By Eirik Eiglad | from New Compass
Until the end of the Second World War, anti-Semitism was primarily a reactionary phenomenon, espoused by the political and religious Right. This has changed. Now anti-Semitic prejudices are just as common on the Left and are often excused by moderates as well as radicals.
Usually today’s anti-Semites point to Israeli policy as their main argument, but too often they vilify the Jewish state and Zionism far beyond legitimate criticism.
Obviously, to be anti-Israel means more than to criticize some or many actions of the Israeli army, the Mossad, and the Knesset. Too often people judge Jews, Israel, and Israeli citizens according to extremely different criteria than when they are judging any other “nation.” Frankly I find this double standard puzzling.
Continue Reading »
I just published this guest post by Toby Green, on leaving the Green Party.
Two extracts:
Essentially, much of the membership of the party is therefore grounded in a sort of superior bad faith. And so of course, members of the Green Party can´t be prejudiced. If they accuse members called “Levy” of being Israeli academics in disguise defending Israel, they can´t be rehashing old Jewish conspiracy theories. If they circulate emails from David Duke, a key figure in the Klu Klux Klan, on how “Jewish Zionists” are shaping American policy in Israel in alliance with Obama (thereby rehashing not only anti-semitic myths but also an alliance of this with anti-Black racism), they can still work in Caroline Lucas´s office and be on the list for the European elections. If they circulate emails accusing Jewish members of parliament of double loyalty (to Israel and the UK), there´s no need to suppose that they are re-hashing the anti-Catholic discourse which surrounded JF Kennedy´s run for office in 1960. If they talk of the “squealing zionists”, there´s no reason for them not to be respected party figures.[...]
After four years of this charade, it has become clear that the Green Party is institutionally anti-semitic. Its institutions have not dealt with clear evidence of anti-semitism. They show no evidence of wanting to, and indeed now seem to have decided to target perceived “problem” members of the party who have raised this issue. This is fundamentally a political decision: the Green party has decided that it is increasingly a hard left party, allied with enemies of Western capitalism. Rightly, it thinks that Islamophobia is one of the more dangerous phenomena to have arisen since 9/11, and in reaction against this it turns a blind eye to discrimination against perceived enemies of Islamic peoples, Israel, and the Jews. This is a classic case of projection: horrified at their own government´s attitudes towards Islamic countries, and wanting no part in it, this mentality projects this violence onto a scapegoat – Israel and Jews.
Further information: Modernity, Greens Engage.
The Community Security Trust (CST), the body which monitors and combats antisemitism in the UK, has recently published its annual “antisemitic incidents report” for 2010 (full pdf here, summary here). It reports that:
639 antisemitic incidents were recorded by CST in 2010. This is the second-highest annual total since CST began recording antisemitic incidents in 1984.[...]
The only significant trigger event in 2010 occurred whenIsraeli forces boarded a flotillaof ships bearing pro-Palestinian activists who were tryingto break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza… Reactions to this episode led to a monthly total of 81 antisemitic incidents in the UK in June 2010, compared to 49 in June 2009, when there was no comparable trigger event.[...]
Of the 234 antisemitic incidents in 2010 showing political motivation as well as antisemitism, 149 showed far-right motivation; 53 showed anti-Zionist motivation; and 32 showed Islamist motivation.
CST received a physical description of the incident perpetrator in 214, or 33 per cent, of the 639 antisemitic incidents during 2010. Of these, 113 (53 per cent) were described as white; 16 (seven per cent) were described as black; 63 (29 per cent) were described as Asian; and 21 (10 per cent) were described as of Arab appearance.[...]
In other words, it is clear that white racism and far right politics remains key to antisemitism in the UK. A large percentage of perpetrators are involved in the far right, and more white people are perpetrators than Arabs and Asians combined.
CST has conducted analysis of antisemitic incident perpetrators by ethnic appearance since 2004. Since then, the only other year in which the proportion of incident perpetrators identified as white dropped below 50 per cent was 2006, which was also marked by a significant rise in incidents in response to events in the Middle East.
