethnic group in the US”88 and, since such a disproportionate number of Jews get into Ivy League universities in America, are not Jews the “beneficiaries of a reverse ­discrimination”?89

CONCLUSION So what, in summary, do we find in the work of Finkelstein? First, we find a refusal to make the most elementary analytical distinctions, as though the concept of a new antisemitism has nothing to do with fighting bigotry—and everything to do with stifling criticism of Israel; second, polemics with an ugly and sectarian mode of argument and a prose style that parodies a once-flourishing antisemitic literature; third, a love of the ad hominem attack which parades before the reader a collection of stupid goys, ancient divas, dull-witted creeps, impressarios, hacks, Israel-Firsters, and antisemitism mongers who should crawl back into their sewers but which leaves the substance of the question unaddressed; fourth, tendentious jokes trading in indirect expressions of hostility or obscenity; fifth, conspiracy theories that reduce the history of Holocaust memory to the machinations of the Zionist propaganda machine and contemporary forms of antisemitism to a public relations exercise; sixth, a caricatural simplification of the historical process instead of a careful reconstruction of the dynamics of either collective memory or protean hatreds; seventh, the normalization of antisemitism by repetition of negative tropes (i.e., Jews really do believe in their group’s superiority, talk too much about the Holocaust, use their over-representation in the media for Jewish ends, are tapped into networks of power and privilege, and should stop complaining about antisemitism since they have not arrived at “Kristallnacht, let alone Auschwitz”); eighth, assertions that it is too simple to say that accusations of Jewish responsibility for Israeli policy are antisemitic and too simple to say that accusations of Jewish power are antisemitic; and ninth, the recommendation that anyone who wants to really touch a Jewish nerve should make an analogy between Israel and the Nazis because that is the only thing that resonates with Jews. The late Eric Hobsbawm, the British Marxist historian and sharp critic of Israel, is a rather better guide to the dynamics of post-War antisemitism than

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism

Norman Finkelstein. In 1980 he asked this question: “Are we entering a new era of antisemitism?” His answer was that across huge tracts of the world antisemitism had never gone away. Yes, it was true that “for more than a generation in most countries containing large numbers of Jews, antisemitism has ceased to be a serious problem,”90 but it had survived in two major regions in the postWar years—“under Islam and, unfortunately, in some countries committed to an ideology which rejected racism, notably the Soviet Union.” Hobsbawm, a lifelong member of the Communist Party, pointed out that across Stalinist Eastern Europe, “antisemitism … was … tolerated and sometimes encouraged” after the Holocaust, albeit now dressed up as “anti-Zionism.”91 The polemicist Finkelstein may have dismissed all concerns about the Communist bloc and the Islamic world as nothing but “the usual bogeys” of the Israel lobby, but the historian identified them as the drivers of post-War antisemitism. In doing so, Hobsbawm points us towards a research agenda and a conversation that is not only studiously avoided by Finkelstein but smeared by him as a Zionist “circus.” Hobsbawm then explained why these malign ideas were now likely to grow in influence. There were reasons why the post-War years had been “unusually tolerant” for Jews and those reasons were now “losing force”: the twelve years of Hitler were becoming ancient history for those under the age of forty-five; the image of brave plucky Israel had not survived the era of Likud prime minister Menechem Begin; and the economic boom years were giving way to a slump. Hobsbawm concluded that in “times of insecurity … civility is on the retreat before barbarism” and warned that “civilisation looks as though it may again go into reverse in the matter of antisemitism.”92 And so it has proved. Perhaps the worst of Finkelstein is that almost four decades after Hobsbawm’s warning, with the antisemites now walking, and exploding themselves, amongst us, and with the need for a serious intellectual and practical response at a premium, he finds it appropriate to laugh and to wield his considerable influence telling everyone that it is time that the antisemitism mongers crawled back to their sewers.

NOTES   1 Norman Finkelstein, “Misadventures in the Class Struggle,” Norman G. Finkelstein blog, 8 October 2013, http://normanfinkelstein.com/2013/10/08/finkelstein-misadventuresin-the-class-struggle.   2 Jamie Stern-Weiner and Norman Finkelstein, “The American Jewish Scholar behind Labour’s ‘Antisemitism’ Scandal Breaks His Silence,” Open Democracy UK website, 3 May 2016,

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  3   4

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https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner-norman-finkelstein/americanjewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda. David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking (New York, W.W.Norton, 2013). Ben Gidley, “50 Days in the Summer: Gaza, Political Protest and Antisemitism in the UK,” Sub-report for the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, January 2015, https://files.graph.cool/cj3e6rg8y906h0104uh8bojao/cj4muda2r0015014568kz1fv5. Jerusalem Post staff, “Khamenei on Twitter: No Cure for Barbaric Israeli Regime But to be Annihilated,” Jerusalem Post, 9 November 2014, http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ Khamenei-on-Twitter-No-cure-for-barbaric-Israeli-regime-but-to-be-annihilated-381215. On the new antisemitism, see Steve Cohen, That’s Funny You Don’t Look Antisemitic (­London: Beyond the Pale Collective, 1984); Mitchell Cohen, “Does the Left Have a Zionism Problem? From the General to a Particular,” in Jews and Leftist Politics. Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism and Gender, ed. Jack Jacos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 00–00; Stan Crooke, “The Stalinist Roots of Left ‘Anti-Zionism,’” in Two Nations, Two States, Socialists and Israel/Palestine (London: Workers Liberty, 2001); Robert Fine and Philip Spencer, Antisemitism and the Left: On the Return of the Jewish Question (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017); Joel S. Fishman, “The Cold-War Origins of Contemporary Anti-Semitic Terminology,” Jerusalem Viewpoints 517 (May 2004): 2–16, http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp517.htm; Norman Geras, “Alibi Antisemitism,” Fathom Journal, Spring 2013, http://www.fathomjournal.org/policy-politics/alibi-antisemitism/; Ben Gidley, “The Politics of Defining Racism: The Case of Anti-Semitism in the University and College Union,” Dissent website, 26 May 2011, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/ the-politics-of-defining-racism-the-case-of-anti-semitism-in-the-university-and-collegeunion; David Hirsh, “Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections,” working paper, Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (Yale University, 2007), http://research.gold.ac.uk/2061/1/Hirsh_Yale_paper.pdf; David Hirsh, “Defining Antisemitism Down,” Fathom Journal, Winter 2013, http://fathomjournal.org/defining-antisemitism-down/; David Hirsh, “Hostility to Israel and Antisemitism: Toward a Sociological Approach,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 5 (2013), 1401–1422; Paul Iganski and Abe Sweiry, Understanding and Addressing The ‘Nazi card’: Intervening Against Antisemitic Discourse (London: The European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, 2009); Alan Johnson, “Intellectual Incitement: the Anti-Zionist Ideology and the Ant-Zionist Subject,” in The Case Against Boycotts of Israel, eds. Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm (Chicago, IL/New York, NY: MLA Members for Scholars Rights, 2015a); Alan Johnson, “The Left and the Jews: Time for a Rethink,” Fathom Journal, Autumn 2015, http:// fathomjournal.org/the-left-and-the-jews-time-for-a-rethink; Johnson, Alan. “Antisemitic Anti-Zionism: The Root of Labour’s Crisis: A Submission to the Labour Party Inquiry into Antisemitism and Other Forms of Racism,” Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre website, June 2016, http://www.bicom.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ Prof-Alan-­Johnson-Chakrabarti-Inquiry-submission-June-2016.pdf; Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Antisemitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Moishe Postone, “The Dualisms of Capitalist Modernity: Reflections on History, the Holocaust, and Antisemitism,” in Jews and Leftist Politics. Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism and

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism Gender, ed. Jack Jacobs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Alvin H. R ­ osenfeld, ed., ­Deciphering the New Antisemitism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015); ­Robert Wistrich, “Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16 (2004): 3–4, http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-wistrich-f04.htm; Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel (Nebraska, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012); Elhanan Yakira, Post-Zionism, Post-Holocaust. Three Essays on Denial, Forgetting and the Delegitimisation of Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).  7 Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000); Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).   8 Committee for Accuracy on Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), “Norman Finkelstein’s Fraudulent Scholarship” CAMERA website, 10 October 2005, http://www. camera.org/index.asp?x_article=985&x_context=8.   9 Alan Johnson, “I Debated with Norman Finkelstein at King’s College. It Was Dire, and Scary,” The Jewish Chronicle, 12 March 2015; https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/i-debated-with-norman-finkelstein-at-king-s-college-it-was-dire-and-scary-1.655800; “How Alan Johnson Responded to Norman Finkelstein at the King’s College Debate,” The Jewish Chronicle, 12 March 2015, https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/how-alan-johnson-­ responded-to-norman-finkelstein-at-king-s-college-israel-debate-1.65548. 10 Norman Finkelstein, “Norman Finkelstein: The New Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Industry,” talk at Communist University 2016 event, YouTube video, published 1 September 2016, 1:18, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPr8GYUK2EE&t=14s. 11 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 16. 12 Finkelstein, Holocaust Industry, 11–38. 13 Finkelstein, “Norman Finkelstein: The New Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Industry,” 38:30. 14 Ibid., 1:24:30. 15 Ibid., 1:17. 16 Finkelstein, Holocaust Industry, 89–120. 17 Hailed by Michael Lowy as “the most gifted historian of his generation,” Traverso is a trenchant critic of Zionism and the policies of the State of Israel. See Enzo Traverso, Understanding the Nazi Genocide: Marxism after Auschwitz (London: Pluto Press, 1991); The Marxists and the Jewish Question: The History of a Debate, 1843–1943 (New York, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994); Enzo Traverso, “Uses and Misuses of Memory: Notes on Peter Novick and Norman Finkelstein,” Historical Materialism 11 (2) (2013): 215–25. 18 Traverso, Uses and Misuses, 221. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 222. 21 Ibid., 222–3. Traverso also objected to Finkelstein’s publishing house exploiting “the nationalist and anti-Semitic controversy surrounding the book” (222). 22 Ibid., 222–3. 23 Norman Finkelstein, “Kill Arabs, Cry Antisemitism,” Norman G. Finkelstein blog, 12 ­September 2006, http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/09/12/kill-arabs-cry-anti-semitism/.

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Responding to Antisemitism 24 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 5–6. These two categories more or less exhaust the cast of characters in Finkelstein’s books. 25 Ibid., 61–2, 69. 26 Ibid., 70. 27 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 28 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 66. 29 Norman Finkelstein, “‘These are bad bad times’ = ‘this is good business for stupid goys like me—who, if we weren’t getting paid to defend Israel, would have to find a real job,’” Norman G. Finkelstein’s blog, 13 March 2015, http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/03/13/these-arebad-bad-times-this-is-good-business-for-stupid-goys-like-me-who-if-we-werent-getting-paidto-defend-israel-would-have-to-find-a-real-job/. Notoriously, in Mein Kampf, Hitler used the term “dumb goyim” to refer to gullible Gentiles who, thinking well of Jews, were manipulated by them. He wrote that “the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim;” see http://www.yadvashem.org/docs/extracts-from-mein-kampf.This internalised antisemitic trope is also found in Tom Paulin’s poem Killed in Crossfire. As well as using the Nazi analogy (“the Zionist SS”), Paulin’s piece depicts those Gentiles who were, in his view, taken in by Israeli propaganda as “dumb goys.” When his poem elicited a critical response, Paulin wrote a second poem disparaging “the usual cynical Goebbels stuff;” see further Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Antisemitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 236–40. 30 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 33. 31 Ibid., 66. 32 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 33 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 22 34 Ibid., 76, 23, 28, 32. 35 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 36 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 34, 70, 46. 37 Ibid., 16. 38 Ibid., 67. 39 Norman Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism,’” University of Winsconsin—Madison talk, 12 March 2015, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fNLM-5rTFdU&t=16s. Finkelstein’s own writings and speeches are replete with exaggerations. The separation barrier, he claims, “eventually … might also keep in Israel as much as half the West Bank” (Beyond Chutzpah, 51); in fact, according to the NGO B’Tselem, the barrier leaves “3 per cent of the West Bank territory cut off, west of the barrier” and, if completed as planned, “the barrier will isolate an additional area of more than 6 per cent of West Bank lands on the Israeli side;” see “Seperation Barrier,” B’Tselem website, 1 ­January 2011, http://www.btselem.org/topic/separation_barrier. He also claims that “American Jewish elites … are the main fomenters of antisemitism in the world today” (Beyond Chutzpah, 85) and he has argued that during the Holocaust “there was no resistance” (ibid). The emergence of the concept of a new antisemitism, he claims, “actually signals the open alignment of Israel and its supporters with the far right” (ibid., 59). More examples could be given. 40 David Hirsh, “Accusations of Malicious Intent in Debates about the Palestine-Israel Conflict and about Antisemitism: The Livingstone Formulation, ‘Playing the Antisemitism Card,’ and Contesting the Boundaries of Antiracist Discourse,” Transversal 1 (2010), 47–77.

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism 41 The current author’s attempt to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and the new antisemitism can be found at Alan Johnson, “Professor Alan Johnson on BBC Newsnight” BICOM (London, 2016), http://www.bicom.org.uk/analysis/professor-alan-johnson-newsnight/; Alan Johnson, Antisemitic Anti-Zionism; Alan Johnson, “Intellectual Incitement.” 42 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 76 (emphasis added). 43 Hirsh, Livingstone Formulation, 51. 44 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 25. 45 Ibid., 39, 40, 71. 46 Finkelstein, “Kill Arabs.” 47 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 48 Quoted in Anthony Storr, Freud: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 86. 49 Finkelstein, “Norman Finkelstein: The New Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Industry,” 1:25:20. 50 Norman Finkelstein, “Are Penelope Cruz and Javiar Bardem Anti-Semites? (Is There A New ‘New Anti-Semitism’? Part 4),” Byline website, 11 December 2015, https://www.byline. com/project/13/article/661. 51 Debate between Norman Finkelstein and Alan Johnson, Kings College London, 3 March 2015 (transcript in the current author’s possession). 52 Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism.’” 53 Beyond Chutzpah, 83. 54 Finkelstein and Johnson debate. 55 Ibid. 56 Norman Finkelstein, Old Wine, Broken Bottle. Ari Shavit’s Promised Land. (New York, NY: OR Books, 2014), 54. 57 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 25. This is another tendentious joke, of course. If we consider only one branch of the Far Left, in one period, in one country, Maoists such as Finkelstein in 1970s America, Max Elbaum estimates that there were many “thousands of individuals who passed through New Communism and now play influential roles in various social movements, especially in the trade unions and in communities of colour.” See Max Elbaum, “Maoism in the United States,” in Encyclopedia of the American Left, ed. Mary Jo-Buhle, Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/maoism-us.htm. 58 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 32. 59 Ibid., 29. 60 Ibid., 36, note 8. 61 Norman Finkelstein, “Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic? Part 1,” talk in Minnesota, 5 November 2006, YouTube video, 40:10, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbn8OJ7ju-s&t=15s. 62 Matt Hill, “This Time He Went Too Far: On Norman Finkelstein,” London Progressive Journal, 3 November 2011), http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/886/this-timehe-went-too-far-on-norman-finkelstein. In 2008, the Lebanese journalist Michael Young noted sardonically that “you know something has gone horribly wrong when the writer and

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Responding to Antisemitism a­ cademic Norman Finkelstein volunteers to interpret Hezbollah for you, before prefacing his comments with: ‘I don’t care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don’t know much about their politics, and anyhow, it’s irrelevant. I don’t live in Lebanon.’” See Michael Young, “Strange Love Affair between the Far Left and Hezbollah,” Al-Arabiya News, 1 March 2008, http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2008/03/01/46334.html. Finkelstein himself has talked giddily about the physical prowess of the Hezbollah fighters: “In 2006 [the IDF] were terrified of going hand to hand with the Party of God. … I met the Hezbollah fighters. The Israelis were right to be terrified. (Laughter). They are like Mr T, six foot five both in height and width! (Laughter). You can see the Israeli rockets just bounce off them! (Laughter). They couldn’t wait to fight the Israeli Army!” See again Finkelstein, “Norman Finkelstein: The New Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust Industry,” 1:06.01–44. 63 Jeffrey Herf, “Hitler and the Nazis Anti-Zionism,” Fathom Journal, Spring 2017, http:// fathomjournal.org/hitler-and-the-nazis-anti-zionism-2/; Paul Bogdanor, “Ken Livingstone and the Myth of Zionist ‘Collaboration’ with the Nazis,” Fathom Journal, Spring 2017, http://fathomjournal.org/ken-livingstone-and-the-myth-of-zionist-collaboration-withthe-nazis/. 64 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 65 Ibid. 66 John Rose, “A Response to Norman Finkelstein’s Interview,” Open Democracy UK website, 8 May 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/john-rose/response-to-norman-finkelstein-s-interview. 67 Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism,’” 36:00–38:59. 68 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 77–81. 69 European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism, “EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism,” http://www.antisem.eu/projects/eumc-working-definition-of-antisemitism. See also Hirsh, “Defining Antisemitism Down.” 70 Peter Walker, “UK Adopts Antisemitism Definition to Combat Hate Crime against Jews,” Guardian, 12 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/antisemitism-definition-government-combat-hate-crime-jews-israel. 71 Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism,’” 45:24–45:50. 72 See Johnson, Jews and the Left. 73 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 24. 74 Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism,’” 45:00. 75 Jamie Stern-Weiner, “Labour Antisemitism Witch-Hunt Turns on Leading Anti-­R acism Campaigner,” Norman G. Finkelstein’s blog, 9 May 2016, http://normanfinkelstein. com/2016/05/09/labour-antisemitism-witch-hunt-turns-on-leading-anti-racism-­ campaigner/. 76 Napier is quoted in Manfred Gerstenfeld, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses ( Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Anti-Defamation League, 2009), 222. 77 See Alan Johnson, “Antisemitism in the Guise of Anti-Nazism: Holocaust Inversion in the UK during Operation Protective Edge” in the forthcoming proceedings of the conference “Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Dynamics of Delegitimization” at the University of Indiana, 2–5 April 2016.

Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism 78 Stern-Weiner and Finkelstein, “American Jewish Scholar.” 79 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 83. 80 Ibid. 81 Norman Finkelstein, “Is It Anti-Semitic To Compare Israel With Nazism (Is There A New ‘New Anti-Semitism’? Part 7),” Byline website, 8 January 2016), https://www.byline.com/ project/13/article/710. 82 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 81–5. 83 Ibid., 16. 84 Ibid. 85 Quoted in Philip Weiss, “Israel Could Reduce Anti-Semitic Violence by Not Calling Itself the Jewish State, Finkelstein says,” Mondoweiss website, 12 April 2015, http://mondoweiss. net/2015/04/violence-calling-finkelstein/. 86 Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, 81. 87 Ibid., 78. 88 Ibid., 82. 89 Finkelstein, “Dr Norman Finkelstein on ‘The New Antisemitism,’” 40:35. 90 Eric Hobsbawm, “Are We Entering a New Era of Anti-Semitism?,” New Society, 11 December 1980, 502. 91 Hobsbawm, “Are We Entering a New Era of Anti-Semitism?,” 504. 92 Ibid., 505.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Fine, Robert, and Philip Spencer. Antisemitism and the Left: On the Return of the Jewish Question. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. Finkelstein, Norman. The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. ­London: Verso, 2000. Finkelstein, Norman. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Hirsh, David. Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections. Working paper. Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. Yale University, 2007. Johnson, Alan. “Antisemitic Anti-Zionism: The Root of Labour’s Crisis: A Submission to the Labour Party Inquiry into Antisemitism and Other Forms of Racism,” Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre website, June 2016, http://www.bicom.org.uk/wp-content/­ uploads/2016/06/Prof-Alan-Johnson-Chakrabarti-Inquiry-submission-June-2016.pdf. Rosenfeld, Alvin H., ed. Deciphering the New Antisemitism. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2015.

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CHAPTER 7

Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe: Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and Extremism DAVE RICH

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ate one night in June 2015, British Muslim activist, Asghar Bukhari, invited widespread ridicule when he claimed that “Zionists” had sneaked into his home and stolen one of his shoes. Writing on Facebook, Bukhari titled his post (in capital letters) “ARE ZIONISTS TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME,” and he then explained: Someone came into my home yesterday, while I was asleep. I dont know how they got in, but they didn’t break in - the only thing they took was one shoe. Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe – they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.    Of course I cant prove anything and thats part of the intimidation. The game is simple - to make me feel vulnerable in my own home. Its ­Psychological. Neither can I do much about it.    It is not the first time I have heard this happening. I have had another Muslim leader call me a year or so ago, in tears - she told me they had been coming into her house and re-arranging things - just to let her know they had been there.1

Asghar Bukhari is not a marginal figure. He appears regularly in mainstream media to discuss Muslim issues and his organization has a strong following,

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particularly amongst younger Muslims. Before too long his Facebook post was the subject of derisive articles in the national media and a trending Twitter hashtag, #MossadStoleMyShoe. Bukhari was widely mocked, but not all conspiracy theorists are so unfortunate. A 2008 poll of over 16,000 people in 17 countries across 4 continents found that majorities in only 9 of those countries believed that al-Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks. The USA government was held to be responsible by 36% of Turks, 30% of Mexicans, 27% of Palestinians, and 23% of Germans. Israel was blamed by 43% of Egyptians, 31% of Jordanians and 19% of Palestinians.2 Yet the conspiracy theory that Israel or the USA government was behind the 9/11 attacks is no more plausible than the theory that “Zionists” stole Asghar Bukhari’s missing shoe. Here in Britain, the first editorial column published by Muslim News following 9/11 suggested that Israel may have been responsible.3 A 2006 opinion poll found that 45% of British Muslims agreed “that 9/11 was a conspiracy by America and Israel.” Just 20% disagreed with that statement. The same poll found that 36% of British Muslims believed that Princess Diana “was killed to stop her marrying a Muslim” and only 29% agreed that the Holocaust happened “as history teaches” (2% said “it did not happen at all” and 17% believed that it happened but has been exaggerated; the rest hadn’t heard of the Holocaust or had no opinion).4 According to another poll in 2007, 24% of British Muslims thought the British government “was involved in some way” in the 7/7 suicide bombings on the London Underground.5 And in December 2005, a poll found that 46% of British Muslims agreed that the Jewish community in Britain “is in league with the Freemasons to control the media and politics.”6 It is undeniable that conspiracy theories play an important role in extremist ideologies and worldviews, and that they often involve antisemitism. Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller, in a research paper for the think tank Demos, surveyed the literature of 50 different extremist groups with a variety of political outlooks and found that conspiracy theories were “widely prevalent,” so much so that they concluded such theories “play an important social and functional role within extremism itself.”7 Jovan Byford argues that conspiracy theories are particularly appealing to “political cultures, societies and movements which feel in some way marginalised, threatened or victimised by the global political order”8—in other words, precisely those audiences that are also responsive to the grievance narratives that are the currency of political extremism.

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Bartlett and Miller’s survey of extremist literature also found that “the most commonly held conspiracy theory was variants on ZOG, the belief that Jews secretly control major world governments.”9 This is sadly no surprise. For approximately a century, from the middle of the nineteenth century until World War II, Jews played a dominant role in conspiracy theories that alleged a global plot for world domination. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most notorious, but far from the sole, example. And if it is true that Jews play a central role in conspiracy theories, it is also true that the concept of a conspiracy plays a central role in the history of antisemitism, from the allegation of Deicide, through the blood libels and well-poisoning charges of the Middle Ages, and now including much contemporary antisemitism. Overtly antisemitic conspiracy theories moved to the political margins after World War II, but they were succeeded by recognisable variants. The 1950s saw Stalinist antisemitism, framed in the language of Zionist conspiracies, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, while in the USA Senator Joseph ­McCarthy’s anti-communist campaign also bore unmistakable signs of antisemitism. At a more profound level, though, Byford argues that the sheer weight and prevalence of antisemitism in the history of conspiracy theories means that any post-War conspiracy theories that draw on pre-War themes inevitably carry antisemitic implications, even if they are not expressed in such terms. This can happen in three ways. Firstly, and in a general sense, relying on conspiracy theories to explain events opens the door to antisemitism, simply because of the close relationship between the two; if you explain world events through conspiracy theories, sooner or later Jews (or Zionists) will appear in your thinking. Secondly, and more specifically, when contemporary conspiracy theorists try to explain the historical origins of alleged conspiracies involving, for example, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergs or the American banking system, they inevitably draw on older antisemitic texts to do so, thereby directing new readers towards those sources.10 And thirdly, as Byford explains, The century-long dominance of conspiratorial antisemitism has left behind it a rich inventory of images, motifs and tropes about Jewish ­financial power and questionable loyalty, which although largely ­ostracised from polite ­conversation, nevertheless circulate in public discourse and colour the p­ erceptions of events involving Jews, whether in Israel or in the ­diaspora.11

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Some of the ideas in this inventory of antisemitic conspiracy theories are widely held indeed. A 2015 opinion poll in six West European countries found that 35% of respondents thought that Jews have too much power in the business world and in financial markets; 27% thought Jews have too much control over the USA Government; and 21% thought that Jews have too much control over the global media. The same poll found that Muslims in those same six countries were much more likely to hold such views; for example, almost a third of Muslims agreed that “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars,” compared with only 8% of the populations as a whole.12 Echoes of these antisemitic stereotypes can even sometimes be detected in the thinking of policy-makers at the highest levels. In the 1970s, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) conducted a secret research project to measure Zionist influence in the United States and Western Europe. The civil servants and diplomats involved in the project betrayed a fascination with the perceived power and wealth of organized Jewish communities, as well as a belief that their own ministers were incapable of withstanding pressure from their lobbying.13 A more recent example of how such ideas can appear in mainstream media coverage of Jews, Zionism and Israel was found in the 2009 Dispatches documentary by the British journalist Peter Oborne, entitled “Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby,” which claimed to expose the activities and influence of pro-Israel groups in British politics and media. The documentary did so by weaving together themes of financial wealth, political and media influence, secrecy and intimidation of opponents. There was no overt antisemitism and Oborne’s conclusion included the disclaimer that “we haven’t found anything even faintly resembling a conspiracy.” This misses the point that using such a framework to explain Jewish or Zionist political activism relies, however unwittingly, on ideas and common understandings drawn from preexisting antisemitic conspiracy theories in order to make sense to its audience. At the very least, it was inevitable that antisemites would, and did, interpret it as an endorsement of their own conspiracy theories about Jews.14 This inventory of images and tropes most commonly emerges as conspiratorial fragments in broader political arguments or statements. Former British National Party leader and ex-member of the European Parliament, Nick Griffin, and former Respect member of Parliament, George Galloway, both suggested there was a Zionist hand behind allegations that the Syrian army had used chemical weapons against its own people in 2013. Neither of them, however, went on to locate their allegation in a wider conspiracy theory.15 These fragments are most easily transmitted via the bite-sized currency of tweets,

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Facebook posts, and other social media comments. After the shooting of a Jewish security volunteer at a synagogue in Copenhagen in February 2015 by an ISIS sympathizer named Omar el-Hussein, the Middle East Monitor organization (which is generally sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood) posted an article from the mainstream media on its Facebook page that reported Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call for European Jews to move to Israel. The first comment written by a reader underneath this article on Middle East Monitor’s Facebook post stated that “it looks as if the attack on the synagogue in Denmark was staged so that the jews [sic] in Europe feel unsafe and emigrate to illigaly [sic] occupied land of Palestine.” This comment received 92 “likes,” more than double any other on the thread. The next comment, saying “the attack itself is done by a Jew,” had 9 “likes.” Another comment further down the thread, saying “the Rothschilds is [sic] believed to have funded Hitler and create [sic] Israel. One wonders if the false flag attacks on Synogogues [sic] are delibiritely [sic] set up to encourage migration of zionists to illegal settlements” had 14 “likes.”16 This is just one example, but there is an endless supply of such conspiratorial commentary on social media. While the internet allows us to access an unprecedented and endless amount of information, unfortunately it also makes it easier than ever to only expose ourselves to information and opinions that echo and reinforce our existing views. Cass Sunstein called this “enclave extremism”—the process by which people self-sort into like-minded groups on the internet, and then become more extreme and fixed in their views as their exposure to contrary opinions is reduced.17 This risk particularly applies to young people—the generation that would rather watch their favorite YouTube channel than switch on the television. In a different paper to that quoted previously, Bartlett and Miller found that while 95% of secondary school children bring information they have found online into the classroom, a quarter make no checks at all regarding the accuracy and credibility of a new website when they visit it; around a third believe that if a search engine lists a website it must be truthful; and only a third have had any education in how to assess the reliability of online information. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 48% of teachers reported to Bartlett and Miller that they had “had arguments in class with pupils about conspiracy theories.” Around 20% said this happened at least monthly. This is one reason why long-term efforts to combat antisemitism and extremism should include education in our schools in what Bartlett and Miller call “digital fluency,” to enable young people to critically evaluate the information they encounter online.18

