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The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, is sometimes called weaponization of antisemitism.[1] Charges of antisemitism made in bad faith have been described as a form of smear tactic,[2] and have been likened to "playing the race card".[3] The charge of weaponization has itself been criticized, with scholars of contemporary antisemitism saying it is often used to delegitimize concerns about antisemitism.[4]

Claims of weaponizing antisemitism have arisen in various contexts, including the Arab–Israeli conflict and debates over the concept of new antisemitism and the working definition of antisemitism.[5][6]

History

In 1943, David Ben-Gurion called a British court antisemitic after it "had implicated Zionist leaders in arms-trafficking".[7][8] Christopher Sykes said the incident began "a new phase in Zionist propaganda" in which "to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic".[7][9] Noam Chomsky said that while Sykes had traced the origins of weaponizing antisemitism to this episode, it was not until "the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible".[9] In 1973, Israel's foreign minister Abba Eban wrote: "One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism."[10] Of Eban's statement, Chomsky said: "That is a convenient stand. It cuts off a mere 100 percent of critical comment!"[11]

In the early 1950s, U.S. journalist Dorothy Thompson, a former advocate of Zionism, was called antisemitic after she began to criticize Zionism, and as a result of these accusations "she lost friends, work, and political influence".[12] Thompson's transition to anti-Zionism and advocacy for Palestinian refugees began after a trip to Palestine in 1945.[13] Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge wrote, "today, many see the silencing of a bold humanitarian advocate in her story, and it is not difficult to understand why", but also that "there can be no doubt that anti-Semitism was a theme in Thompson's later writing".[14]

In his 1956 memoir, British military officer John Bagot Glubb denied accusations of antisemitism for his criticism of Israel, writing: "It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism."[15][16] Israeli historian Benny Morris said that this was due to a "tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism", although Morris also said Glubb's anti-Zionism was "tinged by a degree of anti-Semitism".[16]

According to Cheryl Rubenberg, in the 1980s, journalists Anthony Lewis, Nicholas von Hoffman, Joseph C. Harsch, Richard Cohen and Alfred Friendly; authors Gore Vidal, Joseph Sobran, and John le Carré; and American politicians Charles Mathias and Pete McCloskey were among those whom pro-Israeli groups called antisemites.[17] In 1989, Rubenberg wrote of Mathias and McCloskey: "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as 'anti-Semitic' is a common practice among Israel's advocates."[17] In 1992, American diplomat George Ball wrote in his book The Passionate Attachment: America's involvement with Israel that AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups "employ the charge of 'anti-Semitism' so carelessly as to trivialize it", suggesting this was due to the lack of any "rational argument" with which to defend the state.[18]

Critics such as the Israel-Palestine researcher Suraya Dadoo, journalist Ben White, and English scholar Matthew Abraham suggest that international Israeli advocacy groups have charged prominent individuals expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment, such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, with antisemitism. Abraham says this is a form of "political correctness" that undermines "greater understanding about the conditions producing conflict in the Israel-Palestine conflict".[19][20][21]

Chomsky and the academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Norman Finkelstein have said accusations of antisemitism increase after Israel acts aggressively: following the Six-Day War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifadas, and the bombardments of Gaza.[22][23][24] In 2002, Chomsky said "the distinguished Israeli statesman" Abba Eban had said Israeli propaganda sought "to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism", meaning "criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel".[25]

Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2008 that the charge of antisemitism can discourage others from defending in public those against whom the charge has been made.[26] They said that rhetorical accusations of antisemitism put a burden of proof on the accused person, putting them in the "difficult" position of having to prove a negative.[27] They said "we should all be disturbed by the presence of genuine anti-Semitism" but suggested that "playing the anti-Semitism card stifles discussion" and "allows myths about Israel to survive unchallenged".[28] In 2010, Kenneth L. Marcus wrote that although Mearsheimer and Walt called such accusations "the Great Silencer", they had not themselves been silenced, having received a wide audience for their book and appearances. Marcus also wrote that many pro-Israel commentators had also taken pains to say that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic.[29]

Examples

See also: Anti-Zionism § Allegations of antisemitism, Zionism § Anti-Zionism or antisemitism, New antisemitism § Accusations of misuse of the term to stifle criticism of Israel, and Criticism of Israel § Criticism of Israel and antisemitism

The charge of weaponization has been raised across the political spectrum, especially in anti-Zionist discourse on the left and right.[30][31][32] Scholars such as John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Matthew Abraham have suggested that the charge of antisemitism is becoming less effective when applied to criticisms of Israel.[33][34] The culture of anti-antisemitism in Germany has been criticized as weaponizing antisemitism and compared to McCarthyism.[35] Similar concerns have been raised about Austrian politics and academia.[36]

While warning in 2010 against denying or minimizing antisemitism, American attorney and academic Kenneth L. Marcus also cautioned against overuse of the "anti-Semitism card", paralleling concerns raised by Richard Thompson Ford with the broader misuse of "the race card": that it can be dishonest and mean-spirited, risks weakening legitimate accusations of bigotry, risks distracting socially concerned organizations from other social injustices, and hurts outreach efforts between Jewish and Arab or Muslim groups.[37]

In 2021, religion scholar Atalia Omer of the University of Notre Dame said that weaponization of antisemitism is bad for all involved, including Israel and the broader Jewish community.[38] Nick Riemer, a Palestine solidarity activist and linguist at the University of Sydney, wrote in 2022 that antisemitism "provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties".[39]

