New antisemitism Totally Explained

Everything about New Antisemitism totally explained

New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism is on the rise in the 21st century, emanating simultaneously from the left, the right, and fundamentalist Islam, and tending to manifest itself as opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel. The term has entered common usage to refer to what some writers describe as a wave of antisemitism that escalated, particularly in Western Europe, after the Second Intifada in 2000, the failure of the Oslo accords, and the September 11, 2001 attacks. The concept generally posits that much of what purports to be criticism of Israel by various individuals and world bodies is in fact tantamount to demonization, and that together with an international resurgence of attacks on Jewish symbols and an increased acceptance of antisemitic beliefs in public discourse, such demonization represents an evolution in the appearance of antisemitic beliefs.
Proponents of the concept argue that anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism, anti-globalization, third worldism, and demonization of Israel or double standards applied to its conduct may be linked to antisemitism, or constitute disguised antisemitism.
Critics of the concept argue that it conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, defines legitimate criticism of Israel too narrowly and demonization too broadly, trivializes the meaning of antisemitism, and exploits antisemitism in order to silence debate.

History of the concept

1960s: Origins

French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff has argued that the first wave of what he describes as "la nouvelle judéophobie" emerged in the Arab-Muslim world and the Soviet sphere following the 1967 Six Day War, citing papers by Jacques Givet (1968) and historian Léon Poliakov (1969) in which the idea of a new anti-Semitism rooted in anti-Zionism was discussed. He argues that anti-Jewish themes centered on the demonical figures of Israel and what he calls "fantasy-world Zionism": that Jews plot together, seek to conquer the world, and are imperialistic and bloodthirsty, which gave rise to the reactivation of stories about ritual murder and the poisoning of food and water supplies..

1970s: Early debates

In 1974, Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein of the Anti-Defamation League published a book entitled The New anti-Semitism, expressing concern about what they described as new manifestations of antisemitism coming from radical left, radical right, and "pro-Arab" figures in the U.S. Forster and Epstein argued that it took the form of indifference to the fears of the Jewish people, apathy in dealing with anti-Jewish bias, and an inability to understand the importance of Israel to Jewish survival.
Reviewing Forster and Epstein's work in Commentary, Earl Raab argued that a "new anti-Semitism" was indeed emerging in America, in the form of opposition to the collective rights of the Jewish people, but he criticized Forster and Epstein for conflating it with anti-Israel bias. Allan Brownfeld writes that Forster and Epstein's new definition of antisemitism trivialized the concept by turning it into "a form of political blackmail" and "a weapon with which to silence any criticism of either Israel or U.S. policy in the Middle East," while Edward S. Shapiro, in "A Time for Healing: American Jewry Since World War II," has written that "Forster and Epstein implied that the new anti-Semitism was the inability of Gentiles to love Jews and Israel enough."

1980s: political convergence

Historian Robert Wistrich addressed the issue in a 1984 lecture delivered in the home of Israeli President Chaim Herzog, in which he argued that a "new anti-Semitic anti-Zionism" was emerging, distinguishing features of which were the equation of Zionism with Nazism and the belief that Zionists had actively collaborated with Nazis during World War II. He argued that such claims were prevalent in the Soviet Union, but added that similar rhetoric had been taken up by a part of the radical Left, particularly Trotskyist groups in Western Europe and America. Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks the far right, writes that, during the early 1980s, isolationists on the far right made overtures to anti-war activists on the left to join forces against government policies in areas where they shared concerns, mainly civil liberties, opposition to U.S. military intervention overseas, and opposition to U.S. support for Israel.
He writes that, as they interacted, some of the classic right-wing antisemitic scapegoating conspiracy theories began to seep into progressive circles, including stories about how a "New World Order", also called the "Shadow Government" or "The Octopus," was manipulating world governments.

1990 - present day: policy debates

According to Berlet, toward the end of 1990 some right-wing antisemites sought alliances with left-wing anti-Gulf War coalitions, and some activists on the left began to speak openly about a nefarious "Jewish lobby" that was encouraging the United States to invade the Middle East. Berlet writes that the antiwar movement "overwhelmingly rejected these overtures by the political right."]] Jack Fischel, chair of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, writes that new antisemitism is a new phenomenon stemming from a coalition of "leftists, vociferously opposed to the policies of Israel, and right-wing antisemites, committed to the destruction of Israel, [who] were joined by millions of Muslims, including Arabs, who immigrated to Europe ... and who brought with them their hatred of Israel in particular and of Jews in general." It is this new political alignment, he argues, that makes new antisemitism unique. Mark Strauss of Foreign Policy links it to anti-globalism, describing it as "the medieval image of the 'Christ-killing' Jew resurrected on the editorial pages of cosmopolitan European newspapers. The French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff argues that antisemitism based on racism and nationalism has been replaced by a new form based on anti-racism and anti-nationalism. He identifies some of its main features as the identification of Zionism and racism; the use of material related to Holocaust denial for example doubts about the number of victims and allegations that there's a "Holocaust industry"; a borrowed discourse from third worldism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism, and anti-globalization; and the dissemination of what he calls the "myth" of the "intrinsically good Palestinian — the innocent victim par excellence."
There are no indices of measurement of the new antisemitism, according to Irwin Cotler, Professor of Law at McGill University. Cotler argues that classical antisemitism is discrimination against Jews as individuals, and that the new antisemitism, in contrast, discriminates against Jews as a people. It is hard to measure, because the indices used by governments to detect discrimination — standard of living, housing, health, and employment — are useful only in measuring discrimination against individuals. This makes it difficult to show that the concept is a valid one, he writes.

A new phenomenon, but not antisemitism

That there has been a resurgence of antisemitic attacks and attitudes is accepted by most opponents of the concept of new antisemitism. What isn't accepted is that this constitutes a different kind of antisemitism. Brian Klug, senior research fellow in philosophy at St Benet's Hall, Oxford — who gave expert testimony in February 2006 to a British parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism in the UK, and in November 2004 to the Hearing on Anti-Semitism at the German Bundestag — argues against the idea that there's a "single, unified phenomenon" that could be called "new" antisemitism. He accepts that there's reason for the Jewish community to be concerned, but argues that any increase in antisemitic incidents is attributable to classical antisemitism. Proponents of the new antisemitism concept, he writes, see an organizing principle that allows them to formulate a new concept, but it's only in terms of this concept that many of the examples cited in evidence of it count as examples in the first place. That is, the creation of the concept may be based on a circular argument or tautology. He argues that it's an unhelpful concept, because it devalues the term "antisemitism," leading to widespread cynicism about the use of it. People of goodwill who support the Palestinians resent being falsely accused of antisemitism.
Klug defines classical antisemitism as "an ingrained European fantasy about Jews as Jews," arguing that whether Jews are seen as a race, religion, or ethnicity, and whether antisemitism comes from the right or the left, the antisemite's image of the Jew is always as "a people set apart, not merely by their customs but by their collective character. They are arrogant, secretive, cunning, always looking to turn a profit. Loyal only to their own, wherever they go they form a state within a state, preying upon the societies in whose midst they dwell. Mysteriously powerful, their hidden hand controls the banks and the media. They will even drag governments into war if this suits their purposes. Such is the figure of 'the Jew,' transmitted from generation to generation."
Bauer regards this wave of antisemitism as dangerous because of Islamism. He identifies Islamism as one of three major ideologies to have emerged during the 20th century, alongside Soviet Communism and National Socialism, and argues that all three saw Jews as a main enemy. The language used about Jews by the Muslim media is, he says, "clearly and unmistakably genocidal," the ideology of Nazism "in a different dress." He cites a television program broadcast on May 2, 2002 on the Egyptian television station IQRAA, during which a three-year-old girl was asked whether she knew who the Jews were and whether she liked them. She replied that she didn't like them, because "they are monkeys and swine ... and also because they tried to poison the wife of our prophet." Bauer writes that 1.2 billion Muslims are being exposed to these teachings, making this fourth wave of antisemitism a "genocidal threat to the Jewish people."

A contradictory political ploy

Norman Finkelstein argues that organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League have brought forward charges of new antisemitism at various intervals since the 1970s, "not to fight antisemitism but rather to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel against criticism". He writes that most evidence purporting to show a new antisemitism has been taken from organizations that are linked in some way to Israel, or that have "a material stake in inflating the findings of anti-Semitism," and that some antisemitic incidents reported in recent years either didn't occur or were misidentified. As an example of the misuse of the term "antisemitism," he cites the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia's 2003 report, which included displays of the Palestinian flag, support for the PLO, and allegations of Israeli apartheid in its list of antisemitic activities and beliefs.
He writes that what is called the new antisemitism consists of three components: (i) "exaggeration and fabrication"; (ii) "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy"; and (iii) "the unjustified yet predictable spillover from criticism of Israel to Jews generally." He argues that Israel's apologists have denied a causal relationship between Israeli policies and hostility toward Jews, since "if Israeli policies, and widespread Jewish support for them, evoke hostility toward Jews, it means that Israel and its Jewish supporters might themselves be causing anti-Semitism; and it might be doing so because Israel and its Jewish supporters are in the wrong".
Finkelstein asks why, given that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq contributed to anti-Americanism, and the aggression of Nazi Germany gave rise to anti-Teutonic sentiment, it surprises us that an occupation by a self-declared Jewish state should cause antipathy towards Jews. The only surprise, he argues, is that the antipathy doesn't run deeper, given that mainstream Jewish organizations offer uncritical support to Israel; that Israel defines itself juridically as the sovereign state of the Jewish people; and that Jews themselves sometimes argue that to distinguish between Israel and world Jewry is itself an example of antisemitism. He cites Phyllis Chesler who argues, on the one hand, that "anyone who doesn't distinguish between Jews and the Jewish state is an anti-Semite," but on the other that "Israel is our heart and soul ... we are family." Gabriel Schoenfeld, the editor of Commentary magazine, writes that "Iranian anti-Semitic propagandists make a point of erasing all distinctions among Israel, Zionism and the Jews," while Hillel Halkin argues that "Israel is the state of the Jews ... To defame Israel is to defame the Jews." It would seem to be antisemitic, Finkelstein concludes, "both to identify and not to identify Israel with Jews."

Political directions

The far right and Islamists

The September 2006 British "All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism" heard evidence from Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, that the far right, left, and extremist Islamists are using 'Zionists' as a euphemism for 'Jews.' The British National Party's Voice of Freedom wrote of the war in Iraq that "Tony Blair swapped British blood for donations from a clique of filthy-rich Zionist businessmen." an antisemitic motif used by the Nazis. Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American literary theorist, warned of a "nasty, creeping wave of antisemitism" insinuating itself into Palestinian politics, writing that the "notion that the Jews never suffered and that the Holocaust is an obfuscatory confection ... is one that's acquiring too much, far too much, currency". Hamas, the majority party of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has called the Holocaust "an alleged and invented story with no basis." Political scientist George Michael writes that the statements by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust is a myth and that Israel should be "wiped off the map" were met with public approval from Hamas, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, American white supremacist David Duke, and the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust-denial group.
Michael writes that David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, has been at the forefront of efforts to foster cooperation between the far right and the Islamic world, in what Michael calls a "cross-fertilization of rhetoric" against Zionism, Jews, and Israel. In an interview with Syrian television, Duke said that "Israel makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate."

The left and anti-Zionism

The association of anti-Zionism with the concept of "new antisemitism" is highly controversial. Proponents argue that groups on the left have forged convenient political alliances with organizations that openly espouse antisemitism, while opponents argue that people of goodwill who support the Palestinians must be allowed to do so without being accused of being antisemites.
   Radu Ioanid, director of the Meed Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, writes that, during the student uprising in France in 1968, protesters could be heard shouting: "Nous sommes tous des Juifs Allemands" ("We are all German Jews") in support of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, one of their expelled leaders. In 2002, in contrast, the slogans heard at rallies in Paris were "Death to the Jews" and "Jews to the ovens." Sarah Baxter reported in The Sunday Times in 2006 that "[w]omen pushing their children in buggies bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched last weekend alongside ... Muslim extremists chanting 'Oh Jew, the army of Muhammad will return'."
   The 2006 British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism heard evidence that contemporary antisemitism in Britain is "now more commonly found on the left of the political spectrum than on the right." The chairman, former Europe Minister Denis McShane, referred in a radio interview to what he called "a 'witch's brew' of anti-semitism including the far left and 'ultra-Islamist' extremists," who use criticism of Israel as a pretext for "spreading hatred against British Jews." David Cesarani of Royal Holloway College told the inquiry that antisemitism is now "masked by or blended inadvertently into anti-Zionism, and ... often articulated in the language of human rights."]]
   Against this position, British writer Tariq Ali argues that the concept of new antisemitism amounts to little more than an attempt to subvert the language in the interests of the State of Israel. He writes that the campaign against "the supposed new 'anti-semitism'" in modern Europe is a "cynical ploy on the part of the Israeli Government to seal off the Zionist state from any criticism of its regular and consistent brutality against the Palestinians." The new antisemitism is, in fact, "Zionist blackmail," he argues, and Israel, far from being a victim, is "the strongest state in the region. It possesses real, not imaginary, weapons of mass destruction. It possesses more tanks and bomber jets and pilots than the rest of the Arab world put together. To say that the Zionist state is threatened by any Arab country is pure demagogy." He argues that most pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist groups that emerged after the 1967 war were in fact careful to observe the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
   A group of left-wing British academics, journalists, and activists founded the Euston Manifesto Group in April 2006, with the intent of creating a new declaration of principles for the democratic left. This group asserted that "'Anti-Zionism' has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the Left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups."

International perspectives

European Union

The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) (superseded in 2007 by the European Fundamental Rights Agency) noted an upswing in antisemitic incidents in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and The Netherlands between July 2003 and December 2004. In September 2004, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, a part of the Council of Europe, called on its member nations to ensure that anti-racist criminal law covers antisemitism, and in 2005, the EUMC offered a definition of antisemitism to enable a standard definition to be used for data collection: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed towards Jews and non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." The paper included some examples:
� * Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, for example by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor;

* Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; � * Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (for example 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.

The EUMC added that criticism of Israel can't be regarded as antisemitism so long as it's "similar to that leveled against any other country." Reporting in October 2004, Rufin writes that "[t]he new anti-Semitism appears more heterogeneous," and identifies what he calls a new and "subtle" form of anti-Semitism in "radical anti-Zionism" as expressed by far-left and anti-globalization groups, in which criticism of Jews and Israel is used as a pretext to "legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict."

United Kingdom The British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in the UK published its report in September 2006. It adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it's the Jewish community that's in the best position to determine what is antisemitic.
The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for antisemitism, It argues that anti-Zionism may become antisemitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation ..." Having re-defined Zionism, the report states, traditional antisemitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are often transferred from Jews onto Zionism. The report notes that this is "at the core of the 'New Antisemitism', on which so much has been written," adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements." Lord Janner of Braunstone gave evidence regarding antisemitic remarks made to him in Parliament. After the arrest of Saddam Hussein, another peer approached him and said: "We've got rid of Saddam Hussein now. Your lot are next." When asked what she meant by "your lot," she replied: "Yes, you can't go on killing Palestinians forever, you know." Oona King, former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, gave evidence that many of her former constituents told her they couldn't vote for her because she was funded by the Israeli Secret Service.

Israel

In November 2001, in response to an Abu-Dhabi television broadcast showing Ariel Sharon drinking blood of Palestinian children, the Israeli government set up the "Coordinating Forum for Countering Antisemitism," headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior. According to Melchior, "in each and every generation antisemitism tries to hide its ugly face behind various disguises — and hatred of the State of Israel is its current disguise." He added that, "hate against Israel has crossed the red line, having gone from criticism to unbridled antisemitic venom, which is a precise translation of classical antisemitism whose past results are all too familiar to the entire world."

United Nations

A number of commentators argue that the United Nations has condoned anti-Semitism. Lawrence Summers, then-president of Harvard University, wrote that the UN's World Conference on Racism failed to condemn human rights abuses in China, Rwanda, or anywhere in the Arab world, while raising Israel's alleged "ethnic cleansing" and "crimes against humanity."
David Matas, senior counsel to B'nai Brith Canada, has written that the UN is a forum for anti-Semitism, citing the example of the Palestinian representative to the UN Human Rights Commission who claimed in 1997 that Israeli doctors had injected Palestinian children with the AIDS virus. Congressman Steve Chabot told the U.S. House of Representatives in 2005 that the commission took "several months to correct in its record a statement by the Syrian ambassador that Jews allegedly had killed non-Jewish children to make unleavened bread for Passover. Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian legal scholar who addressed the UN about its treatment of Israel, argues that the UN hijacks the language of human rights to discriminate and demonize Jews. She writes that over one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations have been directed at Israel. "But there has never been a single resolution about the decades-long repression of the civil and political rights of 1.3 billion people in China, or the million female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia kept as virtual slaves, or the virulent racism which has brought 600,000 people to the brink of starvation in Zimbabwe."
In a 2008 report on antisemitism from the US Department of State to the US Congress,

Motives for criticizing Israel in the UN may stem from legitimate concerns over policy or from illegitimate prejudices. (...) However, regardless of the intent, disproportionate criticism of Israel as barbaric and unprincipled, and corresponding discriminatory measures adopted in the UN against Israel, have the effect of causing audiences to associate negative attributes with Jews in general, thus fueling anti-Semitism.

United States

The U.S. State Department's 2004 Report on Global Anti-Semitism identified four sources of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe:

"Traditional anti-Jewish prejudice... This includes ultra-nationalists and others who assert that the Jewish community controls governments, the media, international business, and the financial world."

"Strong anti-Israel sentiment that crosses the line between objective criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism."

"Anti-Jewish sentiment expressed by some in Europe's growing Muslim population, based on longstanding antipathy toward both Israel and Jews, as well as Muslim opposition to developments in Israel and the occupied territories, and more recently in Iraq."

"Criticism of both the United States and globalization that spills over to Israel, and to Jews in general who are identified with both." At the time, the Commission also announced that anti-Semitism is a "serious problem" on many campuses throughout the United States.
In September 2006, Yale University announced that it had established the Yale Initiative for Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism,, the first university-based institute in North America dedicated to the study of anti-Semitism. Charles Small, who will head the institute, said in a press release that anti-Semitism has "reemerged internationally in a manner that many leading scholars and policy makers take seriously ... Increasingly, Jewish communities around the world feel under threat. It's almost like going back into the lab. I think we need to understand the current manifestation of this disease."

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