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In their purest form, antisemitic conspiracy theories are all-encompassing and claim explanatory power for global events. For an example of this we can go right to the top: Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. In his 2005 message to Hajj pilgrims, Khamenei spoke of “the big Western and Zionist capitalists, who are the real backstage actors of all imperialist governments” and warned that “the Zionist octopus along with the US imperialism, vicious and despicable, now harbor plans for the entire region of the Middle East, as well as North Africa and the whole Islamic world.”19 In 2012, he spoke about the front of a hostile and vicious enemy, who holds the entire communications and media facilities of the world on its palm, and most of the Western politicians are the puppets of this hostile front, which is the front of capitalists, cartel holders, trust holders, large company holders, bloodsucker capitalists and Zionists, and the global Zionist network, which possesses most of the global media.20

In 2013, Khamenei said that “The claws of the Zionist financial powers and companies are so firmly sunk into the American government, its officials and the Congress that they [Americans] have to look out for their [Zionists’] interests. … The money, power and capital of the Zionists have their impact.”21 And for those who are unsure about the ambiguity of the term “Zionists,” Khamenei has helpfully given us his definition, in a speech in 1997: When we say “Zionists” we do not only mean the usurping Zionist government. That is only part of the Zionist entity. The Zionists form the major capitalists of some countries, including the United State (sic) of America, and dominate the politics of that country. Today, unfortunately, the United States, its Congress and its government, are under the spell of Zionism in different financial, economic, cultural, political and propaganda arenas. The bulk of the propaganda organs of the world mass media, furthermore, are controlled by the Zionists. Most of the famous news agencies which you know of are controlled by them. The few that do not belong to them, in fact move in harmony with them.22

All of which is to say that the most powerful political and religious leader in Iran, the person who controls their foreign policy and their nuclear programme, is a

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full-blown antisemitic conspiracy theorist. This can be a difficult point for Western politicians to grasp. USA president Barack Obama was asked about it in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine in May 2015, and Obama’s explanation revealed the limits of his imagination. “The fact that you are antisemitic, or racist,” he said, “doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival. It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is antisemitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations.”23 This response misses the important distinction that, within a fundamentally irrational worldview, irrational choices can appear rational. For example, if you believe that there is a global Jewish conspiracy to attack Iran, then it becomes rational to send a suicide bomber to blow up a Jewish community center in Argentina in response to Israeli military activity in the Middle East. If you believe that Jews control the governments and media of the West, it becomes rational to combine murdering French cartoonists with murdering French Jews. Obama told Goldberg that, although historically political leaders had used antisemitism, it was only “at the margins, where the costs are low, [that] they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest.”24 In making this argument, Obama showed a striking inability to grasp the fundamental point that people who believe they are threatened by a Jewish conspiracy are likely to think that confronting or attacking Jews is very much in their self-interest and that the higher cost lies in not doing so. This failure of imagination is not new. Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5, has argued that one of Western intelligence’s greatest weaknesses during both World War II and the Cold War was its inability to understand the thinking of fanatics. He had in mind Hitler and Stalin, both of whom were conspiracy theorists and antisemites. Andrew points out that people usually make one of two errors in interpreting the behavior of fanatics: they either assume that they are rational, or that they are mad. In fact, he argues, fanatics are always and necessarily conspiracy theorists, but they are also “calculating and often dangerously effective” in their actions. In relating this to the current challenges facing Western governments, Andrew concludes that “we cannot understand what al-Qaeda think they are fighting against and what they mean by ‘Jews and Crusaders’ unless we explore their conspiracy theories.”25 You could say the same about interpreting Iran’s foreign policy, or about building counter-­ extremism strategies here in the UK. Prime Minister David Cameron recalled visiting Birmingham Central Mosque shortly after the 7/7 attacks (and before

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he was prime minister) only to be told by the mosque chairman that the attacks were not carried out by Muslims, but may in fact have been a conspiracy by the British Security Services.26 Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has claimed that ISIS was created by “Zionists” to sow discord amongst Muslims, calling it “a political scam that is trying to cause a rift on religious grounds and protect the interests of the Zionist regime.”27 He has claimed elsewhere that “Western states, Zionists and tyrants” created ISIS and similar groups.28 ( Just for good measure, ISIS claims that Shia ­Muslims are Crypto-Jews.) The then British foreign secretary Philip Hammond met Shamkhani in Iran in August 2015 to discuss, amongst other things, strategies for combating ISIS. It is difficult to build meaningful cooperation with Muslim leaders or states on countering jihadist terrorism if those leaders (and significant sections of their populations or communities) do not share even a basic understanding of where that terrorism comes from. Andrew recommends that Western intelligence agencies should create a National Intelligence Officer for Fanaticism and Conspiracy Theory so that an understanding of conspiracy theories and their role in the decision-making of extremists can inform intelligence assessments and consequent policy making. Similarly, Bartlett and Miller recommend that efforts to combat extremist ideologies must include steps by government and civil society to counter conspiracy theories. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, in a 2008 paper, suggested that governments could engage in the “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups,” not to spy on them but to disrupt the patterns of thinking and ideological reinforcement that facilitate conspiracy theories.29 The same tactic could be recommended for online spaces where extremist ideologies and conspiracy theories are found. Antisemitic conspiracy theories tend to follow different broad patterns depending on their source. Those that come from the extreme Right tend to associate Jews with communism, immigration, and multiculturalism, all of which are designed, so the theory goes, to destroy the white race and to undermine nationalism. For Islamist conspiracy theorists, Jews are behind atheism, democracy, and secularism, all of which are used to undermine Islam. Leftwing conspiracy theorists tend to associate Jews with capitalism and allege Zionist control of, or undue influence over, the foreign policies of Western governments via pro-Israel lobbies. There is, of course, much overlap between these extremes, both in form and content. All three obsess about the nexus of Jews, money, and political influence. When Anders Breivik murdered seventy-seven people in a terrorist attack in Norway in 2011, the idea that it was a “false flag” attack carried out by Israel or Zionists was suggested by a diverse

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bunch of c­ onspiracy theorists, including the chair of a local Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch in London; Gilad Atzmon; the British National Party; and the magazine of the Islamic Centre of England (the main Iranian mosque in ­London). Others—including philosopher Slavoj Žižek and Jewish anti-­ Zionist Les Levidow—argued that “Zionism” was the main ideological driver for the massacre, although they stopped short of alleging an actual conspiracy.30 Another thing they have in common is that all three types of extremist-driven conspiracy theory relate to alleged conspiracies by a minority that threatens the cohesion, values, and future well-being of the majority society or group. There is, though, a new addition to the canon that inverts this relationship. In recent years a new conspiracy theory has emerged, primarily within radical left-wing and Islamist circles, that “Zionists” are responsible for a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and North America. Thus Ayatollah Moezi, director of the Islamic Centre of England, has claimed that there is “a conspiracy planned by the agents of international Zionism intent to create tension between Christians and Muslims.”31 Similarly, in 2012 when a group of Egyptian Christians put an anti-Islamic film, Innocence of Muslims, on YouTube and said that it had been financed by American Jews, much of the media reported this detail unquestioningly. When it soon emerged that this claim of Jewish funding was wholly false, Middle East Monitor still clung to the idea that the film was part of “a calculated Zionist crusade,” suggesting that the Egyptians behind it may have been unwitting Zionist stooges.32 A version of the allegation that “Zionists” are partly responsible for anti-Muslim sentiment in Western societies has also appeared in academia via the work of the Spinwatch organization, run by Professor David Miller of Bristol University and staffed, in part, by other academics and students based at Bath. Spinwatch describes its work as investigating “the way that the public relations (PR) industry and corporate and government propaganda distort public debate and undermine democracy.”33 Under its remit of investigating lobbying, Spinwatch has published a series of reports examining organizations which it claims are responsible for “the current climate of fear being whipped up against Muslims in Britain.”34 Its first such report, titled The Cold War on British Muslims, was an investigation into the activities and funding of two think tanks: Policy Exchange (PX) and the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC). The methodology of this report is worth examining to understand how a piece of academic research can, however inadvertently, take on some of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory. The report listed 36 donor foundations and trusts that funded these two think tanks; a further 9 foundations and trusts that

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funded Civitas, which was CSC’s parent body when it was first established; and three that made donations to the Traditional Alternatives Foundation, which was itself one of CSC’s funders.35 It then went into further detail about some, but not all, of these 48 donor foundations and trusts, by naming other recipients of funding from 21 of them. Five of the 21 donor bodies subjected to this secondary level of scrutiny are described as having a Jewish and/or pro-Israel character or focus to their work. Where details are given of the other recipients of funding from the 21 donors subjected to this secondary scrutiny, nine of those other recipients are described as having a Jewish or pro-Israel character. The consequence of this methodology is the repetition of the names of Jewish, Zionist or Israeli organizations and individuals throughout the report, giving the impression that Jewish or Zionist sources, alongside donors linked to the Conservative Party, are amongst the primary funders of both think tanks. This is reinforced in the report itself, which tells us that PX and CSC are “funded by wealthy businessmen and financiers, and conservative and pro-Israel trusts and foundations.”36 It claims that its research “reveals for the first time the network of individuals and foundations that are bankrolling the cold war on British Muslims” and refers to “networks of money and power” made up of donors with “extremist political agendas.”37 Yet on closer examination some of these claims appear to rely more on inference than explicit proof. No evidence is given in the report that any of these donors gave their money for the specific purpose of funding the think tanks’ work on Muslim-related issues, much less in the pursuit of “extremist political agendas.” Nor is any evidence given that these donors were acting in concert with each other when they gave money to either think tank, despite the claim that a “network” had been uncovered. In addition, some of the evidence given for supposed Jewish or Zionist backing of what the report calls a “campaign against Muslims”38 appears fairly tenuous. Some foundations are included in the report, even though they do not appear to have directly funded either think tank. One example is the Maurice Hatter Foundation, which, we are told, “has mainly funded liberal Jewish organisations”39 and appears in the report because it gave money to the Traditional Alternatives Foundation, which itself gave money to CSC and to Civitas. It seems something of a stretch to assert with any confidence that the Maurice Hatter Foundation’s money paid for what Spinwatch considers to be anti-Muslim activities or that its other funding for Jewish causes is at all relevant. It is not possible to know precisely how Spinwatch selected which donor bodies to subject to further scrutiny, nor how it chose which other recipients

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of their funding to identify and which to ignore. Several of the donors that are examined in this way also gave money to many recipients unrelated to Israel, the Jewish community, or the Conservative Party, but this is not given the same prominence or relevance in the report. It is important to stress that none of Spinwatch’s claims about the funding of these think tanks were untrue; but the impact of this repetition of Jewish and Zionist names leaves an impression, from which a reader may infer a connection between support for Jewish or pro-Israel causes and support for efforts to “marginalise British Muslims.”40 This is reinforced in another Spinwatch report into a different think tank, the Henry Jackson Society. The report states: “By solidifying a transatlantic alliance between anti-Islam groups and those unconditionally supportive of Zionism, the Islamophobia network has successfully tapped into the financial and political resources of the Israel lobby.” Here, alleged Zionist financial and political power is introduced into the picture.41 Spinwatch does not blame Zionism alone for encouraging anti-Muslim sentiment in Western opinion. Since the publication of the Cold War on British Muslims, it has developed its theory into a model that claims there are “Five pillars of Islamophobia,” in which “the transnational Zionist movement” takes its place alongside far-right organizations, neo-conservatives, liberals, atheists and the British state.42 However, some of its work in this area does display some characteristics of a conspiracy theory. For example, the way that Spinwatch presents its research gives the impression that it has identified a conspiratorial group of actors with a plan of action and goals, as well as a level of secrecy that needs to be exposed. Spinwatch straddles mainstream and oppositional ­politics—precisely the terrain favored by conspiracy theorists. And it presents its work as evidence-based academic inquiry, although a reader might be forgiven for thinking that the conclusions of its research in this area may be influenced by political outlook as much as a thirst for empirical rigor. Spinwatch does appear to be aware of this risk. A similar Spinwatch report on the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), published two years after The Cold War on British Muslims, included a preface that addressed exactly this subject. It acknowledged that to some, its work “may have an air of ‘conspiracy theory’ about it. But the similarities are superficial. … In what follows we detail the interests and ideas of groups and individuals involved in pro-­Israel advocacy, but we do not tacitly point to some modern ‘Jewish conspiracy.’” Spinwatch offers several reasons why it believes its work does not constitute a conspiracy theory. Firstly, it argues that pro-Israel lobbyists are part of the establishment rather than an “alien organisation trying to impose its agenda on

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the British political establishment.” This is an important point to which we will return. Secondly, Spinwatch says it does not claim that there is a single “grand plan or conspiracy” in which “powerful people and institutions” move as one, but rather an amorphous collection of actors trying to influence government policies with varying degrees of success. And thirdly, it states, while “many powerful individuals and institutions are highly secretive, they are not secret.”43 The preface ends with a welcome warning of the dangers of antisemitism, but Spinwatch’s explanation does not overcome the problem identified by Byford, that any piece of work claiming to reveal secretive Jewish or Zionist funding behind some ill in society is likely to encourage readers to return to the inventory of antisemitic ideas and images that circulate in public discourse. Byford’s warning of this danger is particularly appropriate when considering the content of Spinwatch’s reports: Even just the constant repetition of recognisably Jewish names in the context of the narrative of conspiracy, and the allusion to Jewish individuals and families as the source of longstanding sinister influence in the world … broadens the boundaries of acceptable opinion to the point where the notion of a Jewish conspiracy becomes recognised as a legitimate explanation of political and historical reality.44

Nor does Spinwatch’s clarification that it believes there is a network based on financial and political influence—rather than a single, all-powerful plot—mean that its work is incompatible with a conspiracy theory. The suggestion that Zionists or Jews are responsible for encouraging hatred of Muslims, or for trying to undermine Islam, was not invented by Spinwatch. Two years before Spinwatch’s Cold War on British Muslims report was published, the Cordoba Foundation (a British Muslim organization, which the UK government claims is “associated with the Muslim Brotherhood,” but which denies those allegations)45 issued a statement blaming a “Zionist, Islamophobe and Neo-Con alliance (ZINC)” for encouraging hostility towards Muslims.46 Coincidentally or not, the Cordoba Foundation paid Spinwatch £5,000 to produce its Cold War on British Muslims report that endorsed precisely this theory, and it was listed as its sole sponsor in the report itself.47 Similar ideas are found in the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a Muslim Brotherhood ideologue executed in Egypt in 1966 but whose work still inspires jihadists to this day. In one of his most famous and influential works, Milestones, Qutb wrote that modern Western interpretations of culture and philosophy are “one of the tricks played by world

Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe

Jewry … so that the Jews may penetrate into body politic of the whole world [sic] and then may be free to perpetuate their evil designs.”48 The idea that Jews pose a threat to Islam or to Muslim societies draws on older Islamic traditions and more recent European conspiracy theories. An example that combined the two was given by the outgoing Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in a 2003 speech at an Organisation of Islamic Conference summit: 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategise and then to counter attack. As Muslims we must seek guidance from the Al-Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. … We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. … We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.49

Qutb, like those conspiracy theorists who believe Zionists are behind the emergence of ISIS, was writing about the alleged role played by Jews as a minority in Muslim-majority countries. Mohamad, too, was talking about Jews as a minority in Western nations. The difference with Spinwatch’s version is that “Zionists” (for which many, drawing on the inventory of conspiracy theories referred to earlier, will read “Jews”) are accused of inciting hatred against a minority, rather than attempting to subvert the majority. Instead of being accused of promoting multiculturalism to erode differences between races (as far-right conspiracy theorists claim), this variant claims that Zionists are encouraging division in society by inciting precisely the kind of attitudes that far-right groups have long accused Jews of trying to inhibit. This version of the conspiracy theory instead reflects a left-wing view of Zionism as part of the establishment in Western societies, or at least closely allied to it. As Spinwatch puts it, Zionists and pro-­ Israel lobbyists are “parts of that very establishment” and belong “within the ‘power elite.’” The claim that supporters of Israel use secretive financial power and political influence to manipulate wider society into adopting anti-Muslim

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policies brings us to a rather depressing conclusion: conspiracy theories about Jews and Zionists have adapted well to a range of different political and social environments, have been given new energy and audiences by the internet, and show no sign of retreating to the margins of political thought.

NOTES  1 Asghar Bukhari, Facebook post, 12 June 2015, https://www.facebook.com/photo. php?fbid=1091417077569956&set=a.276132632431742.76604.100001050210011&type=3&theater. All punctuation and spelling as in the original.   2 “International Poll: No Consensus On Who Was Behind 9/11,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, 10 September 2008, http://worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/535.php?lb=btot&pnt=535&nid=&id=.   3 “War on Terrorism or Muslims,” Muslim News, 28 September 2001, 2.   4 Gf K NOP Social Research, “Attitudes to Living in Britain—A Survey of Muslim Opinion,” 27 April 2006, 28–30.   5 Gf K NOP Social Research, “2007 Channel 4 News Survey on Muslim Opinions on 7/7 Bombings,” April 2007, 1.   6 Populus, “Muslim Poll—summary Results,” December 2005, 3.   7 Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller, The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy Theories, Extremism and Counter-terrorism (London: Demos, 2010), 3–4.   8 Jovan Byford, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 15.   9 Bartlett and Miller, Power of Unreason, 21. 10 Byford, Conspiracy Theories, 100–3. 11 Ibid., 116–17. 12 Anti-Defamation League, “ADL Global 100: An Index of Antisemitism—2015 Update in 19 Countries,” http://global100.adl.org/public/ADL-Global-100-Executive-Summary 2015.pdf. 13 Dave Rich, “Britain’s Secret Survey to ‘Measure Zionist influence,’” Haaretz, 17 January 2016, 7. 14 “Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby,” Channel 4 Dispatches programme (2009), available to view at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E70BwA7xgU. For antisemitic reactions to the film, see “Who Liked Dispatches?,” CST Blog, 19 November 2009, https://cst.org.uk/news/ blog/2009/11/19/who-liked-dispatches and “Dispatches and the ‘Pro-Israel Lobby’: Update,” CST Blog, 14 November 2009, https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2009/11/14/dispatches-and-the-pro-israel-lobby-update. 15 For Griffin, see tweets at https://twitter.com/NickGriffinBU/status/37047823266535 4240 and https://twitter.com/NickGriffinBU/status/370477093572050944 (both dated 22 August 2013); for Galloway, see “George Galloway Says Israel Gave Al-Qaeda Chemical Weapons to Use in Syria,” The Huffington Post UK, 23 August 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/22/syria-george-galloway-israel-chemical-weapons_n_3799287. html.

Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe 16 Middle East Monitor Facebook post, 16 February 2015, https://www.facebook.com/middleeastmonitor/posts/10153098396401926. 17 Cass R. Sunstein, “The Polarization of Extremes,” The Chronicle Review 54 (2007), B9. 18 Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller, Truth, Lies and the Internet: A Report into Young People’s Digital Fluency (London: Demos, 2011), chapters 2 and 3. 19 Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, “Leader’s Message to Hajj Pilgrims,” 18 January 2005, http://english.khamenei.ir/news/276/Leader-s-Message-to-Hajj-Pilgrims-Zihajjah7-1425. 20 “West Wants to Make Iranians Disappointed by System, Islam—Supreme Leader,” Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 16 February 2012. Original Persian translated by BBC Monitoring (available only through a subscription service). 21 “Iran Leader not Optimistic about Nuclear Talks,” Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader website, 3 November 2013. Original Persian translated by BBC Monitoring. 22 Speech broadcast by Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 24 December 1997. Original Persian translated by BBC Monitoring. 23 Jeffrey Goldberg, “‘Look … It’s My Name on This’: Obama Defends the Iran Nuclear Deal,” Atlantic, 21 May 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/. 24 Goldberg, “‘Look … It’s My Name on This’.” 25 Christopher Andrew, “Intelligence Analysis Needs to Look Backwards before Looking Forward,” History and Police, 1 June 2004, http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/ papers/intelligence-analysis-needs-to-look-backwards-before-looking-forward. 26 David Cameron, “Speech to the Community Security Trust,” 4 March 2008, http://conservative-speeches.sayit.mysociety.org/speech/599684. 27 “Reforms will Avert Foreign Plots to Undermine Iraq Government—Iran Official,” Islamic Republic News Agency, 18 August 2015. Original Persian translated by BBC Monitoring. 28 “Iran’s Shamkhani: West, Zionists Seeking to Distract Muslims from Palestinian Issue,” Tasnim News Agency, 14 June 2015, http://www.tasnimnews.com/en/ news/2015/06/14/768871/iran-s-shamkhani-west-zionists-seeking-to-distract-muslims-from-palestinian-issue. 29 Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories,” Harvard Public Law working paper no. 08–03; University of Chicago, Public Law working paper no. 199; University of ­Chicago Law and Economics, Olin working paper no. 387, 15 January 2008, 22, http://ssrn. com/abstract=1084585. 30 “Jews, Zionism and Islamophobia,” Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2011 (London: Community Security Trust, 2012), 26–8, https://cst.org.uk/data/file/2/6/AntisemiticDiscourse-Report-2011.1425052009.pdf; see also “The Islamic Centre of England’s Ex-Fascist on Anders Breivik: ‘Blame Zionists,’” 27 June 2012, https://cst.org.uk/news/ blog/2012/06/27/the-islamic-centre-of-englands-ex-fascist-on-anders-breivik-blame-­ zionists. 31 Islamic Centre of England, “Representatives of Abrahamic Faiths Sign Resolution,” 21 ­September 2010, http://ic-el.com/en/show_news.asp?idnum=390&state=news. 32 “Zionists, Jews, Responsible for Inciting the West against Islam,” Antisemitic Discourse in Britain, 22–3.

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Antisemitism and Extremism 33 “About Us,” website of Spinwatch: Public Interest Investigations, http://www.spinwatch. org/index.php/about/about-spinwatch. 34 Tom Mills, Tom Griffin and David Miller, The Cold War on British Muslims: An Examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion (Glasgow: Spinwatch, 2011), 4. 35 It also listed a further 18 individual, corporate and local authority funders of Policy Exchange. 36 Mills, Griffin, and Miller, Cold War on British Muslims, 52. 37 Ibid., 9. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 34. 40 Ibid., 9. 41 Tom Griffin et al., The Henry Jackson Society and the Degeneration of British Neoconservatism: Liberal Interventionism, Islamophobia and the “War on Terror” (Glasgow: Spinwatch, 2015), 5. 42 David Miller et al., “The Five Pillars of Islamophobia,” 8 June 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/david-miller-tom-mills-hilary-aked-narzanin-­massoumi/ five-pillars-of-islamophobia. See also UK_CAGE tweet, “The 5 pillars of Islamophobia #IPRunderstandingconflict,” 9 June 2015, https://twitter.com/uk_cage/status/608257335774068736. 43 Tom Mills et al., The Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre: Giving Peace a Chance? (Glasgow: Spinwatch, 2013), 5–7. 44 Byford, Conspiracy Theories, 107. 45 Prime Minister’s Office, Muslim Brotherhood Review: Main Findings, HMSO, 17 December 2015, paragraph 27. 46 “BMI: Spying on Communities is a Hallmark of Totalitarian Societies,” 20 October 2009, http://www.bminitiative.net/bmi/en/details_home.aspx?ID=289&table=sub. 47 Mills, Griffin and Miller, Cold War on British Muslims, 53. 48 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Birmingham: Maktabah, 2006 [1964]), 123. 49 “Mahathir’s full speech,” Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 2003, http://www.smh.com. au/articles/2003/10/20/1066502121884.html.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrew, Christopher, “Intelligence Analysis Needs to Look Backwards before Looking Forward,” 1 June 2004, http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/intelligence-analysisneeds-to-look-backwards-before-looking-forward Bartlett, Jamie and Carl Miller. The Power of Unreason: Conspiracy Theories, Extremism and ­Counter-Terrorism. London: Demos, 2010. Bartlett, Jamie and Carl Miller. Truth, Lies and the Internet: a Report into Young People’s Digital ­Fluency. London: Demos, 2011. Byford, Jovan. Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Community Security Trust. Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2011. London: Community Security Trust, 2012.

Walking a Mile in Asghar Bukhari’s Shoe Mills, Tom, Tom Griffin and David Miller. The Cold War on British Muslims: An Examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Glasgow: Spinwatch, 2011. Sunstein, Cass R. “The Polarization of Extremes.” The Chronicle Review 54 (2007), B9. Sunstein, Cass R. and Adrian Vermeule. “Conspiracy Theories.” Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 08–03; University of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 199; University of Chicago Law and Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 387. 15 January 2008.

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CHAPTER 8

Antisemitism and AntiZionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community RUSI JASPAL

INTRODUCTION

A

ntisemitism is often described as an irrational, age-old prejudice that must be eradicated, while in many social and political contexts anti-Zionism tends to be discussed in terms of a legitimate stance on Israel, seen as a “rogue state.” Antisemitism evokes images of fascism and genocide. Conversely, anti-­ Zionism is often represented in relation to antiracism and minority rights. Yet, both arguably constitute forms of prejudice—antisemitism targets Jews, while anti-Zionism targets the Jewish state. Correlational and discursive empirical research suggests that antisemitism and anti-Zionism often become blurred in the minds of individuals.1 Over seventy years after the Nazi Holocaust, antisemitism continues to bedevil contemporary European societies. There have been many empirical studies of antisemitism and, more recently, anti-Zionism, focussing largely on their correlates and predictors.2 It has been observed that antisemitic acts in Europe are increasingly perpetrated by disaffected Muslim youths who cite anti-Zionist causes for their actions. Accordingly, some recent research has focused on Muslim communities in modern Europe3 and their concerns about Israel-Palestine.4 Contemporary debates have sought to explore convergences and divergences between antisemitism, which most people recognise as a social evil,

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

and anti-Zionism, which many view as legitimate. Some commentators assert that it is reasonable to espouse an anti-Zionist position and this is unrelated to antisemitism,5 while others argue that anti-Zionism amounts to a “new antisemitism.”6 These debates have been covered elsewhere.7 This chapter focuses on the nature of, and interrelations between, antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim community—one of the UK’s largest Muslim communities. The chapter’s aim is to describe how a sample of British Pakistani Muslims think about Jews and Israel, as well as the role that identity processes play in the formation and maintenance of attitudes towards out-groups in this context.

BRITISH PAKISTANI MUSLIMS: AN OVERVIEW Following World War II, migrants from the newly established Dominion of Pakistan and other former British colonies began to arrive in Britain in search of employment. Dilip Hiro observes that, for Pakistani immigrants, “the economic consideration was the sole motive for migration” and that permanent settlement was not envisaged.8 Today, British citizens of Pakistani descent constitute a sizeable proportion of the UK’s ethnic minority population—the 2011 UK census recorded approximately 1,125,000 British Pakistanis in England and Wales. Peach, in his overview of the socio-economic status of British Pakistanis, argues that this group is one of the poorest in the country, after Bangladeshis. Approximately 92% of British Pakistanis are Muslims (UK Census 2011),9 and research has consistently shown that religion constitutes a “core” identity in this population.10 Over the last two decades, Muslims have been represented as having sympathy or links with Islamist fundamentalism and even terrorism in both public and media discourses.11 This was particularly acute after the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks12 and has had important implications for acculturation among British Pakistani Muslims, many of whom feel that their Britishness is questioned by the non-Muslim majority.13 Moreover, many British Pakistanis are vocal about Muslim grievances, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict featuring prominently.14 Indeed, Humayan Ansari notes that “Muslim suffering and grievances elsewhere are deeply felt by Muslims in Britain, and influence their attitudes” vis-à-vis key social issues.15 The State of Israel and the Jewish community are just two such issues. Many British Pakistani Muslims feel angry about Israel’s alleged subjugation of Palestinians and its military actions and are dismayed at the British government’s perceived inaction.16 Indeed, in 2004, 21-year-old Asif

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Hanif from London and 27-year-old Omar Khan Sharif from Derby travelled to Israel to perpetrate suicide bombings in Tel Aviv; Hanif blew himself and three Israelis up and injured 55 others, while Sharif fled the scene but was later found dead. Unlike Muslims living in societies in which antisemitism and anti-Zionism may be condoned at institutional levels (e.g., in Iran),17 British Pakistani Muslims live in a context in which overt antisemitism and extreme anti-­ Zionism are socially unacceptable. Given the lack of empirical research in this area, the present chapter explores British Pakistani Muslims’ perceptions of Jews and Israel.

BRITISH MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE There is a growing number of empirical studies of antisemitism and anti-­Zionism in Muslim communities. Some of this work has focused on the prevalence of antisemitism in Muslim-majority countries where anti-Zionism may constitute official government policy.18 Fewer studies have examined antisemitism and anti-Zionism in diasporic Muslim communities in Western countries.19 Various surveys conducted in European countries suggest higher levels of antisemitism among Muslim individuals than the general population. According to a comparative survey published in 2006 by Pew, 47% of UK Muslims and 44% of German Muslims stated that they held unfavorable attitudes towards Jews (versus 7% and 22% of the general population of each country, respectively).20 In a more recent UK survey, it was found inter alia that 35% of ­Muslims believed that “Jewish people have too much power in the UK,” that 39% felt that “Jewish people have too much power over the media,” that 38% agreed that “Jews have too much control over global affairs,” and that 42% opined that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country [Britain].”21 Overall, these results suggest there is a social representation of Jewish world domination that has high levels of acceptance among respondents. The report concluded that levels of antisemitism in the British community were alarmingly high, despite many years of outreach work to tackle this prejudice, that British Muslims were generally unaware of the extent of anti-Jewish prejudice, and that there was a correlation between antisemitism and sympathy for terrorism and violence. These findings are corroborated in a recent poll of adults’ attitudes towards Jews in 19 countries conducted by the Anti-­Defamation League.22 Muslim adults in six Western European countries (­Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK) were more likely to

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

endorse antisemitic ­stereotypes than the general population. The most prevalent belief was that “Jews have too much power in international financial markets,” with which 70% of respondents agreed. This survey too provides support for the hypothesis that there is a prevalent social representation of Jewish world domination. Recent research has set out to examine the nature and possible social psychological underpinnings of antisemitism among European Muslims. Günther Jikeli, in his empirical study of antisemitism among Muslims in Germany, France, and the UK, observed four distinct patterns of antisemitic prejudice:23 (1) classic antisemitism, drawing on long-standing tropes, such as Jewish world domination; (2) negative views of the State of Israel; (3) negative views of Jews due to the perception that this is required by one’s ethnicity or religion (e.g., the perception that all Muslims hate Jews); (4) negative views of Jews without rationalisation (e.g., the perception that it is natural to dislike Jews). All four types are observable among European Muslims, but social context is likely to determine the specific type manifested. Jikeli’s work has demonstrated that young European Muslim respondents tend to draw on antisemitic imagery to make sense of global conflicts.24 They attribute political conflict (especially in Islamic societies) to Zionism, which amounts to scapegoating. This work also identifies a number of sources that European Muslims draw on to inform their beliefs—including their social circle in which antisemitism may be prevalent, sermons in mosques, social and traditional media, and, in some cases, the school environment. It is noted that, in some social contexts and communities, antisemitism has become so normalised that it no longer requires qualification or justification. This is different from social contexts in which overt prejudice is stigmatised and in which antisemitism must therefore be expressed more subtly. It has been argued that negative attitudes towards Jews in Muslim countries are normative and that anti-Zionism is also often imbued with antisemitic imagery.25 Moreover, the consistent transmission of antisemitic images in ­Muslim communities can be attributed to social media and media representations. It is noteworthy that there is an exchange of (antisemitic) ideas between Muslim countries and Muslim minorities in European countries due partly to

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European Muslims’ consumption of Muslim/Middle Eastern media26 and frequent travel to Muslim-majority countries where antisemitic ideas may be consensually accepted.27 Jikeli has argued that contemporary interpretations of Islam allow for the hatred and demonization of Jews and that, even among less religious Muslims, antisemitism was higher than in the general population.28 In his qualitative study of perceptions of the Holocaust among Pakistani Muslims in London, Jikeli found a prevalence of doubts, denial, and conspiracies— several respondents believed that 6 million Jews could not have been killed.29 Moreover, there was a widespread perception that the Holocaust constituted a pretext for Israel’s establishment. Thus, as opponents of Israel, British Pakistani Muslims had a psychological incentive to deny the Holocaust. In some cases, respondents expressed solidarity with the Nazis who perpetrated this genocide. Overall, it is clear from previous research that many European Muslims, including British Pakistani Muslims, manifest an antisemitism that is often presented in terms of anti-Zionism. Holocaust denial/revisionism constitutes a salient aspect of antisemitism in this group. However, there is only minimal understanding of the possible social and psychological motivations for such antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

IDENTITY AND SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS This study explores the role of identity processes in the development and manifestation of British Pakistani Muslim individuals’ perceptions of Jews and Israel. Two theories from social psychology underpin the analysis. First, it draws on identity process theory, which theorises the challenges to identity that can occur and ways in which individuals restore a positive sense of self in response.30 Second, social representations theory is employed to elucidate ways in which particular perceptions are formed and manifested, in conjunction with identity processes.31 Identity process theory postulates that the individual constructs their identity through two universal processes: • assimilation-accommodation—the process of absorbing new information into identity and creating space for it within the identity structure; • evaluation—the process of attributing meaning and value to the components of identity.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

These processes are in turn guided by various motivational principles which specify desirable end-states for identity (i.e., they constitute identity’s guiding “goals”): • • • •

self-esteem—personal and social worth; self-efficacy—competence and control; distinctiveness—uniqueness and differentiation from others; continuity—a continuous temporal thread between past, present, and future; • coherence—the perception that relevant aspects of identity are ­compatible. Individuals construct identity in ways that provide appropriate levels of these principles. If the principles are somehow jeopardized—for instance, by changes in the social context—identity is threatened, which is aversive for psychological well-being. When identity is threatened, the individual engages in strategies for coping that can operate at an intrapsychic level, such as denial or reconstrual, and/or at interpersonal/intergroup levels, such as out-group denigration. For instance, threats to one’s in-group self-esteem may lead to engagement in downward comparisons with less fortunate out-groups.32 In order to explicate how people are likely to respond to particular social stimuli, Glynis Breakwell33 has aligned identity process theory with social representations theory.34 Serge Moscovici’s theory provides a useful framework for understanding the development of perceptions of Jews and Israel among British Pakistani Muslims. At a basic level, a social representation can be defined as a collective “elaboration” of a given social object that enables individuals to think and talk about it. For this study’s purposes, this elaboration consists of emerging beliefs, values, ideas, images, and metaphors in relation to Jews and Israel. Two principal social-psychological processes converge in the creation of social representations: • anchoring refers to the process whereby a novel, unfamiliar phenomenon is integrated into existing ways of thinking. For example, it has been observed that the Iranian press tends to use the term “Zionist” instead of the demonym “Israeli” in reference to the people of Israel, which serves to construct the people of Israel primarily as adherents of Zionist ideology rather than as citizens of a country.35 • objectification refers to the process whereby an abstract phenomenon is rendered concrete. For instance, Jaspal shows how, in a visual d­ epiction

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of the Holocaust submitted to the Iranian-sponsored International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, the Nazi Holocaust was depicted in terms of a minor finger wound, while the 1948 Palestinian exodus (sometimes metaphorically referred to as the “Palestinian Holocaust”) was represented as a severed arm.36 This visual objectification of two historical intergroup events served to trivialize one vis-à-vis the other. Breakwell has outlined the processes that underpin the individual’s relationship with a social representation.37 The individual takes a stance on a given social representation—that is, they differ in the extent to which they are aware of, understand, accept, and assimilate to their thinking a social representation. For instance, while an individual may be aware of the Holocaust, they may not understand it as a systematic attempt to annihilate an entire people but rather in terms of a political ploy to establish the State of Israel.38 This could have important implications for how individuals engage with Jews and Israel—indeed, some British Pakistani Muslims perceive Jews as malevolently misusing the Holocaust to justify Israel’s existence.39 Crucially, the individual responds to social representations in ways that enhance identity processes.40 Thus, it can be hypothesized that the individual will accept a representation that enhances self-esteem, continuity, and so on, but reject one that conversely threatens identity. However, it is also noteworthy that some representations are coercive and consensually accepted, thereby undermining the individual’s ability to reject or reconstrue them.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES The data presented in this chapter are drawn from an interview study with ­British Pakistani Muslim men and women concerning their perceptions of Jews and Israel. Thirty-six British Pakistani Muslim individuals aged 18–35 participated in in-depth interviews concerning “identity and social attitudes among British Pakistani Muslims” in the summer of 2012. There were 21 male and 15 female respondents. Fifteen participants were from West London and the remaining 21 were from the East Midlands. All of the participants described their ethnicity as Pakistani, self-identified as Muslim and regarded themselves as very or moderately religious. Thirty participants had completed, or were studying towards, a university degree; and the remaining 6 had completed high school. The data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis, which has been described as “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

(themes) within data.”41 The study aimed to capture participants’ attempts to make sense of their personal and social worlds, with particular foci upon their perceptions of Israel and Jews and of their own identities. The author transcribed the recordings and read the transcripts repeatedly in order to become as intimate as possible with participants’ accounts, and preliminary interpretations were noted in the left margin. These included inter alia participants’ meaning-making, particular forms of language, and apparent contradictions and patterns within the data. Initial codes aimed to capture, from the analyst’s perspective, participants’ perceptions of Jews and Israel and of their own identities. The right margin was then used to collate these initial codes into potential themes capturing the essential qualities of the accounts. As highlighted by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set.”42 The list of themes was reviewed rigorously against the data to ensure their compatibility, and numerous interview extracts were listed against each corresponding theme. At this stage, specific interview extracts that were considered vivid, compelling and representative of the themes were selected for presentation in the chapter. Finally, four superordinate themes representing the themes derived from participants’ accounts were developed and ordered into a logical and coherent narrative structure. Participants’ names have been replaced by pseudonyms. Each participant’s gender is indicated. In the quotations from participants, an ellipsis indicates where material has been excised; and other material within square brackets is provided for clarification.

FINDINGS In this section, four superordinate themes are outlined in detail: (a) construal of Zionism as a threat to self and in-group; (b) threatened self-efficacy and out-group denigration; (c) “us versus them”: establishing a sense of belonging; (d) blurring the boundaries between Judaism and Zionism. These themes summarise the overarching social representations of Jews and Israel among the British Pakistani Muslims participating in this study.

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(a) Construal of Zionism as a Threat to Self and In-group Interviewees were asked to reflect on Zionism’s meanings. Although many acknowledged limited knowledge, they did attempt to make sense of it by engaging in anchoring and objectification. There was a tendency to link Zionism to ideologies that interviewees were already aware of and to use metaphors that provided a more socially and psychologically “tangible” image of Zionism. The overarching consensus among respondents was that Zionism was underpinned by a malevolent philosophy, as highlighted in the following extracts: Mohammed (male): Zionism is evil. It’s no different from Nazism. It’s a form of Nazism, like it has come from Hitler’s thinking. The same thing. It’s all about being superior, racially superior and they think that about themselves. They just think they’re better than everyone, especially Muslims, Palestinians. And they can’t get away with thinking that. Interviewer: Why do you think that? Mohammed: It makes me just so angry, like bad. You know, I feel bad just thinking “they are making out they are better than us?”

Mohammed and others anchored Zionism to the stigmatised ideology of Nazism by emphasising alleged similarities. Indeed, Mohammed stated that Zionism was “no different from Nazism” and constituted a branch of far-right ideology. Furthermore, he drew upon historical debates concerning alleged communications between Hitler and Zionists prior to Israel’s establishment to provide “evidence” of Zionism’s emergence from Nazism. Given that a major premise of Nazi ideology was a constructed Aryan racial supremacy, some interviewees deduced from their anchoring of Zionism to Nazism that Jewish racial supremacy was central to Zionism. This in turn enabled individuals to construct Zionism as a Nazi-like racist ideology. The anchoring of Zionism to Nazism was greatly facilitated by the perception that Israel and, by extension, world Jewry aim to destroy the Palestinian people as a precursor to an overall mission to annihilate Islam. Threat perceptions were central to participants’ accounts in that they believed that their superordinate Muslim identity was under attack:

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community Sohail (male): Zionism is an attempt to kill us all and to remove the Islamic truth and to replace this truth with their lies.

These negative social representations constructing Zionism as coterminous with Nazism and emphasising this ideology’s threatening nature for the Muslim in-group enabled individuals to provide a plausible justification for opposing Zionism, on the one hand, but it did also challenge identity, on the other hand. Like Mohammed, other interviewees believed that a key tenet of Zionism was Jewish supremacy over Muslims, Palestinians, and other out-groups. This was perceived as deeply offensive, possibly because it compromised the self-esteem principle of identity. Indeed, it is essential for individuals to derive a positive self-conception on the basis of valued group memberships. For interviewees, Islam constituted an important group membership and the Palestinians were regarded as a subgroup within the superordinate Muslim in-group. The perception that Zionism sought to position Jews as superior to Palestinians (a subgroup within the valued superordinate Islamic in-group) posed challenges to individuals’ sense of self-esteem and there was an attempt to counteract it. Furthermore, the construal of Zionism as an existential threat to Muslims and Islam could plausibly threaten the continuity principle of identity, since it could give rise to fears that a valued group membership could cease to exist as a result of the existence and actions of a stigmatised out-group—Zionists. Mohammed described his negative emotions as a result of this perception, suggesting an element of identity threat. Similar views were expressed by others: Abdul (male): Israelis are not better than Palestinians. Jews are not better than Muslims. Islam is the best religion in the world, the purest. But look at who is getting killed each day. Look at who is living in a nice country and who is living in shit, that is Zionism.

Like Mohammed, Abdul expressed dismay at the notion that Israelis and Jews might perceive themselves as superior to Palestinians and Muslims, respectively. This led him to assert unequivocally that “Islam is the best religion in the world.” He and others clearly believed that Islam’s superiority was being undermined by Zionism. This is potentially challenging for both the self-­esteem and continuity principles of identity. The emerging social representation that Jews and Zionists believe they are superior to Muslims could inhibit the derivation of a positive self-conception on the basis of one’s Muslim ­identity. However,

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it could also rupture the psychological thread connecting past, present and future, given the long-standing perception of Islam’s superiority. Crucially, there was an entwining of Zionism/Israel and Jews in participants’ accounts. Abdul lamented the notion that Jews enjoyed better living conditions than the Palestinians, in view of the perceived superiority of Muslims (and by extension Palestinians). Zionism was identified as the root cause of this undesirable reality. Participants were unaware of the political philosophy underpinning Zionism. However, in attempting to make sense of it, they anchored it to antisemitic social representations of Jewish world domination and to the blood libel: Asma (female): [Zionism] has just crushed humanity and they rule from Tel Aviv. It’s a small group of people that have their fingers in a lot of different countries. Like sort of controlling them, controlling us, like puppets, you know. Zionism is evil. It will fall, just like fascism did. It is just a last feature of fascism. Ali (male): The Zionists are sucking the blood and drinking the blood of Muslims because they want Jews to rule the world, as they do, as a secret, I mean, behind the scenes with the press and that.

Both Asma and Ali were referring to Zionism in their respective accounts. However, the imagery they drew upon to describe Zionism resonated with classic antisemitic tropes, such as those of world domination and the blood libel.43 Indeed, Asma referred to the notion that Zionists seek to rule the world and exert influence on various countries in much the same way that Jews have historically been positioned as attempting to rule the world through their alleged control of media and government institutions. Conversely, Ali’s account was more explicitly antisemitic in that he referred to Jewish-Zionist collaboration around a collective goal enabling Jews to “rule the world.” This of course echoed the social representation of Jewish world domination. Furthermore, Ali metaphorically referred to Zionists as “sucking the blood and drinking the blood of Muslims.” More generally, a sense of victimhood was appended to the Muslim in-group and to the world more generally, something noticeable in numerous antisemitic depictions of Israel.44 This clearly echoed the blood libel accusation that has been used to delegitimise and even murder Jews on the basis of their ethno-religious identity.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

Interviewees referred to a negative social representation of Zionism as a malevolent and oppressive ideology enabling Jews to assert their superiority over out-groups and, especially, Muslims. The interview data provided some insight into the potential social, psychological and emotional impacts of accepting this social representation: Asad (male): I feel so, so pissed off when I think about this. It’s like they can do what they want and we can’t do anything to stop them. Nothing. They are doing what they please and our hands are tied. That feels bad. It feels really bad personally. I feel bad. Sara (female): Each time I hear the word “Israel” on the news or on TV it annoys me majorly and I can feel the anger and I just need to speak out and say something. Maybe in a way it damages my ego because I’m thinking as a Muslim. It makes me very angry and disappointed that we live in a place where we cannot speak out openly because Jews will be offended. It’s us being silenced, you know.

Both Asad and Sara described feelings of anger in response to the notion that Zionism positioned Jews as superior to Muslims. Asad’s account appeared to reflect threats to both self-efficacy and self-esteem. Asad outlined his response to news reports that Israel sought to establish its distinctive identity in the international community. He felt that he and his in-group were unable to “do anything to stop them” and metaphorically described his hands as “tied.” This highlighted his perception of threatened self-efficacy in that he was unable to derive feelings of control over a problematic situation that affected a valued in-group, namely, Muslims. This appeared to have negative implications for his sense of self-esteem as his perceived inability to redress this problematic reality also made him “feel bad.” Similarly, Sara described her feelings of anger upon hearing about Israel in the media. Indeed, she referred to a damaged “ego” as a result of Israel’s actions. Sara appeared to refer to threats to the esteem and continuity of her valued Muslim in-group.45 Moreover, her sense of self-efficacy was challenged due to her perceived inability to “speak out openly.” Indeed, she expressed the belief that Zionists were in control of the media and, thus, enjoyed institutional support in the UK and other Western countries. Sara metaphorically described her inability to “speak out” as “being silenced.”

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The British Pakistani Muslims who participated in this study construed Zionism as posing a threat to the Muslim in-group and, by extension, to individual identity. The self-esteem and continuity principles of identity were particularly susceptible to threat. In the next subsection, threats to self-efficacy and the intergroup strategies for coping are described.

(b) Threatened Self-Efficacy and Out-group Denigration Interviewees described feelings of helplessness in relation to the Israel-­ Palestinian conflict. There was a clear desire to intervene to support the Palestinian cause and, thus, the perceived inability to do so challenged the self-efficacy principle of identity. Individuals attempted to cope with threats to self-efficacy by defiantly reiterating a collective sense of control and competence: Amir (male):  Us Muslims are the ones you see on the streets protesting and standing up to Israel. Iran. Syria. These are Muslim countries. Not America. Saima (female): Hezbollah, Hamas, they are all Islamic resistance groups basically. They are all resisting the Zionists because they’re an evil force. Hamid (male): You go to anti-Israel protests and it’s all Muslims. Some white people but it’s mainly just Muslims, you know. … We’re the only ones that’ll really come out for it, I reckon. If push comes to shove.

Participants were keen to emphasize the centrality of Muslims to anti-Israel protests in order to demonstrate their leadership position in the struggle for Palestinian rights. Amir invoked several Muslim countries that he believed had the courage to withstand pressure to condone Israel’s actions. He and other interviewees invoked the social representation of Jewish/Zionist world domination as a reason for the silence surrounding the Palestinians’ plight, particularly in Western countries, which were generally characterized as subservient to Zionism.46 Conversely, Muslim countries were seen as resisting Jewish/Zionist world domination in much the same way that Hezbollah and other anti-Israel entities are regarded as “resistance groups.”47 In short, interviewees accentuated the Muslim in-group’s collective self-efficacy by drawing attention to Muslim leadership of the anti-Israel campaign. This enabled individuals to feel more confident about the role their in-group played in

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

c­ hallenging the status quo and upholding Palestinian rights. The construal of the Muslim in-group as valiantly resisting Zionism and of Western non-­ Muslims (whom Hamid categorised as ‘White people’) as being subservient to Zionism amounted to a form of downward comparison—individuals were able to enhance their collective self-esteem by comparing themselves with out-groups.48 The desired goal for most interviewees was not the coexistence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel but the latter’s eventual destruction. Close attention to participants’ accounts suggested this too could be construed as a means of enhancing self-efficacy: Iqbal (male): Only then [when Israel is defeated] will we be able to do the things that are important to us, the things that we want to do and things we need to do. While Israel is there, the Muslim world is like in a tight straitjacket. Interviewer: Are all Muslims in a straitjacket?  Iqbal: Well, Palestinians are Muslims too and they can’t lift a finger without Israel. I hate that. I can’t describe how angry it makes me.

There was a perception among participants that the Palestinians, a subgroup within the superordinate Islamic in-group, were oppressed by Israel. Iqbal believed that Muslims were unable to act on their own accord and functioned at Israel’s behest. Individuals lamented the alleged subservience of Muslims to the State of Israel and, therefore, believed that Israel’s destruction constituted a viable means of safeguarding, or reestablishing, the in-group’s self-efficacy. Indeed, Iqbal argued that Israel’s destruction would enable the in-group to realize goals deemed important for the continuity and well-being of the in-group. Interviewees described various strategies for destroying Israel: Issa (male): There’ll be a nuclear war, I think. Israel will make the mistake and then there will be a massive attack from all the Muslim countries and it will be over. Golnaz (female): Sooner or later the Israeli leader will get shot by someone. A Muslim in the world will end Israel once and for all and show them there’s a limit to slavery of the Palestinians.

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Antisemitism and Extremism Abdul (male): I don’t believe Israel can survive in this world because there’s more justice in the world these days.

Threatened self-efficacy was apparent in interviewees’ accounts of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict in that they regarded Israel as undermining the competence and control not only of Palestinians but also of the Muslim in-group more generally. Interviewees highlighted various hypotheses regarding the specific ways in which the socio-psychological “obstacle” of Israel could be removed. Issa invoked the possibility of nuclear war, which he related to debates concerning Israel’s nuclear capabilities about which there is little clarity in the international community. He reconstrued this as a possible precursor to Israel’s destruction. Golnaz outlined the possibility that the assassination of an Israeli leader could herald Israel’s demise. She and others were confident that the perpetrator would be a Muslim given the perceived centrality of Muslims to the anti-Zionist mission. Abdul perceived Israel’s destruction as inevitable in a world increasingly characterized by attention to justice. Incidentally, this perception was widespread among interviewees and some employed this observation to argue that the so-called Arab Spring and associated protests, rebellions, and uprisings were likewise indicative of Israel’s imminent demise: Saba (female): The Arab Spring is all about taking control and Muslims are getting back into control, like they’re getting their land back, the control of it. Where does that leave Israel? Mahnoor (female): I think the whole Arab Spring has shown that defeating the State of Israel isn’t going to be hard. It’s [Israel] going downhill. People are rising up against dictators and Israel is like a dictator. I think it’s just a matter of time before people take control of their own countries and their lives and that, so they can start making their own decisions.

Saba perceived the Arab Spring and its associated movements as a means of regaining political control after decades of oppression and dictatorship in various countries. More specifically, she construed this as a Muslim movement for reestablishing self-efficacy (at a group level) in that Muslims would regain control of “their land.” She extrapolated from this the notion that Israel’s existence

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

was also in peril. The social representation that Israel is occupied “Muslim land” appeared to underpin her perception that the Arab Spring would eventually lead to Israel’s demise. Similarly, Mahnoor regarded the Arab Spring as incipient evidence that all the region’s dictatorships would be defeated—indeed, Israel was categorized as a dictatorial “regime,” rather than a democratic state, a trope that has been observed in previous research into anti-Zionism.49 In view of the Arab Spring, Mahnoor regarded Israel’s destruction as inevitable. She anchored Israel to the dictatorial regimes overthrown during, and as a result of, the Arab uprisings. In short, out-group derogation—in this case, derogation of the State of Israel—constituted a key method for enhancing the collective sense of self-­ efficacy in relation to the Muslim in-group. This served to accentuate intergroup difference, thereby increasing the gulf between “us” and “them.”

(c) “Us versus Them”: Establishing a Sense of Belonging To understand group dynamics, it is important to consider how British ­Pakistani Muslims conceptualise the in-group and its boundaries. There was a perception among interviewees that Pakistanis and other non-Arab Muslims faced discrimination from Arabs. Yet, individuals perceived Arabs as the “original Muslims” and, thus, aspired to establish a sense of connection with this valued group. Perceived discrimination from Arabs posed a threat to identity among several of the British Pakistani Muslim participants: Sajjad (male): I’ve never felt that accepted by Arabs and that, especially Arab girls. They think they are so bad, like they consider Pakistanis like shit, you know, like slaves and servants and that … It has made me feel a bit sort of ashamed, I guess. I’ve sometimes hidden that fact that I’m Pakistani in that setting. Asif (male): We Pakistanis are not that accepted by the Arabs because they just think of us as domestic workers or unskilled labourers. I got that a lot when I was in Dubai and you think to yourself “ouch that hurt,” you know, when they turn their cheek at you.

Some participants also perceived Pakistanis to be marginalized by other M ­ uslim ethnic groups, such as Iranians:

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Antisemitism and Extremism Fozia (female): I do feel that we as Pakistanis are a bit side-lined by other Muslims, you know. … [W]hen I went to Iran, I was surprised that people were a bit disgusted by Pakistanis you know. … [I]t’s a horrible position to be in because you’re left there like defending yourself or just constantly trying to prove yourself as a Muslim.

Most interviewees described experiences of discrimination from Muslims of other ethnic backgrounds, despite anticipating feelings of acceptance on the basis of their shared superordinate Muslim identity. Given the expectation for a sense of inclusion, perceived discrimination could plausibly challenge the belonging principle of identity. Indeed, Sajjad described his perception that he had never felt accepted by Arabs and that Pakistani Muslims were mistreated, while Asif noted a stereotype among Arabs that all Pakistanis were domestic workers or unskilled laborers. Perceived discrimination challenged not only the belonging principle of identity, due to the unmet expectation of acceptance in the Muslim superordinate in-group, but also the self-esteem principle of identity given that the nature of exclusion focused on denigration of individuals due to their Pakistani ethnic identity. This could induce feelings of shame and distress, resulting in the inability to maintain a positive self-conception. Indeed, participants described their negative emotional and psychological experiences in response to perceived discrimination on the basis of their ethnic identity. Their coping strategies relied on either concealment of their Pakistani ethnic identity in public spheres and passing themselves off as other ethnic groups or on defiantly asserting their ethnic identity’s value in the face of stigmatisation. Although the belonging and self-esteem principles of identity were clearly threatened, many respondents perceived anti-Zionism and the shared concern about the Palestinian cause as a means of enhancing a sense of commonality and, thus, belonging: Aijaz (male): Yes, but here it was special because it’s a cause that us Muslims are all passionate about. We believe in it strongly and it sort of brings us together, you know.  … [I]t’s like common ground, all the divisions are broken down. That feels good. Asifa (female): Our community has a lot of fights and wars but we all have one common enemy and that’s Israel. The ­reality is Israel wants to destroy Palestine and as Muslims we work together to stop it.