The paranoid image of a “tsunami” of Muslim antisemitism sweeping Britain, promoted by some right-wing figures within the Jewish community, is clearly inaccurate. As the CST director, Mark Gardner, puts it:
“There is much talk of a “new” antisemitism, although “contemporary” would be more accurate. This is important, but risks distracting us from the fact that, beneath the surface, the “old” antisemitism is still there – and growing.”
Further, Jews and Muslims together are the targets of some of the incidents, as in some neo-Nazi literature distributed in East London, which concluded: “JEWS AND MUSLIMS OUT OF REDBRIDGE”.
At the same time, it is clear that the so-called “new” antisemitism, divorced from that far right context, is a significant problem. Antisemitism linked to or in the guise of anti-Zionism is a growing force, and it has a significant purchase at the fringes of Britain’s Muslims population.
Also clear is the cross-pollination of anti-Zionist and “classical” fascist themes, as in the following graffiti repeatedly daubed on a Manchester social club with a large Jewish membership: “YID SCUM, GAZA BLEEDS”; “SHYLOCK SCUM, GAZA BLEEDS, HAMAS COMES”; “YID SCUM”, “SHYLOCKS”, “HAMAS”; and “HEZBOLLAH COMES”. Or in this message left by a hacker on the website of a Jewish-owned business: “F**k you Israel bitches. Forever Adolf Hitler, there will be a war between Muslim countries and f**king Israel if [sic] near future and Turkey gonna f**k all Jewish bitches like Hitler. I love you Hitler.” The CST summarise the confused situation:
One feature of contemporary antisemitism is that the use of far-right references is no longer the preserve of neo-Nazis; nor is mention of Israel and the Middle East the favoured expression solely of Muslim or Arab perpetrators of incidents. In 26 incidents in 2010, the perpetrators employed more than one type of discourse, often mixing references to the Middle East with references to Nazism. It is more accurate to say that the Middle East and the Nazi period are both used by antisemites of all backgrounds as sources for material to use when abusing Jews.
Holocaust denial and the blood libel feature in many of the incidents, percolating out of their original far right home into Muslim contexts, while the Israel lobby meme features in others, filtering out of its original anti-Zionist home into far right contexts. There are examples of acts of racial abuse that mention both the World War II and the Gaza flotilla.
And the equation of Jews with Nazis, a meme derived from the anti-Zionist movement, is prevalent, as in this viral e-mail: “GREEDY Tribe of Nazi jews need to STOP your EVIL Deeds again [sic] Humanity”. Or in these comments, made by two men at a student activist meeting in Nottingham, revealing that Nazi sympathy are perfectly compatible with left-wing politics: “Israel is the aggressor; they are the same as Nazis”, “The Nazis did not set out to kill the Jews” and “All Jews are dirty Tories”.
One example especially struck me:
Glasgow, September: The local council erected two banners near its offices, one celebrating the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah and the other celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid. Graffiti reading “Love Jews Smash Zionism” was daubed on the Rosh Hashanah banner.
Here, the perpetrator has tried to show that it is not Jews, just “Zionism” that is the object of hate – but the location of the vandalism, a Rosh Hashanah banner, belies this.
In all, the report completely refutes the notion promoted by many anti-racist anti-Zionists that there is no connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The section “Antisemitic or anti-Israel?” (p.32) is particularly interesting in this regard.
CST is often asked about the difference between antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel activity, and how this distinction is made in the categorisation of incidents. The distinction between the two is often subtle and the subject of much debate and disagreement. Clearly, it would not be acceptable to define all anti-Israel activity as antisemitic; but it cannot be ignored that much contemporary antisemitism takes place in the context of, or is motivated by, extreme feelings over the Israel/Palestine issue. Drawing out these distinctions, and deciding on where the dividing lines lie, is one of the most difficult areas of CST’s work in recording and analysing hate crime.
The CST received several reports of anti-Israel activity they did not categorise as antisemitic and did not include in the stats. Their rules of thumb are instructive: “Fuck Israel” daubed on a place frequented by Jews is antisemitic but the same slogan daubed on a High Street isn’t; an anti-Israel leaflet sent to a Zionist political group is not antisemitic, but sent unsolicited to a synagogue is; comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is antisemitic, comparing it to apartheid South Africa isn’t.
