Ziocentrism and antisemitic incidents in Britain
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.