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

The shared commitment to anti-Zionism appeared to bridge intergroup differences and assuage tensions between Muslims of distinct ethnic backgrounds. Aijaz referred to anti-Zionism as a common cause among Muslims, while Asifa referred to Israel as the common enemy of all Muslims. There was acknowledgement among several interviewees that opposition to Israel served to crystallize a shared superordinate identity, which would otherwise be absent. For Aijaz, anti-Zionism essentially performed the function of dismantling intergroup divisions. Asifa highlighted the need for Muslims to cooperate in order to obstruct Israel’s alleged desire to destroy Palestine—something that has also been discussed in terms of protecting self-efficacy.50 Accordingly, there was a unanimous construal of anti-Zionism as a duty for all Muslims that could enhance the belonging principle of identity: Fatimah (female): There’s a lot of fighting even in Islam, Muslims fighting Muslims, killing each other. But one issue that we all fight for is Palestine and, as a Muslim, I can’t just sit by and watch Zionists killing Palestinians, Jews taking Muslim land. I think of it as my duty to fight it however I can. Samira (female): The Jewish-Zionist conspiracy is why we have all the wars and the Lebanon war and then the ShiaSunni thing in Pakistan and Iraq. It’s all just the Jews, and if we Muslims remember this, we’ll come together. Mariam (female): I believe you can’t be a true Muslim if you’re with the Jews. I mean, if you just sit there in silence. How can you support a state that kills your own people?

There was widespread acknowledgement of conflict between various subgroups within the superordinate Islamic in-group. In attempting to explain the causal underpinnings of such conflicts, most interviewees identified Zionism as an underlying cause and, thus, they attributed political unrest to Zionists. This was clearly observable in Samira’s account, which described a “Jewish Zionist world conspiracy.” Indeed, she attributed the Lebanese civil war and communal unrest between Shia and Sunni Muslims to this “conspiracy,” which, in her view, aimed to interrupt Muslim intra-group harmony by introducing intra-group conflict. Interviewees unanimously constructed Israel as posing a threat to the Muslim in-group and, thus, rejected the notion that, as a Muslim, one could manifest support for the Jewish state.

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Given that individuals identified Israel as a threat and Muslims as necessarily opposed to the Jewish state, they employed their opposition to Israel as a means of demonstrating their Muslim identity’s authenticity. By highlighting ways in which they opposed Israel, some interviewees felt they were “authenticating” their Muslim identity. Indeed, Fatimah described her inability to disengage from the Israel-Palestinian conflict on the basis of her Muslim identity, which she felt compelled her to intervene in order to “fight” against perceived Zionist tyranny. She construed this as her Muslim “duty.” Similarly, Mariam believed it was untenable for a Muslim to disengage from the Israel-Palestinian conflict since that would amount to implicit support for Israel. In short, such support was construed as being incompatible with Muslim identity because of the notion that Israel was actively engaged in killing Muslims. Overt opposition to Israel was conversely perceived as a means of demonstrating the authenticity of one’s Muslim identity and enhancing a sense of inclusion, belonging and unity within the superordinate Islamic in-group. Participants’ accounts elucidated the potential benefits of anti-­Zionism for the belonging principle of identity. However, the perceived centrality of P ­ akistanis to the anti-Zionist struggle also enhanced individuals’ sense of self-esteem on the basis of their ethnic identity: Mohammed (male): We [Pakistanis] as a country get a lot of bad press. Terrorism and that. The whole thing about the Taliban and what have you, but there’s a big anti-Israel feeling in our community and we’re the first to stand up in government and parliament and in activism when the need’s there. … [T]his is something we should be proud of. Sarfraz (male): To me it [anti-Zionism] feels good, like I feel quite proud, like I’m doing my bit. Pakistanis are always, like, quiet or just moaning about crap things but this is something that has put us on the map, you know, as Muslims.

Some interviewees described an element of stigma attached to Pakistani identity partly due to the media’s portrayal of Pakistan as a supporter of Islamist terrorism. As Mohammed noted, Pakistan’s alleged support for the Taliban insurgency constituted a key theme in this stigmatising discourse around the Pakistani state. Similarly, Sarfraz appealed to a stereotype that Pakistanis ­infrequently expressed political agency and that there was a tendency to focus

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

on trivialities in this group. Yet, interviewees felt that anti-Zionism could have a transformative effect on Pakistani identity in social and political settings. Mohammed proudly noted that there was a “big anti-Israel feeling” in the Pakistani community and that members of his ethnic group took the lead in protesting against Israel and its alleged actions vis-à-vis Palestinians. Sarfraz indicated that the Pakistani community’s commitment to anti-Zionism had served to “put us on the map”—that is, to enhance Pakistani Muslims’ distinctiveness. Participants’ accounts demonstrated some of the potential benefits of anti-­ Zionism for self-esteem. Thus, while Mohammed perceived pride in relation to his community’s espousal of anti-Zionism, Sarfraz believed that his community gained positive recognition from out-groups as a result of their anti-Zionist stance. However, respondents’ accounts of anti-Zionism revealed an underlying current of antisemitic sentiment.

(d) Blurring the Boundaries between Judaism and Zionism Due to the stigma attached to overt forms of prejudice, including antisemitism, many people attempt to conceal anti-Jewish prejudice or to present it in more socially acceptable ways.51 This has been observed in relation to antisemitism among British Pakistani Muslims who may deny antisemitism and emphasize their commitment to anti-Zionism, despite the clear antisemitic underpinnings of their stance.52 When asked directly about their views regarding Jews, individuals predictably deflected antisemitism from their identities and argued that their position was purely anti-Zionist. There was a tendency to argue that anti-Zionism and antisemitism were unrelated. However, participants’ accounts revealed an entwining of Israel and Jews in their diatribes against Zionism: Mohammed (male): The Jews control the media, there’s no mistake about that, they control all the wealth and finance and the markets and they have their hand in Israel. That’s why you can’t talk about Zionist terrorism without mentioning Jewish terrorism as well.

Mohammed and other interviewees cited the long-standing antisemitic trope of Jewish control of the media, economy, and other state institutions, and extrapolated from this trope that world Jewry also controlled the State of Israel. Most interviewees construed Israel in terms of “Zionist terrorism” and denied its statehood.53 However, Mohammed explicated the categorization of Israel as a

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t­ errorist entity by anchoring it to what he described as “Jewish terrorism”—that is, the alleged underhand dealings of world Jewry that served to undermine economic and political affairs of their host countries while enhancing the Jewish state. By describing the actions of Jews in terms of terrorism, Mohammed and other interviewees conflated the State of Israel, which most interviewees perceived as a terrorist entity, and the Jewish people. Furthermore, this form of anchoring resulted in the denigration of the Jewish people, which could in turn herald harsh measures against them, such as marginalization and discrimination. Although there was a general tendency for individuals to deflect antisemitism, some interviewees attempted to justify their position by drawing upon historical religious representations of Jews: Ali (male): Muslims are not into antisemitism or anything, but the facts are clear if you look in the Quran. The Jews tried to keep the truth of Islam from coming out and cheated the Prophet Mohammed and today it’s the same case. Israel distorts the Quran and the truth and brainwashes people for the same purpose, to rule the world. Sara (female): For me, it all, like, falls into place for me because when I think about the history of Jews and what they’ve done, then Israel and its atrocities kind of make sense to me. I can see the link there between what they did and now do.

Ali prefaced his account with the disclaimer that neither he nor other Muslims were in any way antisemitic. He proceeded to argue that history had demonstrated Jewish malevolence due to their alleged attempt to conceal “the truth of Islam” and deceive the Prophet Mohammed. These claims were evidenced through reference to the Quran, which makes numerous positive and negative statements regarding Jews.54 Crucially, Ali utilized the related antisemitic tropes of Jewish world domination and Jewish deception to contextualize Israel’s actions. The accounts of both Ali and Sara evidenced a general tendency among respondents to anchor Israel’s actions to the historical actions of Jews, as depicted in Islamic holy texts. In short, antisemitism was employed rhetorically in order to substantiate anti-Zionism. Evidently, interviewees drew upon antisemitic imagery to explicate their stance on the State of Israel—thereby highlighting the fallacy of the argument

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are entirely delineable.55 However, antisemitism surfaced in participants’ accounts in more direct ways, particularly as interviewees reflected on the perceived Jewish stance regarding Israeli policies: Farhad (male): I’m left sort of thinking about how much of this [perceived Israeli transgressions against the Palestinian people] Jews accept and condone. I don’t see Jews protesting this or telling the world they don’t agree. I just don’t see it. Samira (female): I think if you have Israel doing all this to Muslims, then Muslims have got to give something harder back and, when Jews start to feel the heat, Israel starts to feel the heat.

Participants discussed the position of British Jews in relation to the State of Israel. Farhad expressed the belief that British Jews, and indeed Jews elsewhere, unanimously supported Israeli government policies. He argued that British Jews condoned Israel’s actions. Therefore, he implicitly attributed the responsibility of Israel’s actions to British Jews, despite the fact that many Jews are in fact vocally opposed to the Israeli government’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians.56 This essentially heralded the recommendation, prevalent among interviewees, that world Jewry be held responsible for Israel’s actions. Indeed, Samira identified discrimination against Jews as a possible means of exerting pressure on Israel. Several respondents reported feelings of helplessness due to the perceived inability to pressure Israel into revising its stance on the Palestinian question. Samira’s recommendation that British Jews “feel the heat” constituted a method for reestablishing a sense of control and competence in an otherwise helpless political situation. Although individuals were keen to deflect antisemitism from their identities, their accounts of Zionism revealed an underlying antisemitic stance. There was a perception that Zionism and Judaism were inextricably entwined and that a clandestine collaboration between Jews and Zionists warranted draconian measures against Jews outside Israel.

DISCUSSION In this chapter, the nature of, and inter-relations between, antisemitism and anti-Zionism are described in relation to a sample of British Pakistani Muslims.

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This work contributes to a growing literature on the manifestation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in European Muslim communities, where a high prevalence of this form of prejudice has been observed.57 In an attempt to ­elucidate ways in which British Pakistani Muslims think and talk about Jews and Israel, four superordinate themes were developed as part of the data analysis. Two theories from social psychology—identity process theory and social representations theory—were drawn upon as a means of informing the data analysis. Collectively, the theories specify the psychological conditions that must be satisfied in the construction of a positive identity against the backdrop of ideas and images that circulate in society. The interview data suggest that: • British Pakistani Muslims construe Zionism as posing a threat, not only to the in-group but also to their individual identity, because of the importance of the Muslim in-group to their overall sense of self; • the perception of threatened self-efficacy as a result of the existence and actions of Israel may induce defensive strategies aimed at denigrating both Israel and Jews; • the boundaries between the Muslim in-group and Jewish/Israeli outgroups are accentuated as a result of threatened identity, further aggravating intergroup relations; • the boundaries between anti-Zionism and antisemitism frequently become blurred in both the thinking and discourse of British Pakistani Muslims. Interviewees held a negative social representation of Zionism, which they anchored to Nazism and, thus, perceived as a malevolent ideology. Individuals discussed Zionism as a vehicle for asserting Jewish superiority over M ­ uslims by invoking Jewish “chosenness.”58 Furthermore, Zionism was anchored to long-standing antisemitic tropes, such as Jewish world domination and the blood libel, particularly as interviewees reflected on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which was poignant for them as Muslims. Metaphors of “bloodsucking Zionists” were used to capture the perception of out-group threat. Zionism was, therefore, construed as a threat to the Muslim in-group and, given the centrality of this group membership to individuals’ sense of self, there was also a perception of threat at an individual level. The negative social representation of Jewish/Zionist threat could pose challenges to identity, as defined by identity process theory, and self-esteem and continuity were particularly susceptible. Moreover, the inability to intervene in the Israel-Palestinian conflict resulted

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

in possible threats to self-efficacy. Given the more general sense of “otherization” that Muslims face in an increasingly Islamophobic society, the belonging principle of identity (that is, feelings of acceptance and inclusion) could also be imperilled. Despite the negative impact of this social representation of a Zionist threat to the Muslim in-group, British Pakistani Muslims may be under considerable pressure to accept the representation. This can be attributed to the pervasiveness of anti-Zionism (often punctuated by overtly antisemitic tropes) in the social contexts frequented by individuals, as well as the social representation that anti-Zionism constitutes a key aspect of an authentic Muslim identity. Moreover, young British Muslims, including those of Pakistani background, may manifest a preference for “Muslim media.”59 Outlets, such as Iran’s government-aligned Tehran Times and Press TV, both known to be deeply anti-Zionist and often antisemitic,60 may be regarded as more balanced and accommodating of their Muslim identity and, thus, more trustworthy than Western media, which, conversely, has “come to be regarded as Western propaganda for consumption by its own public.”61 In short, individuals may possess little agency to question or reconstrue the threatening social representation of Zionism, which, in turn, can expose identity to chronic threats. Yet, British Pakistani Muslims do attempt to cope with threats to identity associated with this social representation of Zionism. Given the perceived centrality of anti-Zionism to Muslim identity, British Pakistani Muslims may espouse a deeply anti-Zionist position that is characterised by out-group aggression and hatred. They may view this as a means of authenticating their Muslim identity and the normalisation of relations with Israel may conversely be regarded as an act of treachery which could call into question their Muslim identity’s authenticity. The shared superordinate Muslim identity, which many perceive to advocate anti-Zionism, may encourage individuals to perceive a sense of solidarity with fellow Palestinian Muslims and, thus, a common enmity with Israel.62 This serves to reify intergroup boundaries and to accentuate the gulf between in-group and out-group, however in-groups and out-groups are defined. In some cases, Israel was identified as the threatening out-group, while in others, Jews were also construed as complicit in the alleged Zionist attempt to annihilate Islam. Indeed, the boundaries between Israel and Jews were frequently blurred by interviewees. Similarly, the in-group was predominantly defined as the Muslim Ummah—indicating the centrality of Muslim identity to the self—although interviewees did occasionally acknowledge perceived discrimination against the Pakistani ethnic in-group from other Muslims.

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Against a backdrop of perceived threat from Israel, interviewees perceived the destruction of the Jewish state as the desirable goal, given that this would not only eradicate the perceived source of threats to identity but also bolster self-efficacy. Crucially, the Muslim in-group was cited as leading the anti-­ Zionist campaign and, therefore, ultimately responsible for bringing about Israel’s destruction. Such destruction was generally regarded as a real possibility since interviewees construed various political and historical events as pointing toward that outcome. The defensive coping strategies of out-group denigration focused on bolstering the very principles challenged by the threatening representation—self-esteem, continuity, and self-efficacy. As individuals contemplated Israel’s demise, they felt better about their Muslim in-group, more ­certain about maintaining their religious group’s perceived superiority, and more fully in control of their destiny.

CONCLUSION The British Pakistani Muslims who participated in this study manifested a firm commitment to anti-Zionism and generally perceived Israel’s destruction as an Islamic mission. Crucially, their anti-Zionist stance was punctuated by antisemitic motifs and, in some cases, Jewish communities in Britain and elsewhere were held responsible for Israel’s alleged policies and actions. Diaspora Jews were thus construed as possible targets for retaliation. Identity threat appears to be prevalent and may underpin intergroup conflict.63 Indeed, the desire for, and contemplation of, Israel’s destruction likely constitutes a response to perceived threat. A key recommendation is that Muslim identity be de-coupled from anti-­ Zionism and antisemitism so that British Pakistani Muslims feel able to reach their own conclusions about Israel’s legitimacy—without the anti-­Zionist and antisemitic social representational pressures emanating from their valued Muslim group membership. Such de-coupling will require a shift in social representations—those that advocate prejudice will need to be challenged in mosques, community centres and schools by imams and other leading figures. In short, Islamic leaders must take an active stance against antisemitism and anti-Zionism by identifying and challenging instances of these forms of prejudice in their communities and by encouraging greater rapprochement with Jews. This will require institutional support, such as government endorsement, which may be difficult given the trepidation surrounding the engagement of minority groups concerning sensitive issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community

c­ onflict and religious norms and customs. Yet, the social, community and psychological benefits of undertaking a campaign against anti-Zionism and antisemitism would undoubtedly be to the advantage of Muslims, Jews, and the broader societies in which they live.

NOTES   1 See Florette Cohen et al., “Modern Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli Attitudes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97 (2009): 290–306; Rusi Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-­ Zionism in Iran: The Effects of Identity, Threat and Political Trust,” Contemporary Jewry 35 (2015): 211–35.   2 Steven K. Baum, “Christian and Muslim Anti-Semitic Beliefs,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 24 (2) (2009): 137–56; Cohen, “Modern Anti-Semitism”; Ruben Konig, Rob Eisinga, and Peer Scheepers, “Explaining the Relationship between Christian Religion and Anti-Semitism in the Netherlands,” Review of Religious Research 41 (2000): 373–93.   3 Rusi Jaspal, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism: Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk (London: Routledge, 2014); Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran”; Günther Jikeli and Joëlle Allouche-Benayoun, Perceptions of the Holocaust in Europe and Muslim Communities: Sources, Comparisons and Educational Changes (New York, NY: Springer, 2013), 105–32; Neil Kressel, The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2012).   4 Tahira Sameera Ahmed, “Reading between the Lines—Muslims and the Media,” in Muslim Britain: Communities under Pressure, ed. T. Abbas (London: Zed Books, 2005), 109–26; Humayan Ansari, “Attitudes towards Jihad, Martyrdom and Terrorism among British Muslims,” in Muslim Britain, 144–63.   5 Edward C. Corrigan, “Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitic? Jewish Critics Speak Out,” Middle East Policy 6 (4) (2009): 146–59.   6 Phyllis Chesler, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003).  7 Jaspal, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism.   8 Dilip Hiro, Black British, White British (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 107. See also Muhammad Anwar, The Myth of Return: Pakistanis in Britain (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979).   9 Ceri Peach, “Muslims in the UK,” in Muslim Britain: Communities under Pressure, ed. Tahir Abass (London: Zed Books, 2005), 18–30. 10 Abbas, Muslim Britain; Rusi Jaspal, The Construction and Management of National and Ethnic Identities among British South Asians: n Identity Process Theory Approach, PhD diss. (Royal Holloway, University of London, 2011); Rusi Jaspal and Marco Cinnirella, “The Construction of British National Identity among British South Asians,” National Identities 15 (2) (2013): 157–75. 11 Marco Cinnirella, “Think ‘Terrorist,’ Think ‘Muslim’? Social Psychological Mechanisms Explaining Anti-Islamic Prejudice,” in Islamophobia in the West: Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes, ed. Marc Helbling (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 179–89; Rusi Jaspal

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Antisemitism and Extremism and Marco Cinnirella, “Media Representations of British Muslims and Hybridised Threats to Identity,” Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life 4 (3) (2010): 289–310. 12 Ansari, Muslim Britain; Cinncirella, “Think ‘Terrorist’”; Marco Cinncirella, “The Role of Perceived Threat and Identity in Islamophobic Prejudice,” in Identity Process Theory: Identity, Social Action and Social Change, ed. Rusi Jaspal and Glynis M. Breakwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 253–69. 13 Jaspal, Construction and Management; Kiren Vadherand and Martyn Barrett, “Boundaries of Britishness in British Indian and Pakistani Young Adults,” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 19 (6) (2009): 442–58. 14 Günther Jikeli, “Perceptions of the Holocaust among Young Muslims in Berlin, Paris and London,” in Perceptions of the Holocaust in Europe and Muslim Communities: Sources, Comparisons and Educational Changes, ed. Günther Jikeli and Joëlle Allouche-Benayoun (New York, NY: Springer, 2013), 105–32. 15 Ansari, “Attitudes towards Jihad,” 162. 16 Günther Jikeli, “Discrimination against Muslims and Anti-Semitic Views among Young Muslims in Europe,” in Papers on Antisemitism and Racism, eds. Roni Stauber and Beryl Belsky (Kantor Center: Tel Aviv, 2013), http://kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/sites/default/files/ jikeli-fin_2.pdf. 17 Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran,” Israel Affairs 19 (2) (2013): 231–58. 18 See Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran”; Meir Litvak, “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism,” Journal of Israeli History 25(1) (2004): 267–84; Esther Webman, “Israel, Antisemitism, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 8 (2) (2014): 57–62. 19 For example, Steven K. Baum, “Christian and Muslim Anti-Semitic Beliefs,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 24 (2) (2009): 137–56; Jaspal, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism; Günther Jikeli, “Antisemitic Attitudes among Muslims in Europe: A Survey Review,” in ISGAP Occasional Paper Series, ed. Charles A. Small (New York, NY: ISGAP, 2015), http://isgap. org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Jikeli_Antisemitic_Attitudes_among_Muslims_in_ Europe1.pdf. 20 Pew Research Center, “Pew Global Attitudes Project: Spring 2006 Survey,”  http://www. pewglobal.org/files/pdf/253topline.pdf. 21 ICM Unlimited, “C4/ Juniper Survey of Muslims 2015,” https://www.icmunlimited.com/ wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mulims-full-suite-data-plus-topline.pdf. 22 Anti-Defamation League, “ADL Global 100—An Index of Anti-Semitism: 2015 Update in 19 Countries,” http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/press-center/ADL-Global-100-­ExecutiveSummary-2015.pdf. 23 Jikeli, “Perceptions of the Holocaust.” 24 Ibid. 25 Jikeli, “Antisemitic Attitudes among Muslims in Europe.” 26 Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism.” 27 Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009). 28 Jikeli, “Antisemitic Attitudes.” 29 Jikeli, “Perceptions of the Holocaust.”

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in the British Pakistani Muslim Community 30 See Glynis M. Breakwell “Identity and Social Representations,” in Identity Process Theory, 118–34. 31 Serge Moscovici, “Notes towards a Description of Social Representations,” European Journal of Social Psychology 18 (3) (1988): 211–50. 32 Thomas A. Wills, “Downward Comparison Principles in Social Psychology,” Psychological Bulletin 90 (2) (1981): 245–71. 33 Breakwell, “Identity and Social Representations.” 34 Moscovici, “Notes towards a Description.” 35 Rusi Jaspal, “Representing the Arab Spring in the Iranian Press: Islamic Awakening or ­Foreign-Sponsored Terror?,” Politics, Groups and Identities 2 (2014): 422–42. 36 Rusi Jaspal, “Delegitimizing Jews and Israel in Iran’s International Holocaust Cartoon Contest,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 13 (2) (2014): 167–89. 37 Breakwell, “Identity and Social Representations.” 38 Jikeli and Allouche-Benayoun, Perceptions of the Holocaust. 39 Jaspal, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism. 40 Breakwell, “Identity and Social Representations.” 41 Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology,” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2) (2006): 78. 42 Braun and Clark, “Using Thematic Analysis,” 82. 43 See Rivka Yadlin, “Anti-Jewish Imagery in the Contemporary Arab-Muslim World,” in Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia, ed. Robert S. Wistrich (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999), 309–21. 44 See again Jaspal, “Delegitimizing Jews and Israel.” 45 Evanthia Lyons, “Coping with Social Change: Processes of Social Memory in the Reconstruction of Identities,” in Changing European Identities: Socio-Psychological Analyses of Social Change, ed. Glynis M. Breakwell and Evanthia Lyons (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996), 31–40. 46 Jaspal, “Delegitimizing Jews and Israel.” 47 Zahera Harb, Channels of Resistance in Lebanon: Liberation Propaganda, Hezbollah and the Media (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011). 48 Wills, “Downward Comparison Principles.” 49 See Jaspal, “Arab Spring in the Iranian Press” and Rusi Jaspal, “Representing the ‘Zionist Regime’: Mass Communication of Anti-Zionism in the English-Language Iranian Press,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41(3) (2014), 287–305. 50 Jaspal, “Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran.” 51 Chesler, New Anti-Semitism. 52 Jaspal, Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk. 53 Jaspal, “Representing the ‘Zionist Regime.’” 54 Norman A. Stillman, “Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in the Arab and Islamic World Prior to 1948,” in Antisemitism: A History, ed. Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 212–21. 55 See Jaspal, Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk. 56 Brian Klug, “The Collective Jew: Israel and the New Antisemitism,” Patterns of Prejudice 37 (2) (2003): 117–38; see also again Jaspal, Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk.

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Antisemitism and Extremism 57 Jaspal, Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk; Jikeli, “Anti-Semitic Views among Young Muslims in Europe” and “Antisemitic Attitudes among Muslims in Europe.” 58 Daniel H. Frank, ed., A People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993). 59 Ahmed, “Reading between the Lines.” 60 Jaspal, Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk. 61 Ansari, “Attitudes towards Jihad,” 162. 62 Steven K. Baum and Masato Nakazawa, “Anti-Semitism versus Anti-Israeli Sentiment,” Journal of Religion and Society 9 (2007), 1–8. 63 Cinnirella, “The Role of Perceived Threat.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baum, Steven K. “Christian and Muslim Anti-Semitic Beliefs.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 24 (2) (2009): 137–56. Baum, Steven K., and Masato Nakazawa. “Anti-Semitism versus Anti-Israeli Sentiment.” Journal of Religion and Society 9 (2007): 1–8. Chesler, Phyllis. The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003. Jaspal, Rusi. Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism: Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk. London: Routledge, 2014. Jaspal, Rusi, and Glynis M. Breakwell, eds. Identity Process Theory: Identity, Social Action and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Jikeli, Günther, and Joëlle Allouche-Benayoun. Perceptions of the Holocaust in Europe and Muslim Communities: Sources, Comparisons and Educational Changes. New York, NY: Springer, 2013. Kressel, Neil J. The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2012. Webman, Esther. “Israel, Antisemitism, and the ‘Arab Spring.’” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 8 (2) (2014): 57–62.

CHAPTER 9

The British Left’s Attitudes toward Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim World MATTHIAS KÜNTZEL

INTRODUCTION

T

here is hardly any other country in the world where the debate about the conflict in the Middle East evokes so much passion as in Britain. It is therefore all the more surprising that key documents of antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world—such as the Hamas Charter—are almost never mentioned. J­ eremy Corbyn, for example, the leader of the Labour Party, seems to know nothing about it. Instead, when he met representatives of Hamas in 2009, he called them “friends … dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice.”1 But even serious studies often prefer not to mention the antisemitism of Hamas. A case in question, discussed in more detail below, is the 2015 “Sub-Report for the Parliamentary Committee against Antisemitism,” written by the director of the London-based Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, which dealt with the public debate in Britain during and after the 2014 Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. The following chapter does not claim to identify the reasons for this silence. It also does not deal with the development of the “new alliance” between Islamists and the British Left, as described and explained in Dave Rich’s The Left’s Jewish Problem of 2016.2 Instead, it concentrates on some aspects of the British debate about Arab antisemitism and the Middle East that I, as a non-Jewish German, have found somewhat odd. I will start with some remarks about the antisemitism of Hamas and the wider antisemitic war.

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“OUR STRUGGLE AGAINST THE JEWS” The Charter of Hamas was published in 1988 and has never been repudiated. This 32-page document covers not only the Palestine conflict but also the role of Muslim women, education, art, etc. Its attitude towards Jews, however, is of central importance. “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” states the preamble. “The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized.”3 This charter exemplifies what I call “Islamic antisemitism”—a fusion of the Islamic anti-Judaism of the religious scriptures with European antisemitism based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The term “Islamic antisemitism” has nothing to do with Muslims or Islam as such. There are verses in the Quran that favor the banu Israel (the children of Israel) and there are Muslims who fight antisemitism.4 Rather, it refers to a particular brand of Jew-hating ideology, a brand that combines the worst images of Jews from both the Muslim and the Christian tradition. Thus, we read in article 7 of the charter: The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

This purported saying of the Prophet from the Hadith legitimizes the murder of Jews as a religious duty. Even the trees (symbolizing living nature) and stones (symbolizing inanimate nature) call for Jews to be killed. Thus, not only Mohammad, but also nature itself is made to condemn the Jews to death. The Jew in this saying obviously does not pose a threat. Instead, we see a frightened figure who tries to hide but is nevertheless to be dragged out of his concealment and killed. This picture of the weak Jew cowering in fear is not untypical of Islamic anti-Judaism, since Mohammed was able to expel and even to kill the Arabian Jews. The picture of the Jew within Christian myth is different: the Jews killed the Messiah instead of being killed by him. European antisemitism thus traditionally painted Jews as being rulers of the world and responsible for every kind of misfortune—from the Black Death in the Middle Ages to the revolutions

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and upheavals of later centuries. We find this second image of the Jew in the charter too. In article 22, for instance, we read: With their [the Jews’] money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. … They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

Article 28 presents further similar fantasies: They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. [They are] behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.

Sari Nusseibeh, the former PLO representative for Jerusalem, has rightly criticized this charter as a document that “sounds as if it came straight from the pages of Der Stürmer.”5 And there is indeed a definite link to the Third Reich: Hamas is a subgroup of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which Nazi Germany supported financially and ideologically during the thirties, encouraging its hatred of Jews.6 Article 32 then refers to the source of all these idiocies as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery that we know was created in 1905 by agents of the Tsar and later used by Adolf Hitler as his guide for the Holocaust:7 The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region

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The Role of the Intellectual they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

The consequence of this worldview was as obvious in 1941 as it is today, for, if one assumes that the Jews are responsible for the world’s misery, then their elimination is necessary to “redeem” the world. This objective—elimination— also determines the nature of what might be called antisemitic warfare. While conventional warfare—such as the current ongoing war in the Ukraine—is aimed at gaining territory, influence, and power, antisemitic war is aimed at extermination. It does not matter what policy Israel’s government pursues. It does not matter if a Qassam rocket or a suicide bomber kills a baby or an old person, a supporter of Netanyahu or a foe. What matters is that Jews are being killed. Antisemitic warfare threatens the very existence of Jews. Those Jews who took up arms during the Holocaust did not engage in a war but a struggle for life. The newly founded Jewish state, when it took up arms in 1948 to resist the attack of several Arab armies, was not waging a traditional war but a struggle for Jewish survival. The same is true today, when Israel defends itself against Hezbollah and Hamas, two well-armed movements, which are supported by the Iranian regime and are dedicated to Israel’s disappearance. This particular context makes the lack of reference to Hamas’ antisemitism in many debates over the Middle East conflict even more puzzling. I cannot pretend to be able fully to unravel the mystery of this absence. I am convinced, however, that the failure to take cognizance of the Hamas Charter is due to a false or incomplete understanding of antisemitism and I believe that this inadequate understanding of Jew-hatred results from a rather superficial understanding of the Holocaust. Thus, I will start by considering certain views of the Holocaust and antisemitism before discussing some aspects of the approach to antisemitism currently dominant among many Muslims and in much thinking about the Middle East conflict.

HOLOCAUST AWARENESS “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust [Remembrance] Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust?,” asked Jackie Walker, a senior activist in the Labour Party in September 2016, while delivering a speech at a party training session on how to confront antisemitism and engage Jewish voters.8 Some

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attendees at this session protested against this statement. They did not protest, however, because Walker’s heartless exclamation fails to recognize the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Instead, they pointed out that Holocaust Memorial Day “did in fact include non-Jewish victims” and that what Walker was demanding had already been implemented. Walker then replied that “in practice, it [Holocaust Memorial Day] is not circulated and advertised as such.”9 I found this episode remarkable. First, there is the joyous tone of Walker’s question: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful. …” It reflects a mood that is difficult to reconcile with the reality of the Holocaust and the ethos of Holocaust commemoration. Secondly, her reference to “all people who experienced Holocaust” refers to non-Jewish people. Thus, she seems to downplay the Shoah by equating it with other atrocities. Thirdly, there is the astonishing reaction of the audience, which supported rather than criticized Walker’s relativization of the Holocaust. I am convinced that Holocaust awareness—the ability to approach this crime in a humane and scientific way—is a basic requirement for anyone who wants to understand the challenge of contemporary antisemitism and the Middle East conflict. According to the late Norman Geras, a prominent Jewish Marxist academic from Manchester, the uniqueness of the Holocaust was the product of a combination of features: Comprehensiveness of genocidal intent; “modernity,” the effort at a kind of moral, as well as physical, annihilation of the Jews; and the fact that the undertaking had no ulterior instrumental purpose but was, in a sense, for its own sake—combined to produce an ongoing, tendentially permanent, social sub-system specifically for the mass production of death outside warfare.10

If Walker had dealt with these features of the Holocaust—the motivation of its perpetrators, the suffering of its victims, the unprecedented character of the crime— her stupid question, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust?,” would never have crossed her lips. That brings me to my second point—the connection between the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the peculiarity of antisemitism.

RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM “Islamophobia, antisemitism and Afriphobia are all equally vile forms of racism,” states Shami Chakrabarti in her recently published inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism within the British Labour Party, dubbed

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the “Chakrabarti Report.”11 Antisemitism, however, is not the same as racism. While racism is often a component of antisemitism, antisemitism is not a component of racism but a specific ideology with elements unknown in the field of racism because it paints its victims as superior and controlling. Muslims, for example, are not accused of pulling the strings behind all revolutions and wars. There is no Protocols of the Elders of Gypsies and there is no “redemptive racism.” Antisemitism is unique because it connects such “redemption” with annihilation. A Nazi Party directive of May 1943 provides an example. It prophesied: “The war will end with an antisemitic world revolution and with the ­extermination of Jewry throughout the world, both of which are the precondition for an enduring peace.”12 From this statement, the utopian and revolutionary element of redemptive antisemitism clearly emerges: the Nazis strived for their version of a global “German peace” and were prepared to murder the Jews on a global scale in order to achieve this goal. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president, revived this kind of genocidal utopianism with respect to Israel: “The Zionist regime will be wiped out, and humanity will be liberated.”13 Here it is not a “German” but an “Islamic peace” that is to be achieved through the requisite “final solution” for Israel. A very recent report of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee about “Antisemitism in the UK,” published in October 2016, rightly criticizes the failure of the Chakrabarti Report “to differentiate explicitly between racism and antisemitism.”14 Antisemitic abuse, it states, “often paints the victim as a malign and controlling force rather than as an inferior object of derision, making it perfectly possible for an ‘anti-racist campaigner’ to express antisemitic views.”15 It rightly concludes that “if antisemitism is subsumed into a generic approach to racism, its distinctive and dangerous characteristics will be overlooked.”16 But even where antisemitism is recognized as such, it is often downplayed or even defended when it comes to Arab or Muslim antisemitism. A case in point are some texts by Gilbert Achcar, a professor at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, Achcar names the ­problem: “Anti-semitism, in both its traditional and Islamized variants as well as its Holocaust-denying corollary, has grown spectacularly in Arab political statements and Arab media,” he writes.17 Yet, he then goes on to excuse it.

THE “ORIENTALIZATION” OF ARAB ANTISEMITISM “The anti-Semitic statements now heard in Arab countries are fantasy-laden expressions—due, as a rule to cultural backwardness—of an intense national

The British Left’s Attitudes toward Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim Worl

frustration and oppression for which ‘the Jews’ of Palestine in their majority, as well as Israel, the ‘Jewish state’ they founded, must, in fact, be held responsible,” claims Achcar.18 This statement presents a two-pronged apology for Arab and Muslim antisemitism. The first is the idea that such antisemitism is the antisemitism of the oppressed and that, since Israel is responsible for the oppression, it is responsible for this antisemitism as well. This assumption is not unproblematic, even in empirical terms. If Achcar were right, Israel’s withdrawals from Lebanon (2000) and Gaza (2005) would have led to a decline in antisemitism; the opposite, however, took place. Moreover, the “fantasy-laden” expressions are directed at the destruction of the Jews or Israel. They have nothing to do with any real deeds or misdeeds of Israel’s governments. Otherwise, the response would not be antisemitism aimed at annihilation, but justified or unjustified indignation over misguided policies aimed at changing them. Achcar’s second excuse is that Arab antisemitism is “due … to cultural backwardness.” This is, firstly, factually wrong: the message of hate is spread by members of the cultural elite such as academics, journalists, publishers, and clerics. It has, secondly, a racist undertone as the following assertion by Achcar confirms. He claims that, when Arabs deny the Holocaust, “it has nothing to do with any conviction. It’s just a way of people venting their anger, venting their frustration, in the only means that they feel is available to them.”19 Achcar thus gives the antisemites, as long as they belong to what he considers an oppressed group, a moral carte blanche. Even Holocaust denial that would otherwise be outrageous becomes acceptable. Achcar thus infantilizes Muslims by branding them as essentially stupid people who cannot be held to Western standards of decency and who cannot be expected to know what they are doing. Maajid Nawaz, a prominent British Muslim, derides this undertone: “A credible Muslim can only be inarticulate” and “requires an intermediary to ‘explain’ his anger.”20 We are dealing here with what I would call the “Orientalization” of antisemitism in the Arab or Muslim world. Originally, the sharpest critic of such “Orientalisation” was Edward Said in his famous book Orientalism, first published in 1978.21 Said argued that early Western scholarship on the East was essentially prejudiced and imperialistic. This assertion is not entirely groundless. The crucial impact of Said’s book, however, was to shift the very understanding of scholarship, since Said maintained that it is not so important what is said but by whom it is said. “Every European,” he claims, was “a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric” in what he could say about the Orient.22 Said applied that replacement of scholarly rigor with personal grievance to himself: “I don’t think I would have written that book had I not been politically associated with a struggle [that of the Palestinians],” he explained in relation to Orientalism.23

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In addition, Said denied that objective knowledge exists.24 He preferred so-called narratives or—as I would prefer to put it—fairy tales. One of Said’s most popular fairy tales is an account of the 1948 plight of the Palestinians that does not say a single word about the UN partition resolution of 1947 and the following war by six Arab armies against newly founded Israel. While the Palestinians’ plight was real, Said’s description of the context is imaginary.25 Sadly, however, Said’s views have become the orthodoxy in Middle Eastern Studies under the banner of postcolonialism. Here, “the disregard of empirical canons of evidence” is now “regarded as legitimate and justified, in aid of the correct political goals.”26 Since research into Muslim antisemitism does not fit into this political scheme, it has to be ignored or even denounced as “pro-Israel ­propaganda.”27 But it is a fact that Said’s orientalist critique, if it is to be taken seriously, ought also to apply to one’s attitude to groups such as Hamas. Said called his approach “explicitly anti-essentialist” and “radically skeptical about all categorical designations.”28 He characterized the “Orientalist attitude” as a “closed system, in which objects are what they are because they are what they are, for once, for all time, for ontological reasons that no empirical material can either dislodge or alter.”29 The very possibility, he continued, “of development, transformation [and] human movement … is denied the Orient and the Oriental.”30 That is, however, what so many of today’s British intellectuals seem to be doing. They regard Muslims with disdain as people immured forever in their “supremely authentic” collectivities and deny them the will or the capacity for critical debate. They simply do not expect Palestinians, unlike Europeans, to be civilized and open to arguments. Earlier, I mentioned the distorted antisemitic picture of the Jews or Zionists as actors and influencers—omnipotent, over-intelligent, cunning and powerful. I have the impression that a correspondingly distorted picture exists with regard to Arabs or Palestinians. They are not expected to be civilized but are depicted as underdeveloped and empty-headed— as being merely victims and the clay that the Israelis shape. Neither Palestinian or Arab people themselves nor the Hamas Charter (in which more than a few of such people believe) are taken seriously in such an approach. They are damned to play the role of the oppressed for whom intellectuals such as Gilbert Achcar tirelessly seek excuses. Maajid Nawaz calls this approach “patronizing, self-pity inspiring and mollycoddling.”31 To infantilize the Arabs by strictly separating the West and the East when it comes to antisemitism and Holocaust denial is of course a kind of

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racism in itself—albeit an apparently benevolent type of racism in the eyes of its upholders. But some might call it a “racism of low expectations,” as if a Muslim person is “supposed” to uphold appalling views,32 while others might call it “paternalistic racism.” Another reason to neglect or downplay Arab antisemitism is the widespread bias against Israel. Achcar is a convinced anti-Zionist who has called the two-state solution, as recommended by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947, “a dishonorable surrender.”33 He plays down the antisemitism of Hamas in order to delegitimize Israel and its defensive efforts. However, even in circumstances where prejudice against Israel is less evidently a factor, Arab Jew-hatred is still often ignored. My exhibit here is Professor David Feldman’s subcommittee report on antisemitism in Britain’s public debate during and after the Hamas/Israeli war of summer 2014.34 Feldman, a highly respected historian, is not only a professor at Birkbeck, University of London, but also Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, which is based at Birkbeck, as well as the convenor (together with Scott Ury) of the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism. He wrote his report to assist the House of Common’s All-Party Parliament Inquiry into Antisemitism. Though it deals mainly with the definition of antisemitism, it also covers the context of that war and draws conclusions from it.

ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS Indeed, according to Feldman’s report, Israel alone was to blame for “causing deaths and injuries to a civilian population” during the 2014 war.35 This point of view is hardly unbiased. His study does not mention the fact that the Israeli government hesitated for seven days before, on 8 July 2016, reacting to the rocket fire from the Gaza strip.36 It even ignores Egypt’s ceasefire proposal of 15 July that was intended to put an end to this war—a ceasefire proposal that was supported by Israel but rejected by Hamas.37 In addition, it only presents the bare figures of the deaths—2,100 killed in Gaza and 71 killed in Israel—and omits crucial context.38 There was a reason for the obvious disproportion; Israel did everything it could to protect its citizens, through an expensive missile interception system, through bunkers, through civil defense exercises, etc. Hamas, by contrast, did everything it could to endanger Palestinian civilians by abusing them as human shields. Parts of the Gaza Strip are uninhabited. Hamas militants could have

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positioned their rockets there. Instead they decided to do the opposite, firing their weapons from schools and mosques, hospitals, and settlements, knowing that this would provoke Israeli counterattacks that would inevitably kill civilians. For Hamas, the sacrifice of its own population offered a win-win situation. Israel would either lose militarily and fail to protect its own population because it was reluctant to destroy rockets within highly populated quarters in Gaza. Or it would lose politically, because Palestinian civilians were being killed and Israel would once again be open to vilification as a “child murderer.”39 In other words, this was an asymmetric conflict—in particular with regards to the respect and protection of human life. An unbiased report would have taken these realities into account or abstained from any kind of judgement about this war. Feldman, regrettably, chose another path. He compared Israel with the jihadists and British Jews with Muslims in the UK: “The pressure brought on Jews to conform [with the anti-Israel mood] … resembles the way in which British Muslims today are held collectively responsible for jihadists.”40 And he found it “dangerous” that some of those present at a London rally against antisemitism carried an Israeli flag.41 How different that was from the reaction of German Chancellor Angela Merkel! She defended the display of the Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism on 14 September 2014 in Berlin by calling it a “huge scandal” that people in Germany get attacked “if they show themselves as Jews or take sides for the state of Israel. This—I do not accept. This—we all do not accept.”42 Feldman seems to have difficulty acknowledging that antisemitic threats against Israel exist. His report, though dealing with a Hamas/Israeli war, completely ignores the antisemitism of Hamas. He mentions this organization in his 19-page report only four times and mostly in an indulgent way. Thus, according to his report, Hamas’ belligerence was nothing more than “a response to the arrest of a large part of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank”—and hence a defensive measure. Or he refers to “attacks initiated from Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza” instead of speaking of Hamas attacks.43 Often, the unwillingness to call antisemitism by its name goes hand in hand with bias against Israel. Those who ignore the Hamas Charter have to find other explanations for anti-Jewish terrorism, such as the occupation, the settlements, etc. The terror against Israel, however, started long before the war of 1967 and it did not stop after the Israeli government had removed all Jewish settlements from Gaza. This is no surprise since, for groups like Hamas, Israel represents an abstract evil, irrespective of what policies its

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government does or does not pursue. The refusal to take into account Hamas’ ideology—its Jew-­hatred, its death cult, its hatred of freedom—thus results in a paradoxical reversal of responsibility: the more terrorism against Israel, the greater is Israel’s guilt. I am not sure whether ignorance of Hamas’ antisemitism leads to David Feldman’s distorted view of the 2014 Middle East war, or whether the distorted view causes him to ignore the Islamists’ antisemitism. What I do know, however, is that no one—not even a director of an Institute for the Study of ­Antisemitism—can hope to arrive at a serious understanding of the Middle East conflict without taking the antisemitism of Hamas into account. As is generally known, Israel is not perfect. Israel’s government deserves to be criticized just like every other democratically elected government in the world. Support for Israel’s right to exist against the attacks of Islamists, furthermore, does not mean support for each and every action the Israeli government may take. Such support is not in any way “dangerous,” for, on the contrary, “against those who want to destroy me I must be strong.”44 This is how Fanny Englard, a Holocaust survivor living in Israel, summarizes her life experience. She further states:45 The Jew-hatred compels us to engage in a fight for life; this is not a war to kill others, but a fight for life to secure a safe future for the new families. Did we survive and found a new family in order to sacrifice them to the same Jew-hatred again?

CONCLUSION There is no doubt that nowhere in the world today is antisemitism as widespread as in the Arab and Muslim world.46 Yet, “much of the liberal world seems content to ignore anti-Jewish bigotry among Muslims and Arabs or, at least, to explain it away,” as Neill Kressel puts it in his 2012 study, Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence.47 Why is this so? There is a poisoned debate about Israel going on not only in the UK but also in other European countries, including Germany. It is based on a black-andwhite paradigm, in which “Israel” is seen as the abstract evil while “the Palestinians” stand for the abstract good, regardless of what their representatives permit or accomplish. This is the background against which the Hamas ­Charter’s antisemitism is either ignored or excused as a helpless reaction of people who cannot do better. The root cause, however, of the British Left’s inability to

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identify and fight Islamic antisemitism is a distorted form of anti-fascism that fails to understand the peculiarity of antisemitism as well as the peculiarity of the Holocaust—a distorted form of anti-fascism that is unable to react adequately when in the early twenty-first century the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are once used as a guide. The key to addressing that failure, in my opinion, is Holocaust awareness. Only the blinking of a historical eye has passed since the gas chambers were closed, bringing an end to a crime that will be remembered even a thousand years hence because of its character and scope. The character of “Holocaust Memorial Day” in Britain has, however, been problematic from the very ­beginning. This day of remembrance was first suggested at the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust that took place on 27 January 2000. The Forum’s declaration dealt only with the Holocaust, with reference to antisemitism, the Jews, and Nazi crimes.48 Shortly afterwards, a “Statement of Commitment for Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom” was formulated. But this British statement blurred the contours of the Holocaust in two ways. First, it made no direct mention of Jews, the victims of the Holocaust, and put more emphasis on racism than on antisemitism. Second, the British expression of commitment unhelpfully universalized the Holocaust. It did not deal with the Holocaust as a singular crime but with “the lessons of such events.” “Events” here clearly meant “the Holocaust and other genocides” that have happened before or since the Holocaust.49 The United Nation’s declaration of 1 November 2005 that introduced the Holocaust Memorial Day on a world scale reaffirmed “that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other members of other minorities, will forever be a warning.” This declaration too focused the commemoration effort on the Holocaust alone.50 The remark by Jackie Walker that I quoted at the beginning of this article clearly reflects the obscure background of the 2000 British version of “Holocaust Memorial Day.” It seems to me that that version should be revised, so that the commemoration focuses on the Shoah alone. It would be hypocritical, however, to separate this act of remembrance from the current dangers presented by contemporary antisemitism, especially in the Muslim world. Moreover, Holocaust Memorial Day events in Britain should deal not only with the genocidal character of antisemitism during World War II but also with the many failures of British policy in this regard, notably the White Paper of 1939 that blocked the escape routes for Jews to Mandatory Palestine and the governmental deci-

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sions of 1946 that let the mufti of Jerusalem escape to the Middle East, while at the same time denying Jewish survivors of the Holocaust the possibility of emigrating to Palestine. As things stand at present, the exceptional passion of the debate in Britain over the Middle East conflict seems to me to produce more heat than light. A deepening and broadening of the terms of the discussion along the lines suggested in this paper might lead to more productive results. The author would like to thank Colin Meade of London for his helpful comments on this paper.

NOTES   1 Dave Rich, The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism (London: ­Biteback Publishing Ltd, 2016), xv.  2 Rich, Left’s Jewish Problem, 159–93.   3 Charter quotations are from Yale Law School’s version in the Avalon Project (including the latter’s infelicitous punctuation); see http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/ hamas.asp.   4 I discuss statements by Muslims against antisemitism in Islamischer Antisemitismus und deutsche Politik (Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2007), 169–74. Jew-friendly verses can be found, for example, in Quran 7:137 and 2:47.   5 Cited from Leon Wieselthier, “Sympathy for the Other,” New York Times Book Review, 1 April 2007.   6 Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (New York, NY: Telos Press, 2007), 24.   7 Jeffrey L. Sammons, Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion: Die Grundlage des modernen Antisemitismus—eine Fälschung. Text und Kommentar (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998).   8 Peter Walker, “Jackie Walker Stripped of Momentum Post in Antisemitism Row,” Guardian, 3 October 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/03/momentums-vice-chair-removed-antisemitism-row-jackie-walker.   9 Times of Israel staff, “Corbyn Ally under Fire for Questioning Holocaust Day,” Times of Israel, 28 September 2016, https://www.timesofisrael.com/corbyn-ally-under-fire-forquestioning-­holocaust-day/. 10 “Marxism, the Holocaust and September 11: An Interview with Norman Geras,” Imprints: A Journal of Analytric Socialism 6 (3) (2002), http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/normangerasinterview.html. 11 “The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry,” 30 June 2016, http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/­partydocuments/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf. 12 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 209.

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The Role of the Intellectual 13 Yigal Carmon, “The Role of Holocaust Denial in the Ideology and Strategy of the Iranian Regime,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Inquiry and Analysis Series 307, 15 December 2006, https://www.memri.org/reports/role-holocaust-denial-ideologyand-strategy-iranian-regime. 14 House of Commons Home Affair Committee, “Antisemitism in the UK: Tenth Report of Session 2016–17,” 13 October 2016, 55, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/136.pdf. 15 House of Commons, “Antisemitism in the UK,” 44. 16 Ibid., 45. 17 Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (New York, NY: Metropolitan Books 2009), 248. See also the review by Colin Meade and mine on the Engage website: https://engageonline.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/matthias-kuntzeland-colin-meade-debate-with-gilbert-achcar/. 18 Achcar, Arabs and the Holocaust, 256. 19 George Miller interviewing Gilbert Achcar, “Israel’s Propaganda War: Blame the Grand Mufti,” 12 May 2010, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/achcar120510p.html. 20 Maajid Nawaz, “The British Left’s Hypocritical Embrace of Islamism,” Daily Beast, 8 August 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/08/the-british-left-s-hypocritical-embrace-of-islamism.html. 21 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Group, 2003). 22 Said, Orientalism, 204. 23 As quoted in Joshua Muravchik, “Enough Said: the False Scholarship of Edward Said,” World Affairs Journal, March/April 2013, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/ enough-said-false-scholarship-edward-said. 24 Said, Orientalism, 273. 25 Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (London: Vintage, 1992), 5, 22, 46, 48, 100f. 26 Philip Carl Salzman, “Reflections on Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict,” in Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict, ed. Philip Carl Salzman and Donna ­Robinson Divine (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 245. 27 Matthias Küntzel, “The Roots of Antisemitism in the Middle East: New Debates,” in Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives, ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013), 390–92. 28 Said, Question of Palestine, 331. 29 Ibid., 70. 30 Ibid., 208. 31 Nawaz, “Hypocritical Embrace.” 32 See the comments by James Bloodworth in “Debating Michael Walzer’s ‘Islamism and the Left,’” Fathom, Summer 2015, http://fathomjournal.org/debating-michael-walzers-islamism-and-the-left. 33 Achcar, Arabs and the Holocaust, 142. 34 David Feldman, “Sub-Report Commissioned To Assist The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism,” 1 January 2015, http://www.pearsinstitute.bbk.ac.uk/about/people/ bio-pages/david-feldman/publications. 35 Feldman, “Sub-Report,” 4.

The British Left’s Attitudes toward Antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim Worl 36 See Hans-Christian Rößler, “Die nichts mehr zu verlieren haben,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), 9 July 2014, https://fazarchiv.faz.net/document/FAZ_FR1201407094 318739?offset=&all=. Rößler states: “The Israeli government waited nearly a whole week. But the hope that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would stop their rocket attacks from Gaza did not come true” (my translation). 37 Thus, Griff Witte and William Booth, “As cease-fire with Hamas fails to take shape, ­Netanyahu says, ‘Our answer is fire,’” Washington Post, 16 July 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-accepts-truce-plan-hamas-balks/2014/07/15/04373 008-0bf5-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html?utm_term=.c0782beaaae9. Witte and Booth write: The Islamist militant group showed signs of internal strain, with its military wing vowing to escalate the conflict even as a top political leader said the group was considering Egypt’s cease-fire plan. The proposal, offered last Monday night, called for Israel and Hamas to stop firing Tuesday without preconditions and then launch talks in Cairo within 48 hours. Israeli’s security cabinet approved the deal Monday morning, and Israel stopped its attacks on Gaza at 9 a.m. local time. But Hamas officials balked at the proposal, saying they had never been consulted. The rocket fire from Gaza continues unabated, and Israel resumed military operations in the territory at 3 p.m. 38 Feldman, “Sub-Report,” 1. 39 See my paper “Warum starben 400 Kinder in Gaza?” [Why Did 400 Kids Get Killed in Gaza?], http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/warum-starben-400-kinder-in-gaza. 40 Feldman, “Sub-Report,” 15. 41 Ibid., 18. 42 Italics have been added for emphasis. The original is available on the German government website, https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Rede/2014/09/2014-09-14merkel-kundgebung-judenhass.html. 43 Feldman, “Sub-report,” 1. 44 As quoted in my similarly named article, “Against Those Who Want to Destroy Me, I Must Be Strong,” Matthias Küntzel website, http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/againstthose-who-want-to-destroy-me-i-must-be-strong. 45 For more detail, see again “Against Those Who Want to Destroy Me,” as well as Matthias Küntzel, “The Wannsee Legacy: Lessons for Genocide Prevention,” Matthias Küntzel website, http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/the-wannsee-legacy-lessons-for-genocideprevention. 46 See, for example, the survey by the Pew Research Center as quoted by Neil J. Kressel, “The Sons of Pigs and Apes”: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2012), 129. See also the Anti-Defamation League’s 2014 “Global Index of Antisemitism,” available at http://www.adl.org/anti-semitism/m/adl-global-100/. 47 Kressel, Sons of Pigs and Apes, 3. 48 See the “Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust” on the website of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/about-us/stockholm-declaration.

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The Role of the Intellectual 49 This “Statement of Commitment” can be found on the website of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, http://hmd.org.uk/page/statement-commitment#. 50 The declaration can be found on the website of the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/docs/res607.shtml.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Achcar, Gilbert. The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Kressel, Neil J. “The Sons of Pigs and Apes”: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence. ­Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2012. Küntzel, Matthias. Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. New York, NY: Telos Press, 2007. Küntzel, Matthias. “The Roots of Antisemitism in the Middle East: New Debates.” In Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives, edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, 382–401. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2013. Rich, Dave. The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism. London: Biteback Publishing, 2016. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London: Penguin Group, 2003.

CHAPTER 10

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition: Alain Badiou and the Radical Tradition of Antisemitism DAVID SEYMOUR

INTRODUCTION I challenge anyone to find a single line in any of my works that can be called anti-Semitic. Alain Badiou, 14 August 20141

M

y focus in this chapter on the militant French philosopher, Alain Badiou, emerges from my work into the various ways that the Shoah has been incorporated into antisemitic ways of thinking.2 In what follows, I argue that Badiou’s thoughts on what he terms “uses of the word ‘Jew’”3 in general, as well as on the Shoah in particular, offers a series of continuities with what can be called the radical tradition of antisemitism—a tradition that reaches back at least as far as Bruno Bauer’s anti-emancipationist, and avant le lettre, antisemitic texts of the 1840s. It simultaneously questions the notion of a sharp rupture between what have been termed “classical” and “new” antisemitism. It questions also the place of the Shoah in recent critical thinking within a dialectic of disavowal, distinction, and repetition.

THE RADICAL TRADITION OF ANTISEMITISM—RADICAL THOUGHT Beginning after the rise or, more appropriately, the defeat of National Socialism, antisemitism has almost completely been identified with the Right and

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Far Right of the political spectrum. However, its contemporary iteration within so-called “left circles” has brought that seemingly natural identification into question. Although accepting the limits of a “natural” identification and exhaustion of antisemitism with the Right and Far Right, I correspondingly eschew a similarly naturalized correlation with socialist and communist praxis. This is not to say that antisemitism is absent from that wing of the political spectrum. Rather, it seems to me that the essence of Marx’s critique of capitalism and its political and social manifestations serve as a welcome disciplinary constraint on the blunderbuss typical of much non-Marxist, radical oppositional praxis, both of the past and the present. Indeed, Marx’s work, from On the Jewish Question (1844) through to the three volumes of Capital (1867–83), serves in part precisely to put a brake on the personification of capitalist social relations without which antisemitism cannot begin to be thought. That there should be confusion between “left” and “radical” ways of thinking and the expression of antisemitism is not, however, solely a conceptual matter. Many of those who peddled the errant nonsense of antisemitism were often recognized “radical” journalists and social commentators whose work on this subject sold well, with many books and pamphlets running into several editions.4 Equally, they were penned as contributions to significant debates taking place within the left and were often treated with the utmost seriousness. In this context, it is worthy of note that, although Marx and Engels did not directly confront the antisemitic content of many of these contributions (with the exception of On the Jewish Question [1843] and The Holy Family [1844]), they nevertheless felt that such works provided enough of a temptation to counter them in many of their own books and articles. Here, one need only think of Marx and Engels’s critiques of Proudhon,5 Bauer,6 Duhring,7 and Adolph ­Wagner8—writings that spanned both thinkers’ lifetimes. In view of these comments, radical antisemitism can be defined as that way of thinking disciplined neither by Marx nor by many strands of Marxism in both its socialist and liberal manifestations. It is radical because, unequipped with even a hint of rational understanding of the world and absent a recognition of the complex and obscure nature of modern capitalist relations, it remains unconstrained in its flights of fancy due to a lack of critique sustained by a praxis of experience and reason. Instead, it points to an unreasoned (indeed, anti-reason), utopian and absolute opposition to all that is. It offers an evaluation of the social world in which nothing that exists is of value and, as such, needs be overthrown in toto. This nihilism is carried out as the herald of the new—and

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final—emancipation of an equally abstract concept of “man.” Such thought often (but not always) allocates “the Jew” and the supposed dominance and domination of “Jewish values” as the major block to that transcendence. It is within this radical tradition that Badiou’s thinking can be situated.

DISTINCTION AND DISAVOWAL A common characteristic between “classic”9 and “new”10 antisemitic ideology is that each begins with a disavowal and a distinction. Both iterations will often begin by acknowledging and lamenting prior forms of anti-Jewish hostility. This opening gambit of disavowal is followed immediately by a distinction between these disavowed ideologies and the writer’s own “novel” contribution. This duality of disavowal and distinction expresses itself by claims to “objectivity” such that, though some might find what they have to “report” negative as regards “the Jews,” it is rather a result of careful “scientific”11 enquiry. To echo this point, many, but by no means all, claim that they would wish no harm to the Jews of their own day, but feel duty bound to report the findings of their research to a wider audience, hitherto deceived by a “Jewish controlled” or “Jewish sympathetic” press. This tendency to distinction and disavowal is clearly in evidence from the earliest works of “classic” antisemitism. For example, Willhelm Marr’s The Victory of Judaism over Germanism (1879) opens with the following sentences: What I intend to accomplish is less a polemic against Judaism than it is a statement of facts regarding cultural history. I, therefore, unconditionally defend Jewry against any and all religious persecution and that it is hardly more possible to express this more closely than I have done here. … On the other hand, I emphasize the indisputable truth. With the Jews, the Romans have forced a tribe upon the West, which as history shows, was thoroughly hated by all peoples of the world.12

A second common theme is that of the shift from Jewish powerlessness to almost unlimited Jewish power. This second constant is illustrated in the ­reference to the idea of “victory” present in the title of Marr’s tract. While acknowledging that at some points in history Jews may have been subject to great hardships,13 they are presented as turning that powerlessness into virtually absolute power. More often than not, such an inversion is to be explained by their own underhand and malevolent maneuvers. A similar play of disavowal, distinction, and repetition can be found in the work of Alain Badiou.

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ALAIN BADIOU: DISTINCTION, DISAVOWAL, AND THE IDEOLOGY OF ANTISEMITISM In the “Introduction” to the section “Uses of the Word ‘Jew’” in the collection Polemics, Badiou acknowledges the traces of 1930s antisemitism within certain strains of contemporary France’s left and right. He recognizes also its presence among some of those claiming support for Palestinians.14 Yet, having done so, he downplays it to such an extent that it no longer appears as a serious concern for the present. Having spoken of what is the presumed distinction between “classic” and “new” antisemitism, Badiou continues: This being the case, it doesn’t seem to me that the data [concerning antisemitism], which are freely available, are such that they justify a full alert, although it should be clear that, on such questions, the imperative of vigilance admits of no interruption.15

Writing a few years later but with an ill-tempered inflection, Badiou repeats this point but adds to it some “originality.” After again discussing what he sees as the declining legacy of antisemitism among left and right (and the French state, at least since the time of Barres), he states: Today, there is nothing of this racial kind in France, and for good reason. Before the war, the majority of Jews were foreigners who had arrived from Poland, Lithuania or Romania, who spoke Yiddish and belonged to the poorest section of the working-class: they were the Arabs and Africans of their day. Nowadays, Jews are pretty well “integrated,” and this kind of antisemitism and racism finds other targets.16

Badiou’s point here, of course, is to make a distinction from and disavowal of the past when Jews were the target of antisemitism and today when they are not. Yet, this account of the distinction between past antisemitism and the presumed absence of contemporary anti-Jewish hostility contains some questionable assumptions. First, as the quotation makes clear, Badiou reduces antisemitism solely to its racist variant. All other forms of the expression of antisemitism are excluded. Equally troubling is Badiou’s overlooking the fact that, while non-domicile Eastern European Jews were the target of French and Vichy antisemitism, so too were the “integrated” French Jews of the time. It is only by adopting these

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narrow conceptions of antisemitism that Badiou can speak about antisemitism as the form of racism suffered by Arabs and Africans living in France (and, of course, not only France). In other words, antisemitism as an ideology that historically always placed “the Jew” at the center of its imagination becomes now little more that an abstract concept applied to any and all those subject to racist and discriminatory praxis. Distinguished from its historical meaning (animosity against Jews “as Jews”) in this manner, it becomes an empty vessel able to be filled with other, distinct, forms of racism—in this instance, the very real discrimination against Arabs and Africans “as Arabs and Africans.”17

THE TRIUMPH OF JEWISH PARTICULARISM OVER THE UNIVERSALISM OF MAN This combat between the universalism of “man” against “Jewish particularism” that, as noted above, is part of the definition of the radical tradition of antisemitism, appears in the canon in two forms. The first is the idea that Jews can never be part of the universal as long as they remain Jews. The second is the belief that current claims to universalism present in liberal and modern democracies are a sham masking their usurpation by “Jewish values,” which, therefore, serve an alleged Jewish self-interest. As will become clear in the following discussion, elements of both observations are present within Badiou’s thinking on the Holocaust and the Jews, most notably around questions of human rights and the State of Israel. Each of these formulations will be addressed in turn.

(a) Universal Humanity versus Jewish Particularism (Exceptionalism) Perhaps the earliest example of the conflict between an abstract universalist conception of “man” and stubborn Jewish particularism or exceptionalism within the radical tradition of antisemitism can be found in the anti-­emancipation tracts of Bruno Bauer: The Jew, on the other hand, has to break not only with his Jewish nature, but also with the development towards perfecting his religion, a development which has remained alien to him.18

Importantly for the present context, Bauer’s argument—and the reason Marx felt called upon to challenge it—was that it originated not from the Christian

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Right but from the “critical” Left.19 Yet, this did not stop Bauer utilizing the former’s arguments for his own anti-emancipationist thinking. In what Draper calls an act of “wooden sectarianism,”20 Bauer argued that since no one in the Christian state of the time was free, for the Jews to seek emancipation as Jews would be to make them a special case, or to award them “special privileges” over and above the rest of the population. For the Jews to be free, therefore, would mean not only fighting for their own emancipation, but for the emancipation of all. Moreover, since the modern secular state meant, for Bauer, the emancipation of “man” from the constraints of religion, the Jews had to renounce their Judaism to be emancipated within this new state form. To argue otherwise, whether it was seeking emancipation in the Christian state or in the secular state, the Jews, as long as they remained Jews, would be putting their own particularism over and above that of the universal. He writes: [The Jews’] Jewish and restricted nature always triumphs in the long run over his human and political obligations. The prejudice remains, even though it is overtaken by universal principles. But, if it remains, it is more likely to overtake everything else. … If they wish to become free, the Jews should not embrace Christianity but Christianity in dissolution and more generally religion in dissolution, i.e. enlightenment, criticism and its ­product—free humanity.21 … “The Jew gives nothing to humanity when he lays aside his limited law,” when he abolishes all his Judaism.22

This theme of Jewish particularism claiming privileges at the expense of human, universal emancipation resurfaces in terms reminiscent of Bauer in Badiou’s “Introduction” to his “Uses of the Word ‘Jew’” in the series of essays, extracts, and interviews that constitute the collection Polemics. Thus, he writes: An abstract variation of my position consists in pointing out that, from the apostle Paul to Trotsky, including Marx and Freud, Jewish communitarianism has only underpinned creative universalism in so far as there have been new points of rupture with it. It is clear that today’s equivalent of Paul’s religious rupture with established Judaism, of Spinoza’s rationalist rupture with the synagogue, or of Marx’s political rupture with the bourgeois integration of a part of his community of origin, is a subjective rupture with the State of Israel, not with its empirical existence, which is

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition neither more or less impure than that of all states, but with its exclusive identitarian claim to be a “Jewish state,” and with it draws incessant privileges from this claim, especially when it comes to trampling underfoot what serves us as international law.23

In this formulation, as with Bauer, for Jews to “identify” with the State of Israel as a “Jewish state” (and here Badiou does not refer to the phrase “homeland for the Jews”) is not only to stand against “creative universalism” but also to “draw incessant [particularist] privileges” against the universalism of international law. They must, in other words, complete a rupture with Israel. Badiou, like Bauer before him, demands that for Jews to enter the universal struggle for emancipation demands that they give up not only their Judaism (Paul), their religious practices (Spinoza), and their communal networks (Marx). But Badiou himself also now adds the rejection of Jews’ claims to national self-­ determination. However, implicit in the demand that contemporary Jews affect a “rupture” with the State of Israel, Badiou demands a corresponding demand that Jews “forget the Holocaust.”24 The connection between these two calls becomes apparent in these comments: It is obviously necessary, not only for the Jews, but for all of humanity, not to forget the destruction of the European Jews. What is at issue here is not exclusively a memory; it is a question of thought, of a great philosophical mediation. … The only thing we can retain here is a principle of universal scope: there is something monstrous about determining a state from a racial, mythical, or religious point of view, or more generally, by appealing to particularity. … That is why, although the destruction of the European Jews ought never to be forgotten, it is nonetheless dangerous to tackle the concrete problems of the Israeli state based on this destruction. The memory of the Holocaust concerns all human beings. But paradoxically, in the concrete circumstances of the Middle East, we have to—strict asceticism—forget the Holocaust, since we are exclusively faced with the practical necessity of having to found a new kind of peace by means of a new kind of political [i.e., universal] subjectivity.25

Moreover, it is by continuing to remain faithful to their particular identity as Jews, as well as to the “memory” of the Holocaust, that the Jews are said to gain an “exception” or “privilege” not available to other peoples:

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The Role of the Intellectual There is no reason to make on this point [the state as an “open conception”] to make a “Jewish exception.” The argument traditionally advanced for such an exception evokes the singularity of the destruction of the European Jews by the Nazis. … The question of the destruction of European Jews is a German and European question. If we are to come to a resolution of a Middle East problem, we must manage—and I know it’s a difficult thing—to forget the Holocaust.26

However, when we come to examine Badiou’s account of the Holocaust itself, not only does he, again echoing Bauer, claim that a specifically Jewish memory of the Holocaust gives to Jews and the “Jewish” state what amounts to an “exceptional privilege,” but, more fundamentally, he also claims that any connection made between those murdered as Jews by the Nazis and those Jews alive today is an illegitimate usurpation of the Shoah. Making such a connection, for Badiou, reflects a particularist “Jewish self-interest” and an illustration of “Jewish privilege.”

(b) The Usurpation of the Shoah and Jewish Cultural Dominance Badiou’s thinking on this point arises from his understanding of the nature of the Shoah, while his framing it within the dialectic of universalism and particularism informs his work as a whole. For Badiou, the obsession with “the Jews” stems from the Nazis presenting their own (national and racial) particularism in universal terms. It was, he says, the Jews, as the “name of names,” that stands for the universality that Nazism could not but mark for destruction according to the “logic” of its own claims. In order to claim its own (pseudo-)universalism, Nazi particularism had to destroy the “true” universalism as represented in the “name ‘Jew’.” Yet, Badiou’s account is not without its own ambiguities. Badiou argues that choosing Jews to fulfil this (negative) role was not arbitrary but, rather, turns on what he sees as a real link between the name “Jew” and (true, i.e., ontological) universalism. This affinity, however, points less to the particularism of actual living Jews and more to an abstract and nameless ontological universalism that lies at the heart of that identity. Although such a contradiction is present in all others targeted by National Socialism (“the ­Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, communists”),27 Badiou nonetheless states:

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition The choice of this name relates, without any doubt, to its obvious link with universalism, in particular revolutionary universalism—to that which was in effect already void [i.e., absent] about this name—that is, what was connected to the universality and eternity of truths.28

Still, despite arguing that the link between Jews and universalism is “without any doubt” legitimate, Badiou continues almost immediately by disassociating his own claim from that of National Socialism. He does so by claiming that the Nazi category of “the Jews” be understood solely as a category created from within Nazism itself: Nevertheless, inasmuch as it served to organize the extermination, the name “Jew” was a political creation of the Nazis, without any pre-existent referent. It is a name whose meaning no one can share with the Nazis, a meaning that presumes the simulacrum and fidelity to the simulacrum— and hence the absolute singularity of Nazism as a political sequence.29

From this account of his understanding of the Shoah, Badiou draws two negative but interrelated conclusions: first, any link made between Jews murdered by the Nazis and Jews alive today is illegitimate; and second, those who make such a connection, most specifically in relation to the State of Israel, gain some form of protected exceptionalism denied other states and peoples. It is in the context of these conclusions that Badiou believes that he has identified the contemporary existence of what has been a staple of radical antisemitic literature— Jewish privilege. As to the first conclusion—the illegitimacy of any connection between Jews murdered by the Nazis and Jews alive today—Badiou poses a radical disjuncture, as is evident in the rhetorical flourish of an unanswered question. To show such a connection, he argues as follows: It would be necessary to explain how and why the Nazi predicate “Jew,” such as it was used to organize separation, then deportation and death, coincides with the subject predicate under which the alliance [i.e., between Jews murdered by the Nazis and contemporary Jews] is sealed.30

As we have seen, it is precisely the impossibility of such explanation that lies at the core of Badiou’s understanding of the nature of National Socialism and the Shoah.31 Badiou’s second conclusion follows from his first: by falsely claiming

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a connection between Jews murdered by the Nazis and Jews alive today, Jews gain an illegitimate privilege through their suffering at the hands of the Nazis that protects them from criticism, most notably from criticism aimed at the State of Israel. Badiou articulates this second point through reference to the ( Jewish origins) of the dominance of “victimhood” of contemporary society discussed above. It is again worth quoting Badiou at length: The basic argumentation, of course, refers to the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices. In the victim ideology that constitutes the campaigning morality of contemporary moralism, this unprecedented extermination is held to be paradigmatic. In and of itself, the extermination would underpin the political, legal and moral necessity to hold the word “Jew” above all handling of identity predicates and to give it some kind of nominal sacralizing. … The progressive imposition of the word “Shoah” … can be taken as a verbal sacralizing of victims. By a remarkable irony, one thereby comes to the point of applying to the name “Jew” a claim that the Christians originally directed against all Jews themselves, which was that “Christ” was a name worthier than all others.32

The implication here is that what amounts to the doomed “chosen” status allocated not only by Christianity but, more specifically, by the Nazis, is now inverted into a privilege. In other words, just as the radical tradition of antisemitism spoke of how, after generations of eking out a living on the margins of European society, the Jews, following emancipation, were seen to have gained unwarranted (and corrupt) advantages, so Badiou lays out a similar path and inverts a moment of almost absolute Jewish powerlessness into one of almost exceptional Jewish power. In this instance, the “sacralization” and hierarchical “worthiness” is far from innocent. It is, rather, pressed into direct service for what is seen as the illegitimate defence of particularist Jewish interests—most notably, the State of Israel. The alleged Jewish power is, for Badiou, entrenched not only in the “contemporary moralism” that marks post-Holocaust society but also in the dominant place gained by Jews through their unwarranted link with the Shoah itself. Nowhere are these points more in evidence than in the following: Today it is not uncommon to read that “Jew” is indeed a name beyond ordinary names. And it seems that, like an inverted original sin, the grace

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition of having been an incomparable victim can be passed down not only to descendants of descendants, but to all who come under the predicate in question, be they heads of state or armies engaging in severe oppression of the lands they have confiscated. Less rational is the claim that we can find the means in the Nazi gas chambers with which to confer on the colonial state of Israel … some special status other than that all colonial states already have conferred on them for some decades.33

As this quotation indicates, alongside the notion that contemporary Jews have illegitimately usurped the legacy of the Shoah is the idea that they have done so in the name of their own particularist and parochial interests. From Badiou’s perspective, commemoration and memory of the Shoah is little more than a weapon used by Jews to unjustifiably, and against all the evidence, silence criticism of Israel. Moreover, the manner in which Badiou sees the articulation of this weaponization of the Shoah is inherent in the claim of contemporary antisemitism. As noted in this essay’s first section, this is a claim to which Badiou denies any empirical existence: It is wholly intolerable to be accused of anti-Semitism by anyone for the sole reason that, from the fact of the extermination, one does not conclude as to the predicate “Jew” and its religious and communitarian dimension that it receive some singular valorization—a transcendent annunciation!—nor that Israeli exactions, whose colonial nature is patent and banal, be specially tolerated. I propose that nobody any longer accept, publicly or privately, this type of political blackmail.34

(c) Jewish Particularism as False Universalism It is not without significance that, as noted above, a common characteristic of the radical tradition of the antisemitic canon is written from the position of resigned defeat. As Zimmerman notes in his biography of Marr,35 this perspective is far from a rhetorical gesture, but something seriously believed. Indeed, a recurrent theme of this literature is the self-image of the antisemite as defeated victim at the hand of the Jewish victor. Although for some, this dialectic of defeat and victory comes at the expense of presumed “national values” for others, it is presented as the defeat of (an abstract) universal humanity at the expense of a dominant, and dominating, Jewish particularism.

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In his On the Jewish Question, Bauer prefigures this resignation of defeat at the hands of “the Jews” that becomes a common theme of the later antisemitic radical’s canon. He writes: The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe. While corporations and guilds refuse to admit Jews, or have not yet adopted a favourable attitude towards them, the audacity of industry mocks at the material institutions.36

After Jewish emancipation had appeared as an accepted fact, this notion of Jewish privilege determining the “fate of Europe” reappeared in the Nazi-era writings of German jurisprude, Carl Schmitt. Now, Jewish privilege and power were no longer believed to stand in opposition to formal state and social forms, but rather to have infused them with so-called “Jewish values.” Viewed from this perspective, the universalistic claims within liberal democracies—the rule of law, universal suffrage, etc.—are but shams masking their “Jewish” content. Nowhere is this point more to the fore than in Schmitt’s 1938 work, Leviathan.37 In this book, Schmitt offers a thorough rejection of the liberal nation-state in general and the rights that comprise it in particular. He argues that the origins and development of political and juridical rights arose from the compromises negotiated through the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to end the bloody Thirty Years War. Signaling this moment as pivotal for the “decline of the West,” Schmitt maintains that these compromises resulted in moments of (individual) freedom immune to sovereign power and which, through gradual increases over the centuries, led to sovereignty’s demise. He held that this “defeat” of “the political” resulted directly in what he understood as the social anarchy of the Weimar democracy and of liberal democracy in general. Although Schmitt acknowledges the place of Hobbes and others in this defeat, he adds an antisemitic gloss. He claims that once these moments of individual freedom came into existence, they were open to manipulation by “the Jews” who, having jumped at the opportunity, harnessed them for their own nefarious and negative interests. Over time, these “particularist” Jewish values, wrapped in a sham universalism, gained supremacy over the entire body politic, not only in Germany, but also in Europe and elsewhere. The expansion of universal rights, the rule of law and the concomitant demise of sovereignty, as well as social and cultural homogeneity, brought “the Jews” their victory, dominance and domination.

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition

Updated from 1648 through 1938 to 1948, Badiou repeats the same story through what he sees as the contemporary dominance of “ethics” over that of “the political,” of a specious Jewish particularism masquerading as a faux universalism and in so doing obstructing its authentic counterpart. Drawing on Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), Badiou constructs this aspect of his thinking around a critique of both human rights and contemporary ethics, more specifically the ethics of alterity. Turning first to his critique of human rights, we see that Badiou draws a correspondence between Nietzsche’s aphorism, “Evil is derived from the Good (and not the other way around),”38 and the nature of contemporary human rights, their form and content. He argues that human rights represent the “good” that, as for the Nietzschean slave, follows from and is defined by a prior definition of “evil.” In this instance, the “evil” that is the progenitor of the “good” of human rights is that of the victim of the mid-century totalitarian camps through which humans are stripped down to their mere “animality.” Measured by such a concept of “evil,” the protection offered by human rights is nothing more than the right not to be harmed or hurt. In other words, far from representing human beings in their humanity and creativity, human rights reduce man to little more than a victim and an animal: “Ethics [human rights] subordinates the identification of this subject to the universal recognition of the evil that is done to him. Ethics thus defines man as a victim.”39 If it is the case that Badiou’s depiction (and rejection) of human rights arises from the mid-twentieth-century experience of totalitarianism and the camps that were the emblems of their terror directly, as well as the Nazi death camps of the Shoah indirectly, no such ambiguity remains in the account of his related critique of what he sees as the perniciousness of the “ethics of alterity.”40 Here, Badiou emphasizes the passivity that he believes he has identified in the nature of human rights. In so doing, he brings to his aid the second of Nietzsche’s aphorisms that “man would rather will nothing than not will at all.” Yet, in so doing, he traces the origin of this passivity in the face of the Other— understood in this context as the “ethics of differences” or “recognition of the other”—to that of the Jewish theology (via Emanuel ­Levinas), which he opposes to Greek philosophy. In so doing, of course, he reproduces, at the level of ethics, the distinction between the mortal (mere animality) and the Immortal (man): According to Greek thought, adequate action presumes an initial theoretical mastery of experience, which ensures that the action is in conformity with the rationality of being. From this point of departure are deduced

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The Role of the Intellectual laws (in the plural) of the City and of action. According to Jewish ethics, in Levinas’s sense, everything is grounded in the immediacy of an opening to the Other, which disarms the reflexive subject. The “thou” [you] prevails over the “I.” Such is the meaning of the Law.41

To put Badiou’s arguments in other terms, the passivity of the mortal, present in the universalist aspects of human rights and of the ethics of difference, in the face of the will of the Immortal, is the consequence of Jerusalem’s triumph over Athens. That is a victory that underpins the entirety of contemporary society.

CONCLUSION There is a certain irony inherent in both Badiou’s conclusions and his use of Nietzsche in arguing for this “Jewish” triumph. Just as Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals introduces the figures of the slave and the noble, so Badiou brings into being the mortal and the Immortal. Badiou’s own voice is that of the Immortal. Yet, to adopt and adapt these figures in this way is to miss the irony that infuses Nietzsche’s own formulations. Nietzsche’s irony is evident when he shows that the voice of the noble (like that of the Immortal) is, in fact, the voice of the slave. Nowhere is this more evident than in book 2, section 7, where “the noble” blames the Jews for the corrupt condition of the social and political world.42 However, when read through the prism of ressentiment, this alleged nobility is, in reality, nothing other than the slave’s own distorted self-image and self-perception. His “good,” his “nobility,” his “immortality” only makes sense after he has defined the Jews as the (slavish) evil that needs to be destroyed before the “good” can enter the world. What can be said of Nietzsche’s noble, therefore, can be said of Badiou’s Immortal. For all of Badiou’s distinctions and disavowals, what emerges is, in fact, repetitions. And as with those whose “noble” thoughts he repeats, Badiou’s thoughts on “the Jews” and “antisemitism” tells us far more about the phenomena under discussion than he himself would have us believe.

NOTES   1 Alain Badiou, “Alain Badiou’s ‘Anti-Semitism’: Badiou, Segré, and Winter Respond to the Current Accusations in France,” Verso Books’ web-blog, 14 August 2014, http://www. versobooks.com/blogs/1688-alain-badiou-s-anti-semitism-badiou-segre-and-winter-­ respond-to-the-current-accusations-in-france.

Disavowal, Distinction, and Repetition   2 See David M. Seymour, “Antisemitism Emancipation: The Ressentiment of Loss,” in Law, Antisemitism and the Holocaust (London: Routledge, 2007), 49–82; David M. Seymour, “From Auschwitz to Gaza: Ethics for the Want of Law,” Journal of Global Ethics 6 (2010): 205–15; David M. Seymour, “Holocaust Memory: Between Universal and Particular,” in The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Contesting/Contested Memories, ed. David M. ­Seymour and Mercedes Camino (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 15–32.   3 Alain Badiou, “Uses of the Word ‘Jew’,” in Polemics, trans. by Steve Corcoran (London: Verso, 2006), 157–247.   4 See, for example, Willhelm Marr’s The Victory of Judaism over Germanism (1879), which ran to twelve editions; note also Eugen Dühring’s The Jewish Question: A Racial, Moral and Cultural Question with a World-Historical Answer (1881).   5 Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (New York, NY: Cosimo Classics, 2008).   6 Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Karl Marx: Early Writings, ed. L. Colletti (London, Penguin Classics, 2000), 211–41; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family (New York, Hard Press, 2013).   7 Friedrich Engels, Anti-Duhring (New York, NY: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016).   8 Karl Marx, “‘Notes’ on Adolph Wagner,” in Later Political Writers, ed. T. Carvell (Cambridge: CUP, 1996).   9 “Classic” here refers to the so-called race-based theories emerging in the late nineteenth century. 10 “New” antisemitism refers to antisemitism as it relates to forms of anti-Zionist discourse. As is evident, I do not find the distinction helpful and, as such, prefer the expression “contemporary antisemitism,” which allows both discontinuities and continuities in the phenomenon under investigation. 11 “Scientific” is here used in the sense of normal academic procedure. 12 Willhelm Marr, The Victory of Judaism over Germanism, trans. Gerhard Rohringer (2009), 6, 10; available at http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/Marr-Text-English.pdf. 13 Although always as a result of the Jews’ own malevolent behaviour and actions. For the most recent iteration of this tendency, see the Liberal Democratic peer Jenny Tonge’s “letter” of October 2016, available at http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/calls-to-expel-jennytonge-for-post-blaming-anti-semitism-on-israel/. 14 It is of some note that he includes within this minority the French comedienne Dieudonné. 15 Alain Badiou, “Introduction: Uses of the Word ‘Jew,’” in Polemics, 158. 16 Alain Badiou, “Anti-Semitism Everywhere in France Today,” in Reflections on Anti-Semitism, Alain Badiou, Eric Hazan and Ivan Segre (London: Verso, 2013), 12. 17 For a related discussion, see “Holocaust Memory: Between Universal and Particular,” in Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century, 15–32. 18 Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, quoted in Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Karl Marx: Early Writings, ed. T.B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel (London: Penguin, 1975), 215. 19 Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution: State and Bureaucracy (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1977), 109–28. 20 Ibid., 113. 21 Quoted in Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” 214/235.