Charges of weaponization by the right

The German far-right has accused Jews of "using the Antisemitismuskeule" (lit. 'antisemitism club/cudgel') in relation to new antisemitism, nationalism, and neo-Nazism.[31][40][41] German studies scholar Caroline Pearce describes the phrase as a "common far-right term" in contemporary German politics.[40] For example, Jörg Meuthen initially described criticism of Wolfgang Gedeon's writings—which have been widely described as antisemitic—as attempts by political opponents to wield the Antisemitismuskeule against the AfD. He later reversed his position, calling Gedeon's statements "crystal clearly anti-Semitic".[30] Gideon Botsch [de], a German scholar of the far right and antisemitism, says that the far right's claims of weaponization of antisemitism in relation to criticism of Israel are often overlooked because far-right antisemitism is typically treated as a separate, historical phenomenon.[31]

Israel and Zionism

Activists and scholars have said that weaponization of antisemitism, and new antisemitism in particular, has been used to stifle criticism of Israel.[42][43][44] Norman Finkelstein says that organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League have advanced charges of new antisemitism since the 1970s "to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel against criticism".[45]

In 2004, Joel Beinin wrote that the "well-established ploy" of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism exposes Jews to attack by suggesting they are responsible for the Israeli government's actions.[46] Various writers have suggested that charges of antisemitism raised in discussions of Israel can have a chilling effect, deterring criticism of Israel due to fear of being associated with beliefs linked to antisemitic crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust.[47][48][49] Norman Finkelstein says that use of "the anti-Semitism card" attempts to displace "fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab 'opposition' to Jews".[50][51] In 2008, Finkelstein wrote that some of what "the Israel lobby" suggests is antisemitism is in fact "exaggeration and fabrication" and "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy".[52]

Raz Segal writes that conflating the State of Israel with Jews is part of the weaponization of antisemitism discourse that protects Israel from criticism, especially in discussion of Israeli settler colonialism.[53] In 2019, Joshua Leifer, an editor of Dissent magazine, wrote that campaigns that consider anti-Zionism antisemitic aim to shift criticisms of the Israeli government "beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability".[54] In December 2023, antisemitism expert David Feldman said that, while "some anti-Zionism takes an antisemitic form", the context must be considered when differentiating antisemitism from legitimate discourse and that there is "a long history of Israel and its supporters portraying anti-Zionism and other criticisms of Israel as antisemitic" in order to delegitimize them.[55]

In 2018, Jewish Voice for Peace authored an open letter signed by over 40 Jewish organizations saying that pro-Palestinian organizations were the subject of "cynical and false accusations of antisemitism" to protect Israel.[42][43] Claims of antisemitism against critics of Israel have been critically compared to Soviet censorship, McCarthyism, and rhetorical strategies against the South-African anti-apartheid movement.[56][50][57]

On February 1, 2022, Amnesty International published a report that said Israel was committing apartheid in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,[58] which Israeli officials condemned as "false and biased" and antisemitic.[59] Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard rejected the Israeli officials' responses as "baseless attacks, barefaced lies, fabrications on the messenger".[60] Human rights advocates subsequently argued that the criticism of the report constituted weaponization of antisemitism.[61][62]

Pro–Palestinian activism

Multiple scholars have said that allegations of antisemitism have been weaponized against pro-Palestinian protesters.[63][64][36] According to Mitchel Plitnick and Sahar Aziz, a presumption that all Muslims are antisemitic has been "increasingly deployed by Zionist groups to eliminate critical debate inclusive of Palestinian experiences".[65]

Scholar Raz Segal, former Harvard Hillel executive director Bernie Steinberg, and former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy have said that the weaponization of antisemitism claims has been used to silence pro-Palestinian voices, especially in regard to Israel's human rights abuses.[66][64] In 2024, a group of Germanophone scholars said the weaponization of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian protesters, as well as people of color and post- and decolonial scholars, by universities and the Austrian political right means the "recent increase of antisemitic crimes and the structural antisemitism across Austrian society are thereby obscured".[36]

Critics have also alleged weaponization of antisemitism against university campus demonstrations about the Israel–Palestine conflict or in support of Palestine.[67][68] In May 2024, in reference to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, Segal wrote, "the blanket assertion [of "rampant antisemitism" at the protests] by pro-Israel advocates is intended as a political cudgel: weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism of its attack on Gaza".[69] In 2023, during the Israel–Hamas war, Steinberg wrote in The Harvard Crimson: "It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands."[70]

Before Columbia University President Minouche Shafik appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 20 Jewish Columbia and Barnard professors published an open letter saying they "object to the weaponization of antisemitism".[71] After Harvard appointed antisemitism scholar Derek Penslar to head a task force on the issue, Slate columnist Emily Tamkin said his critics were weaponizing antisemitism.[72] Lara Deeba and Jessica Winegarb suggest that antisemitism has been weaponized in the US against pro-Palestinian students and university staff in an attempt to "silence pro-Palestinian speech, abolish anti-racist teaching and diversity initiatives, eliminate academic freedom, and question the value of higher education in general".[73]

IHRA

Main article: Working definition of antisemitism

In 2011, the UK's University and College Union Congress debated a motion to formally reject the IHRA's working definition.[74] Antisemitism scholar David Hirsh said the definition was "denounced as a bad-faith attempt to say that criticism of Israel was antisemitic".[75] In 2019 and 2024, Kenneth S. Stern, one of the authors of the definition, said it had become weaponized by Donald Trump and right-wing Jewish groups in ways that threatened to suppress and limit free speech in the U.S. Stern said Trump's Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, aimed at university campuses in particular, would "harm not only pro-Palestinian advocates, but also Jewish students and faculty, and the academy itself".[76]

In 2022, responding to widespread criticism that the definition classifies legitimate speech on Israel as antisemitic, Bernard Harrison said such criticism was unfounded.[77] A 2023 report by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies analyzed 40 cases where UK university staff and/or students were accused of antisemitism on the basis of the IHRA definition between 2017 and 2022, and found that in 38 cases, the accusations were dismissed, with two yet to be resolved. According to the report, false accusations of antisemitism have caused staff and students severe stress.[78]

In 2023, Nathan J. Brown and Daniel Nerenberg said that the definition, created in good faith, had been weaponized by groups including the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Committee, and the Brandeis Center.[79] In 2024, Holocaust scholar Raz Segal wrote: "The weaponization of antisemitism by Israel and its allies, including the U.S. government, draws on the deeply problematic 'working definition of antisemitism' adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)."[80] Jonathan Hafetz and Sahar Aziz made a similar argument about the definition's use against critics of Israel's actions during its war on Gaza.[81]

In the UK Labour Party

Main article: Antisemitism in the British Labour Party

In 2018, in light of accusations of antisemitism in the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid called a debate on antisemitism in Parliament. At the debate, Jewish Labour MPs Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth spoke of their experiences of being accused of weaponizing antisemitism.[82] Lesley Klaff says Berger experienced online antisemitic and misogynistic harassment by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who saw her "as deliberately manufacturing a crisis within the Labour Party by making false accusations about antisemitism".[83] Anthony Lerman says that "many hyperbolic claims" were made against Corbyn himself and that such claims politicized antisemitism and emptied the word of utility.[84]

In 2020, the Equality and Human Rights Commission investigated claims of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, concluding that investigators should treat complaints of antisemitism in good faith according to the Macpherson principle,[a] and that dismissing reports of antisemitism without investigation could itself be antisemitic.[86] It said party agents who suggested complaints of antisemitism were "fake or smears" could be guilty of "unlawful harassment". It also said that Jewish members, in particular, were accused of trying to "undermine the Labour Party" with reports of antisemitism, and that this "ignores legitimate and genuine complaints of antisemitism in the Party".[87] Similarly, the Antisemitism Policy Trust's 2020 report on antisemitism in the UK Labour Party noted that some Labour activists had "dismissed [Anti-Jewish hatred] as a 'smear' or as being 'weaponised' by its victims for political ends", which they said was against the Macpherson principle and not supported by the evidence.[88] In 2022, Corbyn's successor as Labour leader, Keir Starmer, commissioned the Forde Report,[89] which said antisemitism had been used as a "factional weapon" between the party's anti-Corbyn and pro-Corbyn factions.[90][91][92]

International organizations

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was rumored to be preparing arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Aryeh Neier said that Netanyahu's assertion "that ICC indictments would be antisemitic is indicative of his promiscuous use of antisemitism allegations".[93][94] Shortly thereafter, on 20 May 2024, the ICC announced that it was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, and Netanyahu called chief prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan one of the "great antisemites in modern times", saying that Khan was "callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world".[95] Kenneth Roth said Netanyahu's response was a "common last resort for defenders of Israel" that endangered Jews: "if people see the charge of antisemitism as a thin cover for Israeli war crimes, it will cheapen the concept at a time when a strong defense is needed."[96]

In February 2024, Israeli officials accused the International court of Justice of antisemitism following South Africa's genocide case against Israel.[97] Writing in Declassified UK, Anthony Lerman noted the officials' "deployment of weaponised antisemitism to deflect criticism" and said that "using past experience of anti-Jewish persecution to neutralise criticism of, and generate sympathy for, the Jewish state [...] is decades old".[98]

Responses

Multiple scholars have said that accusing someone of weaponizing antisemitism aims to delegitimize complaints of anti-Jewish sentiment and may itself draw on antisemitic tropes.[99][100][101] Political scientist Lars Rensmann suggests that while complaints about "illegitimate racism charges" are generally unacceptable in society, accusations that Jews are weaponizing antisemitism are "almost ubiquitous" and nearly always unevidenced.[102]

Scholars such as Matthias J. Becker, Mark Goldfeder, Robert Fine, and Kenneth Waltzer have said charges of weaponization are themselves antisemitic and rely on stereotypes of Jews that portray them as dishonest or greedy.[103][104][99] David Schraub says the charge of weaponization is "a first-cut response that presents marginalized persons as inherently untrustworthy, unbelievable, or lacking in the basic understandings regarding the true meaning of discrimination".[105] John Hyman and Anthony Julius say this stereotype of dishonesty is part of the "established antisemitic defamation" polemicized by Martin Luther in On The Jews and Their Lies and Heinrich von Treitschke's view that "Jews stand for 'Lug und Trug'" (lit. 'lying and cheating').[106]

Becker, a hate speech scholar, says the charge that Jews "instrumentalize antisemitism" for political or financial gain is connected to the claim they "instrumentalize the Holocaust", which he says can lead to Holocaust distortion and denial. Becker interprets the "instrumentalization" trope in post-WWII German and Austrian society (in German, die Antisemitismus- oder Auschwitz-Keule schwingen, lit. 'wielding the antisemitism or Auschwitz club') as a "collective reflex" in the context of the reckoning with Nazi history.[101]

Scholars Schraub, Dov Waxman, and Adam Hosein have said that accusations of bad faith are often made about those who raise charges of antisemitism—especially Jews—because "antisemitism today is not always easy to identify or even define".[5] They suggest that accusations of bad faith may be defused by clarifying which of the potential understandings of antisemitism is being invoked, and that "persons who encounter a Jewish claim of antisemitism [should] at least adopt a presumptive disposition towards taking that claim seriously and considering it with an open mind".[5]

Politics

Sina Arnold and Blair Taylor say charges of weaponizing antisemitism are a common way of "shutting down" discussions of antisemitism in the contemporary American Left, along with changing the subject to Israel or right-wing antisemitism. Arnold and Taylor attribute this to "unexamined political assumptions" and ignorance about the nature of antisemitism rather than "conscious antisemitic intent".[107] Rensmann says that some on the left do not "recognize current antisemitism" but only the "chilling effect" of "bad-faith" charges of antisemitism.[108] Izabella Tabarovsky has compared contemporary left-wing antisemitism to Soviet antisemitic campaigns that sought to accuse Zionists of "complain[ing] about antisemitism in order to smear the left" between 1967 and 1988.[109]

In 2005, sociologist David Hirsh coined the term "the Livingstone Formulation" for "responding to an accusation of antisemitism with a counter-accusation of Zionist bad faith".[110] It is particularly used to describe charges of weaponization of antisemitism from those on the left of politics or who are anti-Zionist,[111][107][112] although Hirsh says the formulation "long pre-dates antizionist antisemitism".[113] Hirsh gives as examples comments by former President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, American white supremacist David Duke, British National Party leader Nick Griffin, and American aviator Charles Lindbergh;[114] as well as passages from 19th-century German antisemites Heinrich von Treitschke and Wilhelm Marr.[115]

Daniel Sugarman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews says that while the left downplays antisemitism as criticism of Israel, the right often denies or downplays its own antisemitism by citing its support for Israel.[111] Gideon Botsch [de], a German political scientist specializing in the far right and antisemitism, says that, in Germany, far-right claims of weaponization of antisemitism, especially in relation to criticisms of Israel, are often overlooked because of a tendency to attribute anti-Israel antisemitism to the left and Islam, and to treat far-right antisemitism as a separate, historical phenomenon.[31]

Israel and anti-Zionism

Scholars such as Ben Cohen, Shany Mor, Lars Rensmann and Efraim Sicher say that anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel are often used as defences against antisemitism while often relying on traditional antisemitic tropes.[102][116][117] Werner Bonefeld says this is more common among those who view antisemitism as "a phenomenon of the past".[118] David Schraub says that the statement "criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic", while true, falsely implies that "any non-trivial number of individuals" must believe the opposite, reframing discussions of antisemitism from Jewish victims to the way charges of antisemitism are "allegedly abused to victimise innocent bystanders".[119] Derek Spitz, John Hyman and Anthony Julius have described this as a form of victim blaming which places a large burden of proof on Jews.[120][106]

Fine and Philip Spencer say that while antisemitism may be weaponized to stifle criticism of Israel in some cases, "the reverse is more plausible: that there are many who cry 'Israel' in order to shut down debate on antisemitism".[121] Bernard Harrison says this "stock" rebuttal attempts to portray complaints of antisemitism as "putatively absurd".[122][120] In a 2025 report for the Toda Peace Institute, Lisa Schirch wrote, "both the weaponization of antisemitism and the left's dismissal of antisemitism disrupt solidarity and coalition building" in regard to the Israel–Palestine conflict.[32]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ This is the principle that all complaints of racism should be recorded and investigated as such when the complainant or someone else perceives them as acts of racism.[85]

References

  1. ^ Illustrative examples:
    • Landy, Lentin & McCarthy 2020, p. 15: "The weaponizing of antisemitism against US critics of Israel was evidenced in 2019 when Florida's upper legislative chamber unanimously passed a bill that classifies certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic"
    • Consonni, Manuela (1 March 2023). "Memory, Memorialization, and the Shoah After 'the End of History'". In Keren Eva Fraiman, Dean Phillip Bell (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 170. ISBN 9781000850321. In 2013, the Committee on Antisemitism addressing the troubling resurgence of antisemitism and Holocaust denial produced two important political achievements: the 'Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion'...and the 'Working Definition of Antisemitism'....The last motion raised much criticism by some scholars as too broad in its conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The exploitation, the instrumentalization, the weaponization of antisemitism, a concomitant of its de-historicization and de-textualization, became a metonymy for speaking of the Jewish genocide and of anti-Zionism in a way that confined its history to the court's benches and research library and its memory to a reconstruction based mostly on criteria of memorial legitimacy for and against designated social groups.
    • Medico International; Rothberg, Michael (15 February 2024). "The Interview :We need an ethics of comparison". Medico International. 'I do not doubt that antisemitism exists across German society, including among Muslims, but the politicization of the definition of antisemitism—for example, the way that the IHRA definition is used to stifle criticism of Israeli policies—makes it very difficult to reach consensus on what is and what is not antisemitic.' 'The far-right instrumentalization of antisemitism and solidarity with Israel is one of the most disturbing developments of recent years.'
    • Roth-Rowland, Natasha (28 July 2020). "False charges of antisemitism are the vanguard of cancel culture". +972 Magazine. Increasingly, however, those canards coexist with right-wing actors — above all those in power — increasingly labeling Jews as perpetual victims who must be protected, even as these same actors invoke well-worn antisemitic tropes elsewhere. By and large, these charges of antisemitism — especially as they relate to Israel — are made in order to gain political currency, even if the controversy at hand has no bearing on actual threats to Jews. Using the antisemitism label so vaguely and liberally not only stunts free speech, but also makes actual threats to Jewish people harder to identify and combat. This weaponizing of antisemitism is not only 'cancelling' Palestinian rights advocates and failing to make Jews any safer; it's also using Jews to cancel others.
    • Abraham 2014, p. 171: "As rhetoricians, we should be concerned by this possible misuse of history in these debates; indeed, the charge of anti-Semitism, if it is to be taken seriously, must be leveled with precision and not as a scatter-shot propaganda device for scoring cheap political points. In this discursive environment, every statement introduced into the debate contains a hidden motive, or at least a hidden rhetorical or historical resonance whereby nothing can be interpreted as being offered in good faith: 'You claim that the Rachel Corrie Courage in the Teaching of Writing Award is about X (rewarding courage, risk-taking, innovation, etc.) but it is really about Y (anti-Israelism, pro-Palestinian politics, and anti-Semitism).' It is this displacement of a particular conception of anti-Semitism, a conception that had a particular meaning and resonance at a particular point in history, which tends to confuse participants in contemporary debates about the Middle East. As rhetoricians, we should be much more vigilant about the prospects of importing this flawed conception of anti-Semitism into the field of rhetorical studies, particularly when doing so has the potential to hurt possibilities for dialogue and understanding."
  2. ^ Examples of criticism as smear tactics:
    • White 2020: "Delegitimizing Solidarity: Israel Smears Palestine Advocacy as Anti-Semitic"
    • Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 9–11: "THE LOBBY'S MODUS OPERANDI... Yet because [former U.S. President Jimmy Carter] suggests that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a "Jew-hater," some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis."
    • Amor 2022: "...if the UN were to endorse the IHRA WDA, the harm would be exponentially greater... human rights defenders and organizations challenging Israel's violations would be fully exposed to smear campaigns based on bad-faith allegations of antisemitism"
    • Steinberg 2023: "Smearing one's opponents is rarely a tactic employed by those confident that justice is on their side. If Israel's case requires branding its critics antisemites, it is already conceding defeat."
  3. ^ Examples of the term "antisemitism card":
    • Quigley 2021, p. 251-252: "A difficulty in attributing anti-Zionist views to anti-Semitism is that such views are held by Jews... Opposition to Israel is depicted as a product of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is 'weaponized' to silence criticism of Israel. 'Shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel,' wrote one analyst, and 'makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims.' If anti-Semitism is invoked too loosely, allegations of anti-Semitism may come to be regarded with a jaundiced eye. The term 'race card' has been applied to this phenomenon in a related context... The same risk is present with inappropriate charges of anti-Semitism. 'False charges of antisemitism,' warned Special Envoy Forman, 'can hinder the real fight against hate.' Amnesty International expressed concern that 'conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy is detrimental not only to ending serious crimes under international law, but also to efforts to address and end antisemitism.'"
    • Finkelstein 2008, pp. 15–16
    • Hirsh 2010
    • Bronfman, Roman (19 November 2003). "Fanning the Flames of Hatred". Haaretz. ...when the waves of hatred spread and appeared on all the media networks around the world and penetrated every home, the new-old answer surfaced: anti-Semitism. After all, anti-Semitism has always been the Jews' trump card because it is easy to quote some crazy figure from history and seek cover. This time, too, the anti-Semitism card has been pulled from the sleeve of explanations by the Israeli government and its most faithful spokespeople have been sent to wave it. But the time has come for the Israeli public to wake up from the fairy tale being told by its elected government.
    • Marcus 2010, pp. 68–69: "Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that overplaying the 'anti-Semitism card' must be avoided for several reasons. These are, generally speaking, a subset of the risks of playing 'the race card' that Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford catalogued in his important recent book of that name. First, it is dishonest (at least if it is done intentionally)... Second, it is shortsighted and dangerous in the way of the boy who cried wolf. It may be regretted if it is needed later, especially if others become wary of false or exaggerated claims. Third, it can be mean-spirited because it involves the use of charges that in some cases can have serious repercussions. In addition, there are two other dangers that Ford does not discuss. Even if true, an overplayed "anti-Semitism card" may distract socially concerned individuals and organizations from other pressing problems, including social injustices facing other groups. Finally, it may disrupt or retard outreach efforts to other groups, including Arab and Muslim groups, with whom partnership efforts may be jeopardized."
  4. ^ Such scholars include:
  5. ^ a b c Waxman, Schraub & Hosein 2022.
  6. ^ Hernon, I. (2020). Anti-Semitism and the Left. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-3981-0224-8. Retrieved 25 October 2024. The Jewish Socialists Group said that anti-Semitism accusations were being 'weaponised' in order to attack the Jeremy Corbyn–led Labour party
  7. ^ a b Sykes, Christopher (1965). Cross Roads to Israel. Mentor books. Collins. p. 247. This provoked Ben-Gurion, understandably exasperated by the publicity organized by British information services, to a violent counterattack in which he asserted that the court had acted under anti-Semitic influence. In keeping with the new spirit of absolute uncompromise, he opened a new phase in Zionist propaganda which lasted to the end of the mandate: henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic; to disapprove of Jewish territorial nationalism was to be a Nazi.
  8. ^ Chomsky 1983, p. 18
  9. ^ a b Chomsky 1983, p. 18: "The Perlmutters deride those who voice 'criticism of Israel while fantasizing countercharges of anti-Semitism,' but their comment is surely disingenuous. The tactic is standard. Christopher Sykes, in his excellent study of the pre-state period, traces the origins of this device ('a new phase in Zionist propaganda') to a 'violent counterattack' by David Ben-Gurion against a British court that had implicated Zionist leaders in arms-trafficking in 1943: 'henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic'. It is, however, primarily in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible."
  10. ^ Dencik, Lars. "13. Antisemitisms in the Twenty-First Century: Sweden and Denmark as Forerunners?" In Antisemitism in the North: History and State of Research edited by Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Heß, 233-268. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110634822-015. "Writing in 1973 in the publication of the American Jewish Congress, Congress Bi-Weekly, the Foreign Minister of Israel, Abba Eban [...]"
  11. ^ Quoted by Menachem Wecker, "In Defense of Self-Hating Jews", May 2007, Jewish Currents, online at [1] Archived 2017-03-12 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ^ See the following:
    • Stonebridge 2017: "For Thompson, there was a clear moral and political continuity between her support of Jewish refugees in the late 1930s and her advocacy for the Palestinians in the early 1950s. Others disagreed. Amid accusations of anti-Semitism, she lost friends, work, and political influence. Today, many see the silencing of a bold humanitarian advocate in her story, and it is not difficult to understand why." - "Her later anti-Zionism and pro-Arab stance, and the accusations of anti-Semitism that both attracted, have clouded the fact that her understanding of the politics of the refugee situation was remarkably consistent."
    • Robins 2022: "Furthermore—and of personal concern to Thompson—Zionists were working to police speech about Israel by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, which amounted to "making anti-Semites, by appointment, of everybody who either does not believe in Zionism or criticizes any phase of Zionist and Israeli policy." [Footnote (#113): Thompson, "America Demands," 218]"
    • American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson (1990), Peter Kurth. "Dorothy became so widely identified with the opposition to Israel in America that it was not unusual to hear her described as "a traitor" in the Jewish press. She was "a Goebbels-minded publicity agent," according to Rabbi Baruch Korff [...], "a mercenary, ill-motivated agent for the heirs of Nazism." A correspondent for the Jewish Advocate in Boston went so far as to call Dorothy a "Jezebel," "a haggard witch," a "Lady Macbeth." For her part, Dorothy believed that she had been made the victim of "a campaign of character assassination" unexampled in her thirty years of journalism." (pages 222-223) — "Her mail, which had once been filled with right-wing frothing about her "Jew-loving" tendencies, was now replete with accusations that she had turned traitor, that she was "anti-Semitic," that she had become, in the words of one hysterical reader, "the apostle of the Hitlerian technique," whose "filthy incitements to pogroms" would no longer be tolerated by New York's Jews. It was an organized campaign, and Dorothy knew it." (page 383)
    • Maguire, Gil (April 28, 2015) Obama's role model to journalists – Dorothy Thompson – turned against Zionism and was silenced US Politics". Mondoweiss. Quotations: "As Thompson began to increase her criticism of Zionist policies, she was shunned by the Jewish community and by many of her life-long Jewish friends [...]" - "Thompson’s editors warned her that in the American press a hostility toward Israel was 'almost a definition of professional suicide.' Nonetheless, she would not be intimidated and said, 'I refuse to become an anti-Semite by appointment', and refused 'to yield to this type of blackmail.' The campaign against her strengthened and she began to be dropped from other papers. Her once-lucrative speaking career began to dry up because of the organized campaign to label her as an anti-Semite, a label that stuck for the rest of her career."
  13. ^ See:
    • Robins 2022: "Because of Thompson’s previous renown as an advocate for Jews and Zionism, the question of what caused her shift took on outsized significance. [...] Scholars have likewise offered varying explanations, with most centered on Thompson’s first substantial exposure to the Arab perspective during a 1945 trip to Palestine. [Footnote (#8): Both of Thompson’s biographers emphasize the role of Thompson’s 1945 trip and the backlash against her criticism of Zionist actions in pushing her towards anti- Zionism.]"
    • Stonebridge 2017
  14. ^ Stonebridge 2017: "There can be no doubt that anti-Semitism was a theme in Thompson's later writing. Pathologizing Jewishness, in particular, became habitual for her in the 1950s. By May 25, 1950, she is writing to Maury M. Travis, darkly, of the 'tragic psychosis of the Jew'... In the Commentary piece she warns: 'We bring on what we fear. Any psychologist will tell you that a primary neurosis is the fear of rejection and that when that neurosis takes hold of a person he unconsciously strives to create the conditions for that rejection.' The reference is to Jewish 'neurosis,' but the passage also rather elegantly describes the logic of Thompson's own fears. In what well may be a case of knowing your addressee, Thompson wrote to Winston Churchill in 1951: 'I have become convinced that the Jews, phenomenally brilliant individually and especially in the realm of abstract thought, are collectively the stupidest people on earth. I think it must come from cultural inbreeding—perhaps physical inbreeding also—in a desire to retain a homogenous, in-group society in the midst of 'aliens."
  15. ^ Sir John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier With the Arabs (1956), p.7: "In the course of this narrative, I have voiced criticisms of the actions of various governments, notably those of Britain, the United States, France, the Arab countries and Israel... Criticism of the Israeli government does, however, require a particular explanation. A number of people, both Jews and Gentiles, are apt to refer to any criticism of Israeli policy as 'offensive anti-Semitism', an accusation implying a definite moral lapse. I wish to defend myself against such a charge. 'Anti-Semitism', I assume, is an emotion of hatred or dislike towards Jews as a whole, whether considered from the point of view of race or religion. I can state categorically and with all sincerity that I feel no such emotion. But it is of the essence of Western democracy to allow free criticism of the government, a right freely exercised against the governments of the U.S.A., Britain, France and other free countries. It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism."
  16. ^ a b Benny Morris (3 October 2003). The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. I.B.Tauris. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-86064-989-9. Over the decades there has been a tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism. Zionists routinely branded Glubb an 'anti semite', and he was keenly aware of this.
  17. ^ a b Rubenberg 1989, p. 358: "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as 'anti-Semitic' is a common practice among Israel's advocates. For example, when Senator Charles Mathias [R., Maryland] voted in favor of the AWACs sale to Saudi Arabia, a Jewish newspaper in New York commented: 'Mr. Mathias values the importance of oil over the well-being of Jews and the State of Israel. The Jewish people cannot be fooled by such a person, no matter what he said, because his act proved who he was.' Former Congressman Paul 'Pete' McCloskey [R., California] also has had the charge of anti-Semitism leveled at him: 'When I ran for reelection in 1980, I was asked a question about peace in the Middle East, and I said if we were going to have peace in the Middle East we members of Congress were going to have to stand up to our Jewish constituents and respectfully disagree with them on Israel. Well, the next day the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith accused me of fomenting anti-Semitism, saying that my remarks were patently anti-Semitic.' Indeed, it may be that the weapon of greatest power possessed by the pro-Israeli lobby is its accusation of anti-Semitism. George Ball comments: 'They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out.' In Ball's view, many Americans feel a 'sense of guilt' over the Holocaust, and the result of their guilt is that the fear of being called anti-Semitic is 'much more effective in silencing candidates and public officials than threats about campaign money or votes.'"
  18. ^ Ball & Ball 1992, pp. 217–218: "Efforts to Suppress Independent Opinion... AIPAC and other groups have assiduously claimed that opposition to Israeli policy equals anti-Zionism, and anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Viewed objectively, it seems astonishing that Jewish organizations and Israeli spokesmen should employ the charge of 'anti-Semitism' so carelessly as to trivialize it. 'Anti-Semitism' is a term freighted with a long and ugly history. It conjures up images of vicious civic discrimination, the religious persecutions of the Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the ultimate horror of the Holocaust. Any Jewish American who equates that term with critical comments on transient Israeli policy implicitly acknowledges that he cannot defend Israel's practices by rational argument. Is it anti-Semitic, for example, to point out repeated Israeli violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions? Or to suggest, as the State Department did from 1979 to 1981, that the implanting of settlements in the Occupied Areas was illegal? The overuse of the term 'anti-Semitism' gives the practitioners of real anti-Semitism a quasi-respectability, just as Joseph McCarthy devalued the term 'Communist' by recklessly applying it to anyone whose views deviated from his own. In addition, the haphazard use of this odious term is clearly intended to stifle criticism of American policies in the Middle East."
  19. ^ White 2020, p. 67: "Israeli officials, as well as Israel advocacy organizations internationally, have a long history of charging Palestinians and their allies, as well as Israel's critics and human-rights campaigners, with anti-Semitism. Prominent individuals are not exempted."
  20. ^ Abraham 2014, p. 179: "If to state that 'Israel is in violation of international law' is beyond the pale, reflecting that one harbors anti-Semitic animus, then it is completely understandable why public figures such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu are so often accused of engaging in anti-Israel rhetoric. This tendency to condemn criticism and critics of Israeli policy as anti-Semites enforces a type of political correctness at the cost of refusing to promote greater understanding about the conditions producing conflict in the Israel-Palestine conflict."
  21. ^ Dadoo, Suraya (30 December 2021). "Desmond Tutu's inconvenient pro-Palestine legacy". The New Arab. Retrieved 31 October 2024. Almost as enduring as Tutu's support of the Palestinian liberation struggle has been smear campaigns against him, accusing the Archbishop of anti-Semitism. Tutu took on the pro-Israel lobby and the weaponisation of anti-Semitism head-on. Tutu wrote plainly: '...the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic. People are scared in the US to say 'wrong is wrong' because the pro-Israeli lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what?...' In doing so, Tutu angered the pro-Israel lobby in the US and in South Africa. In 2009, Alan Dershowitz referred to Tutu as 'a bigot and a racist' ... .
  22. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 190–191: "Supporters of Israel have a history of using fears of a 'new anti-Semitism' to shield Israel from criticism."
  23. ^ Muzher, Sherri (27 October 2005). "Beyond Chutzpah: An Interview with Professor Norman Finkelstein". Campus Watch. Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.'
  24. ^ Chomsky 2002, p. 1.
  25. ^ Chomsky 2002: "With regard to anti-Semitism, the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called 'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel. So there's no difference between criticism of policies of the State of Israel and anti-Semitism, because if he can establish 'that' then he can undercut all criticism by invoking the Nazis and that will silence people. We should bear it in mind when there's talk in the US about anti-Semitism."
  26. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 191b
  27. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 191-192: "Third, this tactic works because it is difficult for anyone to prove beyond all doubt that he or she is not anti-Semitic, especially when criticizing Israel or the lobby"
  28. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 196a.
  29. ^ Marcus 2010, p. 73: "Indeed, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer recently called anti-Semitism allegations the 'Great Silencer'."
  30. ^ a b Selent, Maximilian; Kortmann, Matthias (2 January 2025). "Philo-Semitic Civilisationism or Anti-Semitic Nationalism? The Ambivalent Stance of the Alternative for Germany Towards Judaism, Jews, and Israel". German Politics. 34 (1): 25–51. doi:10.1080/09644008.2023.2212599. ISSN 0964-4008.
  31. ^ a b c d Botsch, Gideon (10 January 2021). "Rechtsextremismus und "neuer Antisemitismus"". www.idz-jena.de (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  32. ^ a b Schirch, Lisa. "Winning Coexistence: Six New Nonviolent Tactics for Palestine and Israel". Toda Peace Institute. Retrieved 23 February 2025.
  33. ^ Abraham 2014, p. 51: "The usual charge that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism is no longer as effective a weapon in distracting the public from the relevant criticisms of Israel's behavior."
  34. ^ Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, p. 196: "The obvious reason is that increasing numbers of people recognize that this serious charge keeps getting leveled at individuals who are not anti-Semites but who are merely questioning Israeli policies or pointing out that the lobby promotes policies that are not always in the U.S. national interest."
  35. ^ See:
  36. ^ a b c Achenbach, Alina; Hordijk, Ruben; Kawaumi, Masawa; Rood, Masab; Tatar, Alexandra (2 July 2024). "Witnessing the Architecture of a Cancellation: The Silencing of Voices on Palestine in Austrian Academia". Middle East Critique. 33 (3): 377–395. doi:10.1080/19436149.2024.2348942. ISSN 1943-6149. In Austria, false accusations of antisemitism leading to the cancellation of speakers associated with Palestine unfortunately have a long history. [...] Austria's efforts to battle the now as ever rampant antisemitism in the country similarly puts a skewed focus on so-called Israel-based antisemitism through what has been coined 'imported antisemitism' in the Germanophone context—meaning antisemitism within migrant (especially Arab and/or Muslim) communities, movements, and organizations. Increasingly, in German-speaking academic circles, this notion of antisemitism is also employed to criticize post- and decolonial theory, targeting especially scholars from the Global South... The charge of antisemitism is here often instrumentalized also to counter critical engagement with settler colonialism, coloniality and racialization.
  37. ^ Marcus 2010, pp. 68–69: "Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that overplaying the 'anti-Semitism card' must be avoided for several reasons. These are, generally speaking, a subset of the risks of playing 'the race card' that Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford catalogued in his important recent book of that name. First, it is dishonest (at least if it is done intentionally)... Second, it is shortsighted and dangerous in the way of the boy who cried wolf. It may be regretted if it is needed later, especially if others become wary of false or exaggerated claims. Third, it can be mean-spirited because it involves the use of charges that in some cases can have serious repercussions. In addition, there are two other dangers that Ford does not discuss. Even if true, an overplayed "anti-Semitism card" may distract socially concerned individuals and organizations from other pressing problems, including social injustices facing other groups. Finally, it may disrupt or retard outreach efforts to other groups, including Arab and Muslim groups, with whom partnership efforts may be jeopardized."
  38. ^ Omer, Atalia (21 January 2021). "Weaponizing Antisemitism is Bad for Jews, Israel, and Peace". Contending Modernities. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  39. ^ Riemer 2022, p. 7: "Just as Islamophobia has been politically instrumentalized in the service of neocolonial control of Muslim populations, anti-Semitism currently provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties. This takes the form of the severe legal penalties increasingly leveled against expressions of Palestine solidarity on the grounds that they are instances of racism against Jews, or of witch-hunts against Palestine supporters on the grounds of their supposed anti-Semitism—the vendetta against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK Labour Party being the most flagrant example. Facebook even considers the term 'Zionist' as potentially anti-Semitic—particularly clear evidence of the rational and moral dead end in to which Zionists' efforts to defend their ethno-state inevitably lead. As we will explore in the last chapter of the book, overcomplication and excessive subtlety can easily sound the death knell of progressive politics. So it is important to assert the self-evidence and the lack of nuance with which two simple facts should be stated: anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, and objecting to Israel's anti-Palestinian policies, as many Jews do, is not anti-Semitic. It is not anti-Catholic or anti-Latino to criticize the policies of Costa Rica, where Catholicism is a state religion, just as it is not Islamophobic or anti-Shia to criticize Iran or anti-Buddhist or anti-Asian to criticize Cambodia. In just the same way, objecting to Israel's anti-Palestinianism is not anti-Jewish racism. What would be anti-Semitic would be to oppose Israeli policies and measures on principle, simply because they are decided on and enacted by Jews—the exact opposite of the stance adopted by BDS."
  40. ^ a b Pearce, Caroline (2008). Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi:10.1057/9780230591226. ISBN 978-1-349-35573-0.
  41. ^ "In the conservative or right-wing antisemitic comments, a compound word involving cudgel [-keule] is often used: “Nazi cudgel” [“Nazi Keule”], “N-cudgel” [“N-Keule”], “system cudgel” [“Systemkeule”]." -- Becker, M. J., Allington, D., Ascone, L., Bolton, M., Chapelan, A., Krasni, J., Placzynta, K., Scheiber, M., Troschke, H., & Vincent, C. (2021). Discourse Report 2: Decoding Antisemitism: An AI-driven Study on Hate Speech and Imagery Online. (Decoding Antisemitism: An AI-driven Study on Hate Speech and Imagery Online). Technical University of Berlin Centre for Research on Antisemitism. https://decoding-antisemitism.eu/ p.32
  42. ^ a b Arnold, S.; Blumenfeld, J. (2022). From Occupation to Occupy: Antisemitism and the Contemporary American Left. Studies in Antisemitism. Indiana University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-253-06314-4. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
  43. ^ a b "First-ever: 40+ Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel". JVP. 17 July 2018.
  44. ^ Finkelstein, Norman. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, University of California Press, 2005, pp. 21–22, 66–71.
  45. ^ Finkelstein 2008, pp. 21–22, 66
  46. ^ Beinin 2004, p. 112: "Summers may have thought that he was expressing himself in a reasoned way to an academic audience. But the conflation of criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism was an already well-established ploy. The endorsement of this notion by the president of the country's most prestigious institution of higher learning authorised others to go on the political offensive without fear that they would be criticised as boorish enemies of academic freedom... Among these were several high-profile incidents, most of them motivated by opposition to Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. Paradoxically, by failing to make a clear distinction between anti-Semitism, which should always and everywhere be opposed, and anti-Zionism, which is a legitimate political opinion, the ADL and like-minded organisations exposed American Jews to attack because they were identified with Israel."
  47. ^ Lerner, Rabbi Michael (7 February 2007). "Highