Anti-Zionism ≠ Antisemitism
JVL Introduction
In early December the American House of Representatives passed, by an overwhelming majority, a motion that “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism”.
Arthur Neslen, writing in Red Pepper, places this development in the ongoing history of attempts to erode the right to criticise Israel by demonising those who do as antisemites.
It is not just the long history of anti-Zionism among Jews that is deemed never to have existed. So, too, Jewish and other critics of Israeli apartheid or of what B’Tselem calls the notion of “Jewish supremacy” now at the heart of the Israeli constitution, are fair game.
So too are Palestinians who oppose the crimes Israel committed against them historically in the name of Zionism and continues to commit to this day, deprived of the very language needed to describe their own history. It they tell what happened, they are deemed to be and antisemitic racists.
This resolution goes further, setting up a bipartisan “Commission to study acts of antisemitism in the US Act” which looks set to become the HUAC of the McCarthyite days. But instead of Communists under the bed, they now propose an open season in the hunt for “antisemites”.
RK
This article was originally published by Red Pepper on Mon 11 Dec 2023. Read the original here.
Does anti-Zionism equal antisemitism? Only if you can’t do the maths
Arthur Neslen comments on the latest in a long line of attempts to equate the Palestinian struggle for justice, peace and equality with anti-Jewish racism
The US Congress on 5 December passed what may be its most anti-Semitic ever resolution – in the name of combating hatred against Jews. Two months into a war on Gaza that the UN calls ‘a genocide in the making’, Resolution 894, which was approved by a 311-14 majority, ’clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism’.
It may have signal rather than legal force but the resolution’s overwhelming approval sends a chilling message ahead of the proposed creation of a new Congressional body on antisemitism with powers to compel Americans to testify and give evidence.
‘Falsely stating that anti-Zionism is antisemitism conflates all Jews with the Israeli state and endangers our communities,’ tweeted Jewish Voice for Peace.
This conflation has long been the sine qua non for antisemites who seek to blame all Jews for the actions of a state that only a minority of them – Israeli Jews – can vote for. That’s why meaningful definitions of antisemitism, such as the Jerusalem Declaration, censure ‘holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct’ and avoid what it calls ‘undue emphasis’ on Israel.
In contrast, vague and woolly analogues such as the 2006 European Union Monitoring Centre’s (EUMC) working definition of antisemitism – which formed the basis of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) version – muddy the waters to the benefit of pro-Israel advocates.
A US state department adaptation of the EUMC draft in 2010 lists as examples of antisemitism: ‘Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions, applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, [and] multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations.’
None of these examples necessarily involves discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews for being Jewish. Any of them could chill legitimate debate.
The false equivalence between Jews and Zionists
But the Congressional resolution goes further. By explicitly drawing an equivalence between Jews and Zionists, it effectively makes support for ethnic cleansing, apartheid, land seizures and collective punishment into protected Jewish characteristics. They are not.
Anti-Zionism is still a tenet of faith for many ultra-orthodox Jews, who view the creation of the state as heretical before the Messiah’s return. In fact, the Agudath Israel World Organisation which had official pre-war recognition in the parliaments of Poland, Lithuania and Romania, actually petitioned the UN against recognising Israel in 1947.
Moreover, the largest secular Jewish party in swathes of pre-war eastern Europe was the Bund, a socialist and fiercely anti-Zionist party. On the eve of the Holocaust in 1938, it won 17 out of the 20 Warsaw city council seats taken by Jewish parties.
Most of these Jews – including members of my family – died in the Nazi genocide. Were they antisemites? Would this Congress not have made a distinction between them and the fascists who murdered them? Apparently not.
To please Tel Aviv and its backers in Washington, the 5 December Congress resolution spits on their memory and goes after their spiritual descendants, the thousands of anti-racist Jews who blockaded New York’s Grand Central station and the Manhattan bridge in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The threat to all Palestinians and their supporters
As well as Jews – and by design – the Congressional resolution takes aim at the free speech of all Palestinians, and their supporters. While it references the events of 7 October, the roots of the Israel-palestine conflict go back further.