Finally, there is evidence that “the socialism of fools” is alive and well, as in the “Jews are Tories” quoted above, or the following incident in London in April: “A group of visibly Jewish men were standing outside a café when two white men walked past, and one said, “Look, it’s a meeting of Goldman Sachs planning how to rip us off”.”
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Winston Picket of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (EISCA) has a blog post at the JC on the report, focusing on the press coverage the report got. He made an interesting observation relating to the “trigger events”: “what appears to be taking place is that a particular hatred is expressed, reaches a high water mark, recedes, but over the long run is seen to be constantly rising.” He thinks it is significant that the CST is now talking about “embedded” antisemitism, and a “bedrock” of antisemitism, exposed by the trigger events, but there already, and slowly growing.
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A useful concept deployed by the CST at their blog is “Ziocentrism”. Dave Rich defines it: “This ‘Ziocentrism’, which insists on placing Israel at the centre of any Middle Eastern story, also leads people to assume their positions on any given crisis according to how it may affect Israel.” He gives a series of examples of accounts of the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, which view them thoroughly inappropriately (and often offensively) through an anti-Zionist prism. Mark Gardner explores one particularly pernicious example, using the Israel lobby meme, from Johan Hari, a commentator I usually admire. I have given further examples on my own blog here:
One of the most depressing aspects of both events in North Africa, especially Egypt, and the leftist commentary on it, is the power of the anti-Zionist narrative. Take as an example this well-written Marxist analysis at 19th Brumaire. Here’s one sentence: “Ahmed Ezz, the personification of the unity of personal corruption, neoliberalism and abasement to Zionsim has resigned.” What does “abasement to Zionism” mean? Why “abasement” and not, say, “accommodation with”, given the Egyptian ruling class and the Israeli state clearly have interests in common? Why talk about “Zionism” and not about, say, the Israeli state? There is something about the demonic Z-word that takes this phrase out of normal political discourse into another space. The demonic Z-word is a blunting of materialist analysis. (For more on insane anti-Zionism, see Snoopy. One of the things that is clear is that anti-Zionist antisemitism also pervades the pro-Mubarak camp, which makes the leftist anti-Zionist nonsense even more pernicious.)
Or for another example, from someone subject to antisemitic conspiracy theories himself, George Soros in the Post: “The main stumbling block [to democracy in Egypt] is Israel.”
(However, as blogger Waterloo Sunset points out, there is plenty of Ziocentrism from the other side too, with pro-Israel commentators wondering if what has happened in Israel is good or bad for Israel, rather than if it is good or bad for the people of Egypt.)
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Finally, I want to look briefly at two incidents which dramatise some of the issues this post has touched on. One occurred in my local area, Lewisham, where a leading local left-wing anti-cuts campaigner interrupted a speech at an official Holocaust memorial day ceremony to call upon a rabbi to mention Gaza in a list of genocides. Was this simply anti-Israel, a legitimate intervention to remind people of a state-perpetrated atrocity? Or was it antisemitic, because it was effectively acting a rabbi (as a Jew) to apologise for something done by the Israeli state? Or was it antisemitic because it trivialises the Holocaust by comparing the mechanised slaughter of millions to the killing in war-time of hundreds? And what matters most, the presence or absence of antisemitic intent on behalf of the heckler, or the effect (in the form of offence) on Jews, or the discursive context of intensified anti-Zionism? And is drawing attention to this sort of thing within our movement a distraction from real politics, designed to let our class enemies off the hook, or a necessary act of anti-racist self-criticism in a left that is ever more prone to this sort of thing?
The other incident occurred in Manchester (revealed by the CST report to be Britain’s no.2 hotspot for antisemitic incidents). Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union of Students, who has distanced himself from any militant activity by students protesting against cuts and fees, was subjected to a barrage of chants, jeers and taunts by student radicals. Two witnesses thought they heard antisemitic abuse of Porter (“Aaron Porter, you’re a Tory Jew” and so on). This was picked up by the right-wing press and widely reported, including hard-hitting articles by the likes of Nick Cohen, scourge of the indecent left. However, it now seems clear that, although there were several chants and not all of them were that easy to follow, the report was based completely on a mishearing, a point made by Sacha Ismail of the AWL and reported carefully in the Manchester Mule and at the blog The Great Unrest. Again, a warning against paranoia.
Left-wing Canadian writer and campaigner Terry Glavin notes:
The [Alliance for Workers' Liberty]‘s Sean Matgamna recognized the “new antisemitism” (a phenomenon that most of the “Left” persists in pretending is a right-wing hoax) as far back as 1988: “It was a doctrine that dared no longer speak its old name except in whispers and occasional back-alley fascist shouting; but by the ’70s it had another name which it dared to speak, indeed to shout, in a loud chorus in which participated most of the governments and states of the world, including some of the worst governments in existence. A new name: anti-Zionism.” Matgamna was noticing antisemitism masquerading as “anti-Zionism” in the Irish Workers Group as far back as 1967-68.
Matgamna’s account of the IWG is a fascinating case study in the history of left antisemitism and worth reading, although some of its complex details may appear obscure and impenetrable for the non-initiated. Here is an extract: Continue Reading »
From Principia Dialectica:
Populism and anti-semitism go hand in hand
The crisis of the economy has thrown up all sorts of protests. Some more populist than others. The EDL comes to mind for example, a proto-nationalist outfit that resembles the Northern League in Italy. Other forms of populist action is examplified by UK Uncut, a vociferous flash mob which intends to half criticize the commodity. In fact it seems they want this system to work in a clean manner, they talk of “Morality Tax”, they have attacked Topshop because Philip Green , the owner of that firm, has apparently managed to divert alot of cash to his wife’s bank account in Monaco.
But most firms use creative accounting , that is capitalism. UK Uncut need to get down to the root of the problem, not the surface. The targeting of Green has also an antisemitic side to it. if only he had been of Palestinian origin. It is imperative to analyse what goes on, and not fall for easy populist answers to a deep problem.
History is Made at Night noted someone who tweeted that the Wikileaks revelations would prove that geopolitics is not in fact determined by the Bilderberg Group, Masonic conspiracies or the Israel lobby, but in fact confirms the boring old Marxist materialist theory of history (except it was said wittily in 140 characters). For example, Wikileaks shows that it is the Arab oil lobby, not the neocon/Israel axis, pushing military aggression against Iran – small-imperialist power politics, not Jewish conspiracy.
(Doug Henwood made a similar points here: “revelations like these are further proof that the conspiracist view of history, in which a secret cabal plans everything and everyone else is just an ignorant dupe, is wrong.”)
Then almost immediately, History is Made… told me, he turned to Indymedia to find it full of claims that Wikileaks is a Mossad/CIA false flag operation to deflect us away from the real conspiracies…
As far as I can tell, the meme has been promoted by the Wayne Madsden Report, and then taken up by Pakistan Daily:
WMR has learned from Asian intelligence sources that there is a strong belief in some Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand, that the website Wikileaks, which purports to publish classified and sensitive documents while guaranteeing anonymity to the providers, is linked to U.S. cyber-warfare and computer espionage operations, as well as to Mossad’s own cyber-warfare activities…
In China, Wikileaks is suspected of having Mossad connections. It is pointed out that its first “leak” was from an Al Shabbab “insider” in Somalia. Al Shabbab is the Muslim insurgent group that the neocons have linked to “Al Qaeda.”… Our sources in Asia believe that Wikileaks ran afoul of their CIA paymasters after it was discovered that some of Wikileaks’s “take” was being diverted to Mossad instead of to their benefactors at Langley.
There are strong suspicions that Wikileaks is yet another Soros-funded “false flag” operation on the left side of the political spectrum. WMR has learned that after former Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) decided to oppose Soros’s choice of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s deputy Mark Malloch Brown as President of the World Bank, succedding the disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, Soros put the Wikileaks operation into high gear. “Daniel Schmitt” hacked into Coleman’s supporters list, stealing credit card info, addresses, and publishing the “take” on Wikileaks. Democrat Al Franken, who was strongly backed by Soros, defeated Coleman in a legally-contested and very close election…
It is also believed by informed sources that Soros is behind the operation to move Wikileaks to Iceland… Iceland is classic prey for Soros. The Icelandic krona has been decimated as a currency and has no where to go but up in value, especially if the British pound and the euro depreciate. Soros is currently talking down the euro, planning its fall and shorting it, just like he did versus the pound in London in the 1980s. After the UK’s and Europe’s currencies are devalued, Soros will buy every euro note in sight, thus making trillions.
Soros and his Wikileaks friends have in Iceland a practically unregulated banking system desperate for an influx of capital — money that will come from the exiled Russian tycoons in Israel, London and the United States. Israeli investors like Bank Leumi, and awash in siphoned-off Bernard Madoff cash, will do their bit for this smash-and-grab operation by Soros’s Quantum-linked hedge funds.
This text, full of postmodern re-workings of images drawn from the deep well of antisemitic stereotype, has circulated widely on Indymedia, e.g. on Indymedia UK here and here, Indymedia NL here, Indymedia Ottawa here, and so on. Mossad as the personification of secret Jewish power; Soros and Madoff and shadowy “Israeli investors” as the personification of evil finance cpaital; the healthy real European economies preyed on by unnatural financiers; and “the neocons” as a malevolent cabal of Jewish string-pullers. Why, Doug Henwood asks, “are the evil financiers almost always Jews?”
Once again, as Shift noted some time ago, “Sadly, Indymedia offers a platform to invent caricatures of the Israeli state and of its policies. Instead of recognising the political context, it helps to perpetuate an image of Israel, and of Jews, as sinister conspirators with a secret plan to turn the world into one massive settlement.”
Also see: Digital Journal: 9/11 skeptics on Julian Assage; Media Matters: Glenn Beck, Soros and the economic meltdown; Chip Berlet’s guide to anti-Jewish conspiracy theories; Datacide on crisis and continuity in the 9/11 denial movement.
In a recent interview (German; English translation), French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard responds to the recent controversy over charges of antisemitism that was covered by the New York Times (“An Honorary Oscar Revives a Controversy”) earlier this month. His comments show a combination of avoidance, ignorance and philosemitism. Here is a response to two comments of his:
Once again, there is a debate in Jewish newspapers about whether or not you are an anti-Semite. Does this hurt you?
That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.
This is a packed few sentences. First, it is not “anti-Semite” that “means nothing,” but rather “Semite” that “means nothing.” “Semite” is a term developed by racial “theorists” to develop a biological conception of social-historical phenomenon, and to categorize “semitic speaking peoples.” Yes, Hebrew and Arabic speaking individuals speak semitic languages, but this does not make all Jews and Arabs are “Semites,” unless you truly believe in racial “theories.”
“Anti-Semitism” was however not directed at semitic speaking people, it was directed at Jews in particular (whether Hebrew-speaking ones or not), and was an entire world-view, aimed at modernizing Jew-hatred.
If Godard has beef with the term, he should take that up with those who invented it, which he also shows his ignorance about. It was not after the Holocaust and World War Two when the term “anti-semite” became “only applied to Jews,” but rather decades before these events, and was employed as a term to describe oneself, to give a modern appearances to an ancient animosity, and to develop a political program. (One can look up Wilhelm Marr and the Antisemiten-Liga, the “League of Anti-Semites.” )
The view that the term was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and World War Two dabbles in revisionist history and the accusation that Jews monopolize the term for themselves.
The term “anti-Semite” is “inexact” only if one believes the literal translation, and fails to consider the social-historical meaning of the term. Because this social-historical reality exists, the term does not “mean nothing.”
The question — which inquires into his relationship to Jews — is completely avoided in his psuedo-intellectual answer. Well done!
You once said you were a ‘Jew of cinema’. What does this mean?
I want to be together with everyone else, but stay lonely. I wanted to express this contradiction.
Of course, the philosemitic part of antisemitism. The desire to be the Jew one imagines the Jew to be.