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The Role of the Intellectual 22 Ibid., 236 (a gloss by Marx). 23 Badiou, Polemics, 215. 24 Ibid., 214. 25 Ibid., 215. 26 Interview at the Daily Haaretz, 27 May 2005, in Polemics, 214 27 Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, trans. Peter Hallward (London: Verso, 2013), 75. 28 Badiou, Ethics, 75. 29 Ibid. 30 Badiou, Polemics, 161. 31 Badiou, Ethics. 32 Badiou, Polemics, 159–60 33 Ibid., 161–2. 34 Ibid., 162. 35 Moishe Zimmerman, Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Antisemitism (Oxford: OUP, 1986). 36 Marx, Early Writings, 237. 37 Carl Schmitt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol, trans. George Schwab (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 38 Badiou, Ethics, 9 39 Ibid., 10. 40 It is interesting to note that, during his discussion of the totalitarian camps and their reduction of man to that of victim and of mere animality, Badiou cites the case of Varlam Shalamov who, in the camps of Stalin, almost willed himself to remain a “man”—to remain “something other than a mortal being” (10–11). This account overlooks those of the Nazi camps in which one’s will to remain alive, to remain a “man,” was not within the control of any individual inmate. This romanticism runs through Badiou’s entire thinking when he discusses opposition to the subject of human rights (the mortal) and the Subject of the Political (the Immortal). 41 Badiou, Ethics, 19. 42 For a full discussion, see David M. Seymour, “The Slave, the Noble and the Jews: Reflections on Section 7 of ‘On the Genealogy of Morals,’” in Philosemitism, Antisemitism and the Jews, ed. Tony Kushner and Nadia Valman, (London: Dartmouth, 2005), 215–28.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Seymour, David M. “Holocaust Memory: Between Universal and Particular.” In The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Contesting/Contested Memories, edited by David M. Seymour and Mercedes Camino, 15–32. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. Seymour, David M. Law, Antisemitism and the Holocaust. London: Routledge, 2007. Marx, Karl. “On the Jewish Question.” In Karl Marx: Early Writings, edited by L. Colletti, 211–41. London: Penguin Classics, 2000. Badiou, Alain. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. Translated by Peter Hallward. London: Verso, 2013. Badiou, Alain. Polemics. London: Verso, 2006.

CHAPTER 11

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings” ROBERT FINE

A

rendt’s “Jewish writings” were in essence studies of antisemitism viewed through the lens of how Jews understood the antisemitism to which they were subjected.1 They were written in various formats—notes, theses, articles, books, letters—over a forty-year period of time covering Arendt’s adult life from the mid-1930s to her death in 1976. They were overshadowed by the experience of genocidal antisemitism in Nazi Germany and much of Europe. When we return to these “Jewish writings” today—a name retrospectively and recently attached to them—we do so from a point of view necessarily shaped by our own times. This is as it should be, but it comes with certain health warnings. One is not to attribute to Arendt negative attitudes toward Jews, which have more to do with our own presuppositions of “Arendtian” thought than with her actual texts and more to do with our slippages into methodological nationalism than with her allegedly “sneering” outlook on Jews. The other is not to project onto Arendt political positions, notably hostility to Zionism, which some of her readers are indeed committed to and want her to authorize. It seems to me that the contemporary literature on Arendt’s “Jewish writings” has succumbed to both these temptations. The first of these currents of thought, famously expressed by Gershom Scholem in correspondence with Arendt after the publication of her report on Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, criticizes Arendt for “lack of love” for the Jewish people, for accepting as fact damaging images of Jews painted by antisemitic commentators, and for holding Jews responsible or at least coresponsible for antisemitism. This line of interpretation tends to situate Arendt within the Left and criticize the Left as a whole for not taking antisemitism

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seriously or even for wading in its murky waters.2 The second line of interpretation, adopted by some contemporary left intellectuals today, especially those who present Israel as an affront to Jewish ethics or universal reason, tends to celebrate Arendt for her integration of universalism and pluralism, for the Diasporic “Jewish values” she is supposed to have stood for, and above all for her opposition to Zionism. From this standpoint, Arendt is represented as an anti-Zionist avant la lettre.3 I argue in this paper that both these lines of interpretation should be treated with caution. Neither is able to draw out what is important about Arendt’s Jewish writings or what contribution her work can make to struggles against antisemitism today. My proposal is that we read Arendt’s Jewish writings as an inquiry into the contradictions of Jewish political consciousness in the face of antisemitism—in terms of Arendt’s own normative hierarchy, with assimilationism at the bottom, Zionism in the middle, and cosmopolitanism at the summit. While they all gave rise to antisemitic representations—­respectively the “parvenu Jew,” “pariah Jew,” “rootless cosmopolitan Jew”—Arendt explored these political formations not through the antisemite’s condemning eyes, but through the experience of Jews confronted by extreme difficulties in a ferociously antisemitic world. Assimilationism, Zionism, and cosmopolitanism were all in their own way attempts by Jews to find a safe place in a poisoned atmosphere. They revealed the extraordinary difficulty Jews faced in their attempts to conform to the norms of antisemitic societies, to form a political community in the face of deeply ingrained hostility to the idea of a Jewish nation, and to act and think as citizens of the world when cosmopolitanism was treated as a term of abuse against Jews or as an abstraction against which Jews were found wanting.4 Arendt was critical of all these forms of political consciousness but her Jewish writings were not only political judgments concerning what Jews got right or wrong but also struggles to understand the subjective experience of Jews in these dark times. If there was a prescription in these writings, it was a developmental one—to learn from the experience of living with the unliveable. The sensibility that I find in Arendt’s Jewish writings is that she affirms the subjectivity of human beings under the most restrictive circumstances. Victims are victims, but they are not only victims. The first step to restore their humanity, even after their murder, is to acknowledge their own subjective consciousness, plurality of opinions, modes of thinking, acts of will and capacity for judgment. Dark times call for the courage of those who regard them to see the victims, perpetrators, onlookers, and others who do not easily fit any of

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

these categories as responsible subjects and not just as puppets, props, or playthings. The credo I find in Arendt’s writings is that the worst indignity we can do to the oppressed is to continue to treat them as if they were a homogenized mass stripped of subjectivity. From this vantage point, Arendt allowed herself to write of the comic pathos of Jewish assimilationists desperately trying to learn to abide by the norms of an antisemitic environment; the perhaps more tragic pathos of Zionists scornful of assimilationist Jews for failing to recognize antisemitism when it was staring them in the face, prepared to fight against antisemites, but incapable of denaturing antisemitism or of combating it in unison with others; and the abstract intellectualism of cosmopolitans driven to turn cosmopolitanism into a personal identity and political ideal to escape the muddy fields of real-life politics. Arendt’s Jewish writings have an evolutionary thrust, a sense of learning from experience, so that to fix on one moment of her critique at the expense of the rest—be it the critique of assimilationism, Zionism, or cosmopolitanism— is to miss the truth of the whole. Arendt was less inclined to put forward a fixed position prescribing what Jews ought to have done or ought now to do, than to construct a phenomenology of Jewish political consciousness in the face of radical antisemitism. She was always critical, but the standpoint of her criticism was itself in motion. She was herself part of her target. It was out of the clash between political ideas and experience of their application that Arendt, paradoxically, found a sense of the new and some hope for the future. Rereading Arendt’s Jewish writings raises the question of what work we need to do to uncover what is valid and lasting in them. There are distinctions we need to draw that she did not, harsh tonalities to her prose we need to moderate, obfuscations and inconsistencies we need to put right. Her lifelong investigations into the Jewish experience of antisemitism are not to be judged solely on the basis of errors and prejudices we can rectify, but also and principally on the basis of the validity of her treatment of the political consciousness of oppression. Many of Arendt’s Jewish writings were written in the immediacy of the Holocaust and many others in a postwar world in which what mattered was only that the Holocaust should not matter. The shibboleths that turned “the Jew” into the enemy of the human species entered beneath the skin of real live Jews and gave rise to reactive and creative responses among Jews themselves. Arendt’s existentially demanding challenge was to recognise the responsibility of victims for how they respond to their victimizers. The question of ­responsibility was

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never far from the center stage of her writings—not the responsibility of Jews for antisemitism but for how they might respond to antisemitism. Arendt often wrote of the modernity of antisemitism to distinguish her own thinking from those who eternize antisemitism as a permanent property of relations between Jews and non-Jews. She acknowledged that modern antisemitism drew on a long tradition of anti-Judaic thought that was largely Christian in its roots, but argued that it transformed the elements of this tradition into an emphatically modern phenomenon. She acknowledged that the modern age enables genuinely universalistic ways of thinking that have no truck with antisemitism, but equally it makes possible a distorted universalism that treats “the Jew” as its other and enemy—whether in the shape of a “universal class,” “universal nation,” or even “universal humanity.” Arendt’s emphasis on antisemitism’s modernity expressed a perplexing experience; antisemitism commonly appears as “always already” a problem of the past—one no longer pertinent in the present, a bygone age’s obsolete product, the relic of a defunct ethnic nationalism, biological racism, or homogenizing statism. Her questioning takes off from the fact that there are periods in which antisemitism seems to be successfully uprooted but then reemerges when we least expect it. This insight is unfortunately all too pertinent to our own times.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT’S CONTRADICTIONS In an early essay on “Enlightenment and the Jewish Question” (1932), Arendt expressed the ambivalence a young, radical, assimilated, secular, German Jewish intellectual felt about the Enlightenment’s legacy.5 She acknowledged that the Enlightenment served as an intellectual springboard for struggles for Jewish emancipation—that is, for overcoming the subordinate position that left most Jews poor, vulnerable to external persecution, and subject to the internal sway of Jewish rabbinical and financial elites. The Enlightenment presaged the construction of a society based on equal citizenship for Jews rather than on the status of a “nation within the nation.” It opened doors for Jews to enter into the modern world. Arendt’s emphasis, however, was on the ambiguities of the freedom Enlightenment offered Jews. She demonstrated how leading emancipationists, such as Christian von Dohm, the outstanding advocate of Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century Prussia, retained the anti-Judaic prejudice that Jews were a corrupted and harmful people.6 Dohm explained such corruption through the

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

oppressive conditions to which Jews were subjected, sought a remedy in terms of emancipation, and expressed hope that improvement in Jews’ civic status would lead to improvement in the Jews themselves.7 Arendt observed that in the eyes of such eighteenth-century emancipationists the Jew became “the Jew” whose noxiousness went unchallenged. They were prepared to wager that “even the Jew is a human being—the most improbable thing of all,” and put to the test the proposition that even the Jew could be improved by equal citizenship. Arendt warned that this so-called “solution to the Jewish question” was destined to backfire when “economic assimilation … turned an oppressed and persecuted people into bankers, merchants and academics” and when “the heirs of Enlightenment, who had insisted on emancipating the Jews along with the rest of humanity … now accused the Jews of turning emancipation into a privilege they demanded for themselves and not for all oppressed peoples.”8 The key difficulty, as the young Arendt well understood, was that the Enlightenment conflated the project of Jewish emancipation with that of finding a “solution to the Jewish question.” She wrote with this Enlightenment limitation in mind that “the classic form in which the Jewish question was posed in the Enlightenment provides classic antisemitism its theoretical basis.”9 When Jews were perceived as yet more harmful after emancipation than before, the antisemitic imagination took this as proof that the Jews’ harmfulness was not the result of social conditions but their essential nature. Arendt overstated her case in declaring the Enlightenment “unanimity” on this point. She did not seem to hear the voices challenging such thinking, including the Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Arendt cited approvingly an ironic comment Mendelssohn made on Dohm’s text: “how fortunate for us … one cannot urge the rights of man without advocating ours at the same time.”10 But she did not appear to grasp the significance of his critique of Dohm. Mendelssohn had solicited Dohm’s text on The Civic Improvement of Jews but then objected to the pathologizing of Jews within it. He saw parallels between the prejudices of those who once sought to transform Jews into Christians and those who now sought to transform Jews into useful citizens. He maintained that “usury” was an essential component of commercial society and that in any event no human being is simply useless—whether pauper, foreigner, or Jew. Against Dohm, Mendelssohn called for the end of all special restrictions on Jews, whether or not it led to changes in their behavior. He demanded the removal of all rabbinic powers to enforce religious discipline and insisted that reform of Judaism could not be secured under duress. He

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looked forward to a “happy time when attention will be given to human rights in all their proper compass” but expressed foreboding of a new barbarism unresolved within the Enlightenment.11 Arendt was in fact an heir to Mendelssohn’s critique of the Enlightenment but downplayed the struggles within the Enlightenment over Jewish emancipation and its relation to the Jewish question. While the Enlightenment showed itself capable of turning “the Jews” into an abstraction personifying all that is tribal, self-interested, immoral, dishonorable, and alien, it was also capable of challenging this prejudice. Voltaire and Montesquieu, both best known for putting forward negative stereotypes about Jews, pointed to the irony of those who brought the Inquisition to Europe telling the victims of their Inquisition that they had to improve morally.12 Arendt did not acknowledge how far prejudices concerning the “Jewish question” were challenged within the Enlightenment itself, but her genuine insight was to focus our attention on the deformed universalism that converted social relations between Jews and others into a mystical form: a conflict between abstract principles of particularism, on one side, and universalism, on the other. The content of what is put forward as “universal” may change—today it is more often human rights than the universal class, nation or race—but it remains true that a universalism that constructs its own enemies is not universal at all.13

ASSIMILATIONISM’S CONTRADICTIONS Arendt observed that the temptation facing Jews who sought absorption into national societies brimming with anti-Jewish prejudice was to regard everything particular about themselves as Jews as an impediment to their becoming full human beings. In her study of the Jewish writer Rahel Varnhagen (written in the 1930s and published in 1958), Arendt argued that in a hostile society Jews could only assimilate by also assimilating to antisemitism. In Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), she argued that all advocates of emancipation called for assimilation as either a preliminary condition for Jewish emancipation or as its automatic consequence. In the same book, she wrote that the vast majority of German and Austrian Jews became complicit in the upsurge of antisemitism that accompanied their emancipation.14 Arendt again overstated her case. A number of historians have pointed to a plurality of assimilatory paths beyond those Arendt allowed for. Some assimilated Jews were not oriented to the actual norms of an antisemitic society but to its unachieved ideals; some retained a distinctive Jewish identity within the

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

larger society as German-Jews; some were opposed to “total assimilation” into the German or Austrian imperial orders; and some fought actively against antisemitism.15 The literature describing the various paths of assimilation taken by Jews in Germany and elsewhere lends credence to the criticism that was offered by Arendt’s reductive analysis of Jewish passivity in the face of the Faustian Pact foisted on them. Many Jews did not simply discard their particularity in order to be accepted as universal citizens.16 A number of critics have also objected to Arendt’s reliance on antisemitic sources, such as the anti-emancipationist Heinrich Paulus (1761–1851) and the National Socialist Walter Frank (1905–1945), to back up claims that Jews were inclined toward “national isolation” and that rich Jews curried political favor at the expense of the Jewish masses.17 Arendt has been criticized for maintaining that such sources could be “consulted with profit”18 to find out what Jews were really like. Arendt has been criticized further for attributing responsibility or co-­responsibility to Jews for antisemitism’s rise. She rejected theories that deny “all specific Jewish responsibility” for antisemitism and insisted that the origins of antisemitism “must be found in certain aspects of Jewish history and specifically Jewish functions during the last centuries.”19 This approach led her to focus on the transgressions of Jews—that they “avoided all political action for two thousand years,” that rich Jews involved themselves in “shady transactions,” that Jewish finance manipulated “the business of the state,” etc.—and to postulate an “intimate relationship” between antisemitic fantasies and the realities of Jewish life. Her guiding concept seemed to be that there was “some truth” to antisemitic images of Jews.20 If we are to recover the force of Arendt’s argument, we clearly have work to do. Her actual argument was, as I see it, different from that understood by her critics. It was that nineteenth-century antisemitism—with its tales of conspiracy, money, and parasitism, with its references to “a secret world power which makes and unmakes governments,” a “secret force behind the throne,” a power that holds Europe “in its thrall”—took transient and partial moments of Jewish history and then distorted and magnified them to convert them into fictitious expressions of a toxic Jewish essence. Some antisemitic stereotypes, for instance, were constructed out of the history of “Court Jews” who, with inter-European networks at their disposal, played a significant role in financing European monarchs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and evolved into international banking houses when nineteenth-century European states extended this system of privileges to meet their own expanding material needs. The history of every category of people contains “misdeeds” among some of its members that serve as fuel for the

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racist imagination, though the racist imagination is not limited to such real or imagined misdeeds. Arendt maintained that, when the system of state privileges broke down in the latter half of the nineteenth century and Jewish financiers lost their hegemonic role in state transactions, antisemitism became remote from ­reality—the preserve of “charlatans and crackpots” with their “weird admixture of halftruths and wild superstitions.”21 She added that, after World War I, antisemitism “emancipated itself from all specific Jewish deeds and misdeeds” and became “severed from all actual experience concerning the Jewish people.”22 In genocidal antisemitism there arose an obverse relation between the situation of Jews, who were “cruelly powerless,” and the “fables of monstrous, diabolic and secret power” constructed by Nazis.23 Arendt’s conclusion was that “the foundations of antisemitism are found in developments that have very little to do with Jews.”24 Her considered judgment was that to treat Jews as antisemitism’s source is “the malicious and stupid insight of antisemites, who think that this vile tenet can account for hecatombs of human sacrifice.”25 Arendt, however, was always critical and sometimes scathing of assimilationist responses to antisemitism. She argued that the redoubling of efforts to assimilate into antisemitic societies by ignominious means—slavish expressions of patriotism, affirmations of trust in whatever government happened to be in power, etc.—was self-defeating and failed to consider the distrust these attitudes fostered. She rejected the increasingly eccentric explanations of antisemitism put forward by assimilationists, that it was an outmoded prejudice caused by the old corruption of Jews and inexorably coming to an end in the modern age. She commented painfully that, in spite of their Sisyphean efforts to integrate into antisemitic societies, assimilationists were never able to explain why things turned out so badly.26 To make sense of Arendt’s argument, we need here to adopt a distinction Arendt did not observe between assimilation and assimilationism. While Arendt used these concepts interchangeably, it makes little sense to treat her as hostile to assimilation as such. She was after all a thoroughly assimilated Jewish intellectual. Her critique was not aimed at assimilation as such but rather at assimilationism, a response to antisemitism that turns assimilation into an “ism,” into the raison d’être of one’s being in the world. While assimilation refers to processes of adjustment to prevailing social norms that can take all manner of more or less creative forms, assimilationism is a doctrine that prizes a­ ssimilation over all other values.

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

While Arendt may be blamed for confusing assimilationism and assimilation, she is not to be blamed for facing up to the contradictions of assimilationism itself—a consciousness whose sense of solidarity rarely stretches to those who express fears of a new antisemitism.

ZIONISM’S CONTRADICTIONS Arendt understood Zionism as a radical response to the assimilationists’ failure to face up to modern antisemitism.27 She wrote that she valued nationalist histories written from a Zionist perspective more than the apologetic histories from the assimilationist perspective, since Zionists at least attempted to “defend the honour of the Jewish people,” “unify a scattered nation,” and provide a response to antisemitism that was more radical, less bourgeois, than the assimilationism they opposed. Arendt warned in particular against allowing distrust of nationalism to be turned into a pretext for abandoning Zionism altogether and against reductive and homogenized notions of what Zionism is. Implicit in Arendt’s analysis was a distinction we need to develop between Zionism as the project of building a Jewish homeland, which Arendt strongly supported, and Zionism as the project of constructing an exclusionary nation state, which she equally strongly resisted. There is an analytical distinction to be made between Jewish national self-determination as such and the mystifications of exclusive religious and ethnic nationalism. The right of people to collective self-determination at local, national, transnational and global levels is manifestly not the same thing as an ideology that turns the nation into an “ism” and elevates it into the sovereign authority. To apply this conceptual distinction in practice, Arendt looked for more imaginative solutions than that of the exclusionary nation state. She expressed admiration for the socialist and social democratic currents running through the Zionist movement, notably the left Zionists of Hashomer Hatzair and Poale Zion, but was critical of the political indifference they showed toward relations between Jews and Arabs. To remedy this failing, she explored what it might mean to construct a federal state based on equal rights for all peoples, following a model of federalism that had evolved in the United States and was evolving in postwar Europe. Arendt’s critique of Zionism as a nationalist ideology was founded on the view that, though it was far more ready to recognize antisemitism than assimilationists, it also naturalized antisemitism in apolitical ways. She wrote that ­Zionism conceived Jewish history as one “monotonous chronicle of persecution and misfortune” and treated antisemitism simply as a “fact” of the

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non-Jewish world. The unacceptable face of Zionism, as she saw it, was to erase any distinction between friends and foes among gentiles, to show little interest in fighting alongside other revolutionary and antiracist forces, in sum to reify antisemitism as a given relation between non-Jews and Jews that could be escaped but not changed. Arendt overstated her critique of Zionism by downplaying countervailing tendencies to cooperate with other anti-Nazi movements in Europe, but the overall danger she rightly discerned was that Zionist responses to antisemitism might mirror the kind of exclusionary nationalism that spread over the European continent in the interwar years. In the context of the Middle East, moreover, Arendt maintained that Zionists had done too little to combat antisemitism among Arab people, to distinguish between different political forces among Arabs, to prevent terror against Arab populations, or to foster Arab-Jewish cooperation. They participated rather in a world of mutual denunciation with Arab nationalism, in which both sides viewed a relatively small national conflict through the lens of sinister conspiracy theories; Arabs seeing themselves confronted by forces of western imperialism, Jews seeing themselves confronted by two thousand years of antisemitic history, both treating their opponents not as “concrete human beings” but as “ghosts” or “phantoms.” Faced with choices between trust in distant imperial powers and working with neighbors, Arendt argued that Zionists were too often tempted to neglect relations with Arabs and put themselves in the vulnerable position of the lamb sleeping with the imperial lion. The thrust of Arendt’s critique of Zionism has to do with the ways in which it responded to antisemitism. While the positive side of Zionism was to recognise the reality of antisemitism in European and Middle Eastern contexts, its failure lay in an inability to construct a political understanding of antisemitism. Arendt’s nuanced political critique of Zionism contrasts markedly with a contemporary “anti-Zionism” inasmuch as the latter is more inclined to: a) treat “Zionism” as a term of abuse; b) make no distinction between different dimensions and forms of ­Zionism; c) single out Zionism from other nationalisms for special opprobrium; d) divorce the critique of Zionism from the assimilationism it superseded and; e) abstract the question of Zionism from that of facing up to exclusionary or; genocidal antisemitism.28

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

In spite of the sometimes-harsh tones of Arendt’s criticisms of Jewish political consciousness, the phenomenological approach she adopted shows a richness of understanding and depth of compassion that is disturbingly absent when “Zionism” becomes a hate-figure for an un-self-critical left.

CONCLUSION: EQUIVOCATIONS OF COSMOPOLITANISM Writing about the Nuremberg trials in 1945–1946, Arendt sought to lift the question of guilt above national identity markers. She maintained that what was done to Jews raises questions not only of German guilt but also “of what man is capable.” In an essay on “universal responsibility” she wrote of having met Germans who declare that they are “ashamed of being German,” to which she wanted to reply that she was “ashamed of being human.” The idea of humanity, as she understood it, has as its consequence that “men must assume responsibility for all crimes committed by men” and that “all nations share the onus of evil committed by all others.” She described it as the precondition of modern political thinking that “only upon them who are filled with a genuine fear of the inescapable guilt of the human race, can there be any reliance when it comes to fighting fearlessly, uncompromisingly, everywhere against the incalculable evil that men are capable of bringing about.” Human beings must assume responsibility for all the crimes committed by human beings, so that a monopoly of guilt should be assigned to no one nation. The idea of “universal responsibility” was all that was left of the noble idea of international solidarity.29 In the 1960s Arendt picked up this cosmopolitan thread in her report on the Eichmann trial. She was critical of what she saw as nationalistic distortions of the trial process and argued for a different kind of response to a criminal who showed himself unwilling to share a common world with Jews: The fate of the Jews has become today the symbol of what appears to be the rule of the devil on earth. … [I]f genocide is an actual possibility of the future, then no people on earth—least of all, of course, the Jewish people, in Israel or elsewhere—can feel reasonably sure of its continued existence.30

The Holocaust was an assault not only on Jews but also on the idea of humanity, which all of us have an interest in defending.31 The fury with which Arendt’s report on the trial was met within Jewish political and intellectual circles indicates how little her cosmopolitan point of

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view was appreciated. Gershom Scholem accused her of lacking love for the Jewish people, which he described as typical of “so many intellectuals who came from the German left.”32 Arendt responded in a cosmopolitan spirit: You are quite right—I am not moved by any “love” of this sort, and for two reasons: I have never in my life “loved” any people or collective. … [T]he only kind of love I know of and believe in is the love of persons. Secondly, this “love of the Jews” would appear to me, since I am Jewish myself, as something rather suspect. I cannot love myself or anything which I know is part and parcel of my own person. … The greatness of this people [the Jews] was once that it believed in God. … And now this people believes only in itself? What good can come out of that?—Well, in this sense I do not “love” the Jews nor do I “believe” in them; I merely belong to them as a matter of course, beyond dispute or argument.33

Arendt added a rider to the effect that “wrong done by my own people naturally grieves me more than the wrong done by other peoples.” She always maintained that wrongs done to her own people imposed on her, as a Jew, a particular responsibility to “strike back.” Arendt’s twofold stance contrasts with an abstract cosmopolitanism that served only as a means of evading the reality of the wrongs done both by and to the Jewish people. Arendt wrote in this manner of the “pathos” of Jewish revolutionaries who preferred to “play the revolutionary in the society of others but not in their own.” She wrote similarly of Jewish intellectuals who imagined they could exist as “pure human beings outside the range of peoples and nations.”34 She mocked the phantasy that “once the Jew was emancipated he would become more human, more free, and less prejudiced than other men.”35 She likened cosmopolitanism to an international passport that gives you entry to every country in the world except your own.36 She understood that in the name of cosmopolitanism, the sign of “the Jew” was being treated as the enemy of all that is universal. Cosmopolitanism itself can be turned into a violent abstraction. There are some who now claim the Arendtian legacy when they present themselves as anti-Zionist from a cosmopolitan viewpoint, and yet the symptoms they emit point to a reversion to the old assimilationism (that Arendt saw as superseded by Zionism). Such assimilationism reassures society that antisemitism is no longer a problem, that antisemitism belongs to the past, that it has been overtaken by other racisms, that it is the fault of Jews or the fault of Zionists who do to others what antisemites once did to them. The temptation

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings”

to lay the blame for antisemitism on Jewish particularism, the hallmark of the old Jewish question, can be well concealed beneath a cosmopolitan mask but it does not lose the old prejudice’s scent. Arendt did not conceive cosmopolitanism simply as a synthesis resolving the contradictions of assimilationism and Zionism, but as a site of new contradictions. Our “cosmopolitan existence,” she wrote in her Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (published posthumously in 1982), does not lie in dissociating ourselves from our particular identities but in nurturing the capacity to share a common world with others, place oneself in the shoes of others, see the world from other viewpoints. World citizenship rests on fostering an “enlarged mentality” capable of recognizing the boundaries of one’s own community, in all its shapes and forms, but also of pushing beyond these boundaries and beholding the world through the eyes of a generalized other. This, as I see it, is the real cosmopolitan spirit that runs through Arendt’s Jewish writings.37 In the increasingly nationalistic world of today—when antisemitism, as well as its denial and justification, are again on the rise—we could do a lot worse than recall for our own inspiration that same spirit.

NOTES   1 Hannah Arendt, The Jewish Writings, ed. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman (New York, NY: Schocken, 2007).   2 See, for example, Gershom Scholem, “Letter to Arendt 1963,” in Hannah Arendt, The Jew as Pariah, ed. Ron Feldman (New York, NY: Grove Press, 1978), 241; Peter Staudenmaier, “Hannah Arendt’s Analysis of Antisemitism,” in “The Origins of Totalitarianism: A Critical Appraisal,” Patterns of Prejudice 46 (2012): 154–79; Bernard Wasserstein “Blame the Victim: Hannah Arendt among the Nazis: The Historian and Her Sources,” Times Literary Supplement, 9 October 2009, 13–15. For a defence of Arendt against Wasserstein, see Irving Louis Horowitz, Hannah Arendt, Radical Conservative (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 1–12.   3 See Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2014); Judith Butler, “Is Judaism Zionism? Or, Arendt and the Critique of the Nation State,” in Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics, ed. Gianni Vattimo and Michael Marder (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 23–56; Jacqueline Rose, The Question of Zion (Princeton, NJ; Oxford, England: Princeton University Press 2005); Jacqueline Rose, The Last Resistance (London: Verso, 2007).   4 See Robert Fine and Philip Spencer, Antisemitism and the Left: On the Return of the Jewish Question (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).   5 Hannah Arendt, “Enlightenment and the Jewish Question,” Jewish Writings, 3–18; Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1979), 12.   6 Hannah Arendt, “Antisemitism,” Jewish Writings, 46–123.

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The Role of the Intellectual   7 Christian von Dohm, Concerning the Amelioration of the Civil Status of the Jews (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College, 1957 [originally published 1781]), http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/15_TheJews_Doc.3_English.pdf.   8 Arendt, “Antisemitism,” 63   9 Ibid., 64. 10 Ibid., 63. 11 See Shmuel Feiner, Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 139–44. Feiner cites Mendelssohn’s “Preface” to his German translation of Ben Israel’s Vindiciae Judaeorum (1782) and Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism (Boston, MA: Brandeis, 1983 [originally 1783]). 12 See Voltaire’s “The Sermon of Rabbi Akib,” cited by Paul Berman in “Jews, Muslims, Liberals, PEN Boycotters Beware: Voltaire is Laughing at You: Is the Enlightenment Philosopher Having a Moment?” Tablet, 1 May 2015, http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/ books/190669/pen-boycotters-voltaire. See also Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, XXV, 13 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977 [1748]), 351–2. 13 For critical views of Enlightenment attitudes to Jews, see David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking (London: Head of Zeus, 2013); Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of Modern Antisemitism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1990), 7; Jeffrey Alexander, The Civil Sphere (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 459–548; and Victor Seidler, Shadows of the Shoah: Jewish Identity and Belonging (Oxford: Berg, 2000). 14 See Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1997), 256, and Origins, 56. 15 Arendt, Origins, 29–30, 59. 16 See Michael Marrus, “European Jewry and the Politics of Assimilation: Assessment and Reassessment,” in Jewish Assimilation in Modern Times, ed. Bela Vago (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981), 15–17; Michael Meyer, “German Jewry’s Path to Normality and Assimilation,” in Towards Normality? Acculturation and Modern German Jewry, ed. Rainer Liedtke and David Rechter (Tübingen: Leo Baeck Institute, 2003), 13–25. 17 See Shlomo Avineri, “Where Hannah Arendt Went Wrong,” Haaretz, 3 March 2010; Staudenmaier, “Arendt’s Analysis.” 18 Arendt, Origins, xiv. 19 Ibid., 8–9. 20 Ibid., 8, 28, 40, 98, 99, 242. 21 Ibid., 53. 22 Ibid., 229, 241. 23 Arendt, Jewish Writings, 75. 24 Ibid., 75. 25 Ibid., 48. 26 Ibid., 48–53 27 See “The Crisis of Zionism” (1943) and “Zionism Reconsidered” (1944) in Arendt, Jewish Writings. 28 Anti-Judaic polemics reminiscent of the “Jewish Question” infuse the “Marxism” of Alan Badiou, Eric Hazan, and Ivan Segré, Reflections on Antisemitism (London: Verso, 2013).

On the Contemporary Relevance of Arendt’s “Jewish Writings” 29 Hannah Arendt, “Organised Guilt and Universal Responsibility,” in Essays in Understanding: 1930–1954 (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 131–2. 30 Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), 273. 31 Arendt wrote of David Ben Gurion, prime minister of Israel, that he was trying to turn the prosecution into a “show trial.” However, this was an exaggeration, for “show trial” conjures up a different phenomenon: charging people with crimes they did not commit and murdering them to terrorise others. Neither, of course, applies to the Eichmann trial. 32 Scholem, “Letter to Arendt 1963,” 241. 33 Hannah Arendt, “Letter to Scholem 1963,” in Arendt, Jew as Pariah, 247, and in Arendt, Jewish Writings, 466–7. 34 Hannah Arendt, “Stefan Zweig: Jews in the World of Yesterday,” Reflections on Literature and Culture, ed. Susanna Young-Ah Gotlieb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 58–68. 35 Arendt, Jewish Writings, 282. Arendt celebrated the Soviet Union as a country in which Jews’ rights were guaranteed by constitutional law and the penal code. She was quite mistaken. Her point is well-taken, however, that it is not a moral failure to struggle against antisemitism as part of a universal struggle against oppression. 36 Cited in Jacques Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity, trans. Rosemary Morris (Cambridge: Polity, 1993), 200–1. 37 Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977 [originally published in 1963]. Arendt, Hannah. Jew as Pariah. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1978 [1944]. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1979 [1951]. Arendt, Hannah. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989 [1982]. Arendt, Hannah. “Organised Guilt and Universal Responsibility.” In Essays in Understanding: 1930– 1954, 121–32. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1994. Arendt, Hannah. Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1997 [1957]. Arendt, Hannah. Jewish Writings, edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H Feldman. New York, NY: Schocken, 2007. Arendt, Hannah. “Stefan Zweig: Jews in the World of Yesterday.” In Reflections on Literature and Culture, edited by Susanna Young-Ah Gotlieb. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007. Butler, Judith. “Is Judaism Zionism? Or, Arendt and the Critique of the Nation State.” In Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics, edited by Gianni Vattimo and Michael Marder, 23–56. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. Feiner, Schmuel. Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

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The Role of the Intellectual Nirenberg, David. Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking, London: Head of Zeus, 2013. Staudenmaier, Peter. “Hannah Arendt’s Analysis of Antisemitism in The Origins of Totalitarianism: A Critical Appraisal,” Patterns of Prejudice, 46:2 (2012), 154–79. Wasserstein, Bernard. “Blame the Victim: Hannah Arendt among the Nazis: The Historian and Her Sources.” Times Literary Supplement, 9 October 2009, 13–15.

Contributors

Jonathan G. Campbell was Lecturer in Jewish Studies in the University of Wales Lampeter (1990–1996) and Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Judaism at the University of Bristol (1996–2017). R. Amy Elman is a political scientist and the Weber Professor in Social Science at Kalamazoo College, Michigan. Robert Fine was Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick until his death in 2018. Bernard Harrison is Emeritus E. E. Ericksen Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah and Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex. David Hirsh is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of ­London. Rusi Jaspal is a professor in the School of Applied Social Sciences and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) at De Montfort University. Alan Johnson is the founder and editor of BICOM’s quarterly online journal Fathom. Before joining BICOM in 2011, he was a professor of democratic theory and practice at Edge Hill University. Lesley D. Klaff is Senior Lecturer in Law at Sheffield Hallam University and editor of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism.

236

Contributors

Matthias Küntzel is a political scientist and historian who was a research associate in the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2004–2015). Dave Rich is Associate Research Fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Birkbeck College, University of London, and Head of Policy at the Community Security Trust. David Seymour is Senior Lecturer in Law in the City Law School at City, ­University of London. L. Daniel Staetsky is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in London.

Index Abaaoud, Abdelhamid, 109 Achcar, Gilbert, 10, 192–195 The Arabs and the Holocaust, 10 Adelman, Jonathan, 72 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 25, 192 Allport, Gordon, 5, 67 American Jews, see Jews Amery, Jean, 119 Andrew, Christopher, 145–146 Annan, Kofi, 120 Ansari, Humayan, 157 Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 120, 123, 158 Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking, see Nirenberg, David Antilles, 24 antisemitism, passim conspiracy theories, 5, 8–9, 25, 28, 31, 69, 73, 87, 119, 139–152, 166, 173, 175, 178, 189, 225, 228 classic, 5, 11, 21, 41–42, 56, 115–116, 125, 159, 166, 203, 205–206, 223 contemporary, 1–3, 5, 8–12, 17–18, 24, 26, 35, 88–90, 98, 121, 123, 141, 191, 198, 213, 222 European, 2, 10, 23, 41, 82, 188 institutional, 5–6, 18, 29, 81–82, 94 Muslim, 10, 24, 104, 107, 125, 187–190, 192–198

“new”, 3, 7–8, 11, 23, 40–41, 87, 90, 115–117, 120–125, 127–129, 157, 203, 206, 227 political, 5, 68–71, 75 radical, 11–12, 204, 211, 221 social, 5, 68–69 anti-colonialism, 119 anti-Zionism, 3–6, 9–10, 12, 18, 26–28, 34, 40–42, 65, 70–74, 87, 101, 106, 108, 115, 125, 129, 156–160, 170–181, 195, 220, 228, 230 apartheid, 28, 32, 72, 106, 116 Arab Spring, 75, 170–171 Arab world, 10–11, 41, 72, 107, 187–188, 193, 197 Arab-Israeli conflict, 10, 55 Arabs, 8, 10, 66, 71–73, 75, 100, 106, 125, 171–172, 187–188, 190, 192–195, 197, 206–207, 227–228 Arendt, Hannah, 11–12, 219–231 Enlightenment and the Jewish Question, 222 Jewish Writings, 12, 219–221, 231 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, 231 Origins of Totalitarianism, 224 Argentina, 145 Ashkenazi Jews, see Jews Athens, 216 Atzmon, Gilad, 147 Auschwitz, 124, 128 Austria, 224–225

238

Index Baathism, 125 Badiou, Alain, 11, 203, 205–213, 215–216 Polemics, 206, 208 Balfour Declaration, 189 Barres, Philippe, 206 Bartlett, Jamie, 140–141, 143, 146 Bataclan Theatre, 108 Bath, 147 Bauer, Bruno, 11, 203–204, 207–210, 214 On the Jewish Question, 214 BBC, 2 Bebel, August, 24, 125 Begin, Menachem, 129 Belgium, 42, 100–102, 108–109, 158 Benjamin, Jon, 26 Berlin, 23, 119, 196 Beyond Chutzphah, see Finkelstein, Norman Birkbeck, University of London, 195 Birmingham, 145 Black Death, 188 Black Skin, White Masks, see Fanon, Franz Blackwell, Sue, 34–35 Board of Deputies of British Jews, 26, 43 Bolsheviks, 116 Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), 5, 65, 70–71, 73–74, 106–107 Braun, Virginia, 163 Breakwell, Glynis, 161–162 Breivik, Anders, 146 Bristol University, 1–2, 17, 147 British Jews, see Jews British Muslims, see Muslims Broder, Henryk, 108 Brodkin, Karen, 25 How Jews Became White Folks, 25 Brussels, 108–109 Bukhari, Asghar, 8, 139–140 Bush, George, 120

Butler, Judith, 24 Byford, Jovan, 140–141, 150 Cairo, 201 Caliphate, 189 Cameron, David, 31, 145 Capital, see Marx, Karl capitalism, 31, 116, 144, 146, 204 Central London Employment Tribunal, 5–6, 18, 29–30, 32, 34–35, 74, 81–82, 84–94 Centre for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA), 23 Chakrabarti, Shami, 18, 28, 30, 32, 34–35, 86, 88, 191–192 Chalmers, Alex, 31–32 Charlie Hebdo, 98–99 Chomsky, Noam, 117 Christians, 25, 29, 72–73, 82–83, 85, 95, 101, 147, 188, 207–208, 212, 222–223 Catholic, 67–68 Clarke, Victoria, 163 Cold War on British Muslims, see Spinwatch Cold War, 118, 145 colonialism, 25, 72, 213 Communism, 21, 116, 133, 146, 151 Conservative Party, 148–149 Copenhagen, 2, 21, 98, 103, 108, 123, 143 Corbyn, Jeremy, 24–25, 30–32, 34–35, 187, 192 Cordoba Foundation, 150 Cordoba, 23 Cousin, Glynis, 33 Daesh, see Islamic State Dalton, Clare, 87 Denmark, 103, 107, 110, 143 Derby, 158 Dohm, Christian, von, 222–223 The Civic Improvement of Jews, 223

Index Downing, Gerry, 31 Draper, Hal, 208 Dubai, 171 Duhring, Eugen, 204 Durban, 3, 17–18, 22–25

European Union’s Commemorative Holocaust Declarations, 7 European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), 17, 99–100, 102–107, 113, 124

East Midlands, 162 Egypt, 140, 147, 150, 189, 195 Eichmann, Adolf, 219, 229 Eissens, Ronald, 22 Electronic Intifada, 106 Engels, Friedrich, 204 The Holy Family, 204 Englard, Fanny, 197 Enlightenment and the Jewish Question, see Arendt, Hannah Enlightenment, 12, 116, 208, 222–224 Equality Act 2010, 5–6, 28, 30, 81, 84, 87–94 EUMC Definition of Antisemitism, 7, 17–18, 20–21, 23, 25–26, 28–30, 33–34, 82, 86, 88, 93, 104–106, 112, 124–125 Euphrates, 189 Europe, 1–2, 6, 7, 21–23, 25, 41–42, 75, 82, 98–110, 113, 118–119, 129, 141–143, 147, 151, 156, 158–159, 193–194, 197, 210, 212, 214, 219, 224–225, 227–228 European Jewish Congress (EJC), 23 European Jewish Congress (EJC), 23, 102 European Jews, see Jews European Muslims, see Muslims European Union (EU), 3, 6–7, 17–18, 23, 25, 42, 98–109, 113, 124 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 42 European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), 3, 17–18, 20, 23, 25–26, 28–29, 33–34, 82, 86, 88, 93, 100, 102, 105, 107, 124–127

Fabius, Laurent, 104 Facebook, 101, 139–140, 143 Fanon, Franz, 24 Black Skin, White Masks, 24 fascism, 24, 87, 119, 156, 166, 198 Feldman, David, 32, 195–197 Fine, Robert, 33, 87 Finkelstein, Norman, 7–8, 115, 117–129, 132–134 Beyond Chutzpah, 7, 117, 120 The Holocaust Industry, 7, 117–120 Fitzpatrick, Peter, 84 Foxman, Abraham, 120, 123, 126 France, 11, 40, 43–50, 53–56, 61–62, 64, 83, 98–104, 108, 145, 158–159, 203, 206–207 Frank, Walter, 225 Fraser, Ronnie, 5–6, 18, 28–30, 74, 81–82, 84–94 Freedland, Jonathan, 120–121 French Jews, see Jews French Muslims, see Muslims French Revolution, 189 Freud, Sigmund, 122, 208 Galloway, George, 142 Garrard Eve, 103 Gates, Henry Louis Jr., 120 Gaynor, Gloria, 122 Gaza Strip, 72, 104–105, 107, 187, 193, 201, 195–196 Geras, Norman, 191 German Jews, see Jews German Muslims, see Muslims Germany, 42, 71–72, 75, 89, 100–101, 104, 117, 119, 123, 125, 140,

239

240

Index 158–159, 187, 189, 192, 196–197, 210, 214, 219, 229–230 Gidley, Ben, 116 Gitlin, Todd, 120 Goldhagen, Daniel, 103 Griffin, Nick, 142 Groll, Helena, 103–104 Guardian, 25, 120–121 Hadith, 10, 188 Hamas, 10, 24, 31, 72, 115, 123, 168, 187, 189–190, 194–197, 201 Charter, 10, 187–188, 190, 194, 196–197 Hamburg, 83 Hammond, Philip, 146 Hanif, Asif, 157–158 Hashomer Hatzair, 227 Herman, Didi, 6, 83–84, 89, 91 Hezbollah, 24, 31, 123, 134, 168, 190 Hiro, Dilip, 157 Hirsh, David, 90, 121 Hitler, Adolf, 22, 31–32, 75, 123, 132, 126, 129, 143, 145, 164, 189 Mein Kampf, 74, 132 Hobbes, Thomas, 214 Hobsbawm, Eric, 128–129 Hollande, François, 103 Hollywood, 122 Holocaust, 7–8, 11–12, 20, 41, 44–45, 48, 55, 60, 62, 73, 83, 87, 89, 106, 117–120, 122, 126, 128–129, 140, 156, 160, 162, 189–191, 197–199, 203, 207, 209–213, 215, 221, 229 Holocaust denial, 9–10, 45, 47–48, 55–56, 60, 62, 106, 123, 140, 160, 192–194 The Holocaust Industry, see Finkelstein, Norman International Holocaust Memorial Day, 7, 190–191, 198

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), 3, 17, 124 Holy Family, see Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich How Jews Became White Folks, see Brodkin Hungary, 42, 100–102 Hussein, Omar, el, 143 Husseini, Amin, al, 199 imperialism, 3, 24–25, 33, 116, 119, 144, 193, 228 Inquisition, 224 Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 42 International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism, 195 Iran, 25, 31, 117, 123, 144–147, 158, 161–162, 168, 171–172, 179, 190 Ireland, 70 Islam, 9–10, 129, 139, 146–151, 157, 160, 164–169, 173–174, 176, 179–180, 188–189, 192 Islamic Centre of England, 147 Islamic State (ISIS), 31, 72, 108, 143, 146, 151 Islamism, 1–2, 6, 9, 10, 72, 99, 102–104, 107–109, 113, 123, 125, 146–147, 150, 157, 174, 187, 196–197 Islamophobia, 33, 100, 107–108, 147–151, 157, 179, 191 Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 104, 126 Israel, passim boycott of Israel, 4, 18, 26–29, 31, 34, 46–48, 60, 62, 65, 81 criticism of Israel, 1, 4–5, 7–8, 13, 20–22, 25–31, 40, 42, 46–48, 55–56, 60, 62, 70–71, 73–74, 87–88, 106, 112, 115, 117, 119– 121, 124, 127–128, 212–213 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 104, 112, 157, 168, 170, 174, 178, 180, 187–188

Index Italy, 42, 100, 102, 118, 158 Ivy League, 128

Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence, 197 Kristallnacht, 124, 128

Jenin, 126 Jerusalem, 189, 199, 216, 219 Jewish Chronicle, 30–31 Jewish Leadership Council, 26 Jewish Question, 31, 223–224, 231 Jewish Writings, see Arendt, Hannah Jews, passim American, 25, 117–119, 132, 147 Ashkenazi, 4, 43, 45, 47, 50–51, 54–55, 63–64 British, 4, 26, 29, 32, 40, 42–53, 55–56, 59–60, 63, 101–102, 108, 177, 180, 196 European, 4, 11, 41–42, 83, 98–105, 108, 143, 206, 209–210, 212 German, 101, 108, 222, 224–225 French, 4, 40, 42–50, 53–56, 100–102, 109, 145, 206 Orthodox, 4, 46, 51–54, 56, 63–64 Sephardi, 43, 45, 47, 53–54 Jikeli, Günther, 159 Jordan, 140 Judaism, 163, 175, 177, 205, 208–209, 223 Judeophobia, 5, 7, 12, 69, 71 Judt, Tony, 70 Julius, Anthony, 28, 81, 89, 92 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 98

Labour Party, 18, 30–32, 71, 86, 88, 120, 123–124, 187, 190–191 Lambertz, Göran, 104 Latvia, 42, 100 Lawson, Anthony, 71 League of Nations, 189 Lebanon, 72, 173, 134, 193 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, see Arendt, Hannah Left, 10, 12, 24–25, 41, 65, 70, 102, 117, 123, 125, 133, 146–147, 151, 187, 197, 204, 206, 208, 219–220, 227, 229–230 Left’s Jewish Problem, see Rich, Dave Levi, Primo, 119 Leviathan, see Schmitt, Carl Levidow, Les, 147 Levinas, Emanuel, 215–216 Likud, 129 Lithuania, 206 Livingstone, Ken, 32, 86, 123, 126 Llewellyn, Karl, 93 London, 4, 42, 46, 51, 63, 86, 117, 123, 126, 140, 147, 158, 160, 162, 187, 192, 195–196, 199 Louis Farrakhan, 123

Kantor, Moshe, 102 Ketez, Imre, 119 Khamenei, Ali, 117, 144 kibbutz, 25 Kirby, Vicki, 31 Kjaerum, Morten, 103 Klemperer, Victor, 119 Klug, Brian, 34 Kluger, Ruth, 119 Kressel, Neill, 197

Macshane, Dennis, 121 Manchester, 191 Marcus, Kenneth L., 65, 69, 107 Marr, Willhelm, 205, 213 The Victory of Judaism over Germanism, 205 Marx, Karl, 24, 204, 207–209 Capital, 204 The Holy Family, 204 On the Jewish Question, 204

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242

Index Marxism, 128, 191, 204 Masuku, Bongani, 29, 82 McCarthy, Joseph, 118, 141 Mein Kampf, see Hitler, Adolf Mendelssohn, Moses, 223–224 Merkel, Angela, 196 Mexico, 140 MI5, 145 Middle Ages, 141, 188 Middle East Monitor, 143, 147 Middle East, 10, 31, 41, 72–73, 75, 103–105, 118, 143–145, 160, 187, 190–191, 194, 197, 199, 209–210, 228 Miller, Carl, 140–141, 143, 146 Miller, David, 147 Milne, Seumas, 25 Moezi, Abdul Hussein, 147 Mohamad, Mahathir, 151 Mohammad, 107, 176, 188 Montesquieu, 224 Moscovici, Serge, 161 Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence, see Kressel, Neill Muslim Brotherhood, 143, 150, 189 Muslim News, 140 Muslim World, 8–11, 41, 71–72, 75, 99, 105, 123, 129, 144, 151, 159–160, 168–169, 179, 187–188, 193, 197–198 Muslims, 8–11, 23, 29, 41, 72, 98–101, 103–105, 107–108, 139–140, 142, 146–151, 157–160, 162, 164–174, 176–181, 188, 190, 192–195, 197 British, 9, 29, 139–140, 147–150, 156–180, 193, 196 German, 158–159 European, 9, 98–99, 103–104, 107– 108, 127, 156, 158–160, 178 French, 159

Shia, 73, 146, 173 Sunni, 73, 173 Nakba, 72 Napier, Mick, 126 nationalism, 12, 33, 146, 219, 222, 227–228 Nawaz, Maajid, 193–194 Nazis, 4, 19, 21, 28, 47–48, 50, 55, 60, 62, 69, 71–73, 75, 89, 105–106, 113, 116, 118, 124–128, 132, 160, 164–165, 178, 189, 192, 198, 203, 210–215, 218–219, 225–226, 228 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 72, 127, 143, 190 Netflix, 122 New York Times, 70 Newmark, Jeremy, 26 NGOs, 3, 17, 22–23, 25, 35 Nice, 2 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 215–216 On the Genealogy of Morals, 215–216 Nile, 189 Nirenberg, David, 116 Anti-Judaism: The History of a Way of Thinking, 116 North America, 1, 147 Norway, 146 Nuremberg trials, 229 Nusseibeh, Sari, 189 Obama, Barack, 109, 145 Oborne, Peter, 142 On the Genealogy of Morals, see Nietzsche, Friedrich On the Jewish Question, see Bauer, Bruno and Marx, Karl Opus Dei, 68 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 3, 17–18, 21, 23, 25, 29, 82, 99

Index Orientalism, see Said, Edward Origins of Totalitarianism, see Arendt, Hannah Orthodox Jews, see Jews Oxford University Labour Club, 31 Ozick, Cynthia, 120 Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 126, 147 Palestinian Authority, 107 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 189 Palestinians, 2–3, 7, 9, 21–22, 26, 31, 45, 72–73, 83, 86, 90, 92, 104, 106, 118, 120, 126, 140, 143, 156–157, 162, 164–166, 168–170, 172–173, 175, 177, 179, 187, 189, 193–199, 206 Paris, 1–2, 21, 46, 53–54, 64, 102, 104, 108–109, 123 Paul, 208 Paulus, Heinrich, 225 Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, 187, 195 Poale Zion, 227 Poland, 206 Polemics, see Badiou, Alain postcolonialism, 41, 116, 194 post-nationalism, 104, 108 Postone, Moishe, 25 Press TV, 31, 179 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 10, 101, 141, 188–190, 198 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 204 Prussia, 222 Qaeda, al, 140, 145 Quran, 105, 151, 176, 188 Qutb, Sayyid, 150–151 Milestones, 150 racism, 3–6, 11, 17–26, 28, 30, 32–33, 40, 70–71, 81–88, 90–91, 94–95, 104, 106–107, 116, 123–126,

129, 145, 164, 191–193, 195, 198, 206–207, 209–210, 222, 226, 230 Rich, Dave, 187 The Left’s Jewish Problem, 187 Right, 12, 23, 102, 108, 121, 123, 146, 149, 151, 164, 197, 203–204, 206, 208 Roberts, Paul Craig, 71 Romania, 42, 206 Rose, John, 124 Rothschilds, 143 Royall, Jan, 32 Russia, 21 Saddam, Hussein, 126 Said, Edward, 193–194 Orientalism, 193–194 Salah, Raed, 31 Samuels, Shimon, 108 Schmitt, Carl, 214 Leviathan, 214 Scholem, Gershom, 219, 230 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 192 Schultz, Martin, 99 Schwartz-Barth, Andre, 119 Sephardi Jews, see Jews September 11 attacks, 8, 22–23, 100, 140, 157 sexism, 87, 91 Shah, Naz, 86 Shalamov, Varlam, 218 Shamkhani, Ali, 146 Sharif, Omar Khan, 158 Sheffield Hallam University, 1–2, 86, 88 Shia Muslims, see Muslims Six Day War, 7, 118 Sizer, Steven, 31 Socialism, 24–25, 41, 125, 151, 204 Socialist Workers Party, 124 South Africa, 21–22, 28, 82

243

244

Index Spencer, Diana, 140 Spinoza, Baruch, 208–209 Spinwatch, 147–151 The Cold War on British Muslims, 147–150 Stalin, Joseph, 125, 129, 141, 145, 218 Stockholm, 104, 198 Stürmer, Der, 69, 74, 126, 189 Sunni Muslims, see Muslims Sunstein, Cass, 143, 146 Sweden, 42, 99–104, 110 Switzerland, 118–119 Syria, 108, 142, 168

168, 171, 175, 177–180, 187, 191–199 United Nations, 21, 25, 106, 112, 120, 125, 189, 194–195, 198 University and College Union, 5–6, 18, 26–30, 34, 74, 81–82, 84–94, 107 Ury, Scott, 195 US State Department, 24 USA, 8, 21–22, 24–25, 28, 65, 75, 104, 117–119, 122–124, 128, 133, 140–142, 144–145, 147, 227 USSR, 21, 75, 121, 129, 141

Taliban, 174 Tehran Times, 179 Tel Aviv, 32, 158, 166 terrorism, 1, 9–10, 31, 98–99, 102–103, 108, 126, 146, 157–158, 174–176, 196–197 The Civic Improvement of Jews, see Dohm, Christian, von Timmermans, Frans, 108 Toulouse, 108 Traverso, Enzo, 7, 118–119, 125 Understanding the Nazi Genocide: Marxism after Auschwitz, 118 Treaty of Westphalia, 214 Trigano, Shmuel, 103 Trotsky, Leon, 208 Turkey, 140 Twitter, 31, 140, 142

Varnhagen, Rahel, 224 Vermeule, Adrian, 146 Vichy, 206 Victory of Judaism over Germanism, see Marr, Willhelm Vienna, 214 Voltaire, 224

Ukraine, 190 Understanding the Nazi Genocide: Marxism after Auschwitz, see Traverso, Enzo United Kingdom (UK), 2, 4–6, 9–10, 24, 26, 40, 42–53, 55–56, 59–60, 63, 67–68, 71, 82–83, 87–89, 100–102, 104, 107–108, 120, 122–124, 128, 139–140, 142, 145–150, 156–163,

Wagner, Adolph, 204 Walker, Jackie, 190–191, 198 Warsaw Ghetto, 126 Waters, Roger, 71 Weimar Republic, 214 West Bank, 121, 126, 132, 196 Whine, Mark, 21, 23 Whine, Michael, 108 White Paper, 198 Wiesel, Elie, 120 Willcox, Tim, 2 Winkler, Beate, 23 Wistrich, Robert, 104 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 66 World Conference against Racism, 3, 17, 21–23 World War I, 75, 189, 226 World War II, 7, 11, 41, 65, 112, 117, 141, 145, 157, 189, 198

Index Yazidis, 73 YouTube, 101, 143, 147 Zaretsky, Robert, 99 Zimmerman, Moishe, 213 Zionism, 3, 6–10, 12, 17, 21–22, 24, 28, 30–32, 65, 81, 89, 108, 115–117,

120, 123, 125–129, 139–144, 146–152, 159, 161, 163–169, 173–175, 177–180, 189, 192, 194, 219–220, 227–231 Žižek, Slavoj, 147

245