Israel’s creation on its current territory in 1948 was made possible by the expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians. Their homes and land were seized by the Israeli state. Palestinian refugees were not allowed to return, but any Jew could migrate to Israel and claim citizenship. Political Zionism was the ideology that strategised, enabled and defended this.
Palestinians cannot support it without denying their own right to their own ancestral land. For this, the Congressional resolution brands them Jew haters.
It turns reality on its head to label opposition to ethnic cleansing and apartheid as racism
Husam Marajda from the US Palestinian Community Network decried it as a bid to ‘cancel’ pro-Palestinian advocates by labelling their discourse as hate speech. ‘It’s super dangerous,’ he told Al-Jazeera. ‘It sets a really, really bad precedent. It’s aiming to criminalise our liberation struggle and our call for justice and peace and equality.’
This situation is precisely what supporters of the IHRA definition of antisemitism assured everyone would not happen when they pushed for its adoption. The IHRA’s examples suggested that ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ might be antisemitic, but only depending on the context.
The ‘new antisemitism’ and the escalation of the suppression of free speech
In reality, the definition was underwritten by the ‘new antisemitism’ theory which posits Israel as the ‘Jew of the nations’. It is already driving a major suppression of free speech. A recent survey found that 82 per cent of almost a thousand US academics surveyed censor themselves when they talk about the Israel-Palestine issue. Eleven percent said they restrained themselves from criticising Palestinians – and 81 per cent held back from criticising Israel.
This figure is set to rise significantly. Anyone commenting on Israel-Palestine will soon have to consider how their words may be construed under the bipartisan Commission to study acts of antisemitism in the US Act. This proposes the creation of a new Congressional body with broad subpoena authority to force Americans to testify and give evidence.
The veteran peace activist Richard Silverstein called it ’a dangerous McCarthyite attempt to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel,’ and compared it to the infamous House of Un-American Activities (HUAC).
A storm of islamophopic and anti-Palestinian racism
Certainly, the 7 October attack unleashed a storm of racism which needs to be addressed. The conflict has been linked to the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois, the shootings of three Palestinian students in Vermont and, potentially, to the death of a 69-year-old Jewish pro-Israel protestor after being hit with a megaphone when two opposing Gaza rallies faced off in Los Angeles.
However, the proposed Commission only deals with antisemitism, not Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian racism. One of its sponsors, the Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, falsely claimed that the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ meant ‘eradicating Israel and Jews. Period.’ Another sponsor, the Ohio Republican Max Miller sparked outrage when he said: ‘We’re going to turn [Palestine] into a parking lot.’
What sort of anti-racism is that?
The tragic bad maths of the stripped-down equation that ‘anti-Zionism = antisemitism’ answers no questions posed by oppressed people. It is just applauded by pro-Israel lobbies in the US such as AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League. The equation is banner-headlined in Israel by the Jerusalem Post, in the US by the Wall St Journal and, here, by the Spectator and Daily Telegraph. It turns reality on its head to label opposition to ethnic cleansing and apartheid as racism.
Israel losing the PR war
In truth it is a cynical response to the fact that for all its lobby firepower, establishment support, media buy-in and ability to intimidate, Israel is losing the PR war. It is doing so because the slaughter of thousands of innocent women and children evokes popular disgust.
The new antisemitic genuflection to conflating Jews with Zionists in pro-Israel lobbying will not change that. But we can at least hope that it will point some people back to the original conflation at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conundrum, which makes any solution to the conflict so intractable: the notion of ‘the Jewish State’ itself.
A censorship roll call
It would take a book to list all the groups and individuals censored for defending Palestinians since 7 October. But prominent individuals include Nurit Peled-Elhanin, Meir Baruchin, Michael Eisen, Nathan Thrall, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Adania Shibli, Mehdi Hasan, Susan Sarandon, Avi Shlaim, Andy McDonald MP, Paul Bristow MP, David Velasco, Yuval Carasso, Ryna Workman, Maha Dakhil and Melissa Barrera.
Targeted groups in the US include Workers United (the Starbucks union), the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Students for Justice in Palestine. Billionaires have even called for the blacklisting of Harvard students who signed a petition blaming Israel’s occupation for the 7 October attacks.
In Israel, the situation is worse, with attacks, detentions and harassment common. Jewish peace activists describe facing ‘violent fascist persecution that increasingly resembles the junta regimes of the 1970s in Latin America’.
Over 100 Palestinian students have reported repression based on social media posts. Dozens of academic disciplinary cases launched. One Jewish journalist, Israel Frey, went into hiding after a mob surrounded his house, aiming fireworks at his windows. His offence was saying kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, for civilians in Gaza.
The director of Petah Tikva hospital’s cardiac intensive care unit was suspended for an online profile picture of a dove carrying an olive twig and a green flag with the shahada declaration of faith. Peace activists have even been arrested for putting up posters saying ’Jews and Arabs, we will get through this together’.
Arthur Neslen is the author of two books about Israeli Jewish and Palestinian identity, Occupied Minds (Pluto Press) and In Your Eyes A Sandstorm (University of California Press). He has written for The Guardian, EU Observer, Equal Times and others, and is a former international editor for Red Pepper
Most Zionists are Christian, while not all Jews are Zionists. Go figure!
It will be no surprise, that the suppression of dissenting voices against the Western Pro-Zionist narrative is in full swing. It’s not just America. Recently, the Jewish Block on the Pro-Palestine March in London was surrounded by the police. A disabled activist in Dorset was arrested for a retweet of a pro-Palestinian statement on social media. People have been accosted for carrying and waving the Palestinian flag. The Metropolitan Police published the face of a marcher for carrying a placard depicting Zionist atrocities akin to those committed by Nazi – Germany. Leading Academics are being silenced or intimidated in the name of “anti-Semitism”. Our civil rights are already being curtailed under whatever Act of Parliament the British Intelligence, the Home Office or the Police can “legitimately” arrest and detain people. The taking down of Palestinian Children’s Art in a London hospital stinks of repression, silencing dissent and denial of our basic human rights. Our support for Palestine is a fight to stop creeping authoritarianism and the spread of Racism and Fascism from Israel and across Europe.
@ Neil G
I agree with your points. Though the worldwide revulsion against Israel’s appalling treatment of Gaza and West Bank civilians SEEMS TO BE usefully prompting new thinking on the Nakba and whether Israel is a rogue state (as Russia now is).
I think the Western world now needs to work MUCH HARDER to protect their democracies and societies against the new threats they face (arising from 21st century technology and the much easier, faster, less observable cooperation the technology and globalism make practicable between powerful individuals and corporates allying against the common good). We need stronger international and national laws and penalties (eg prison time) to stop secretive interests derailing our governance. We need better and better funded investigation and law enforcement agencies.
As an example of the inadequacy of our current arrangements, the investigations of “Tortoise” now show that £2 million funding was in place and Starmer was being courted as a potential leader to replace the twice elected Labour leader (Corbyn) by 2018. The group(s) doing this put to one side the Labour electorate’s choice of leader and worked to install their own preferred leader. Did the same group also fund and motivate the “chicken coups” and the other two challengers (Eagle and Smith) who so notably failed to impress the Labour electorate?
WHO were part of this cabal and its funding? WHAT motivated them to undermine Labour’s chances of getting elected in 2017 and 2019? HOW did they do what they did? WHY did they want Starmer as leader? WHAT more generally did they seek to achieve? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions – and they matter.
A major party that isn’t securely protected by effective legal controls and civil/ criminal penalties from having its leadership and policies changed by a small, secretive group without …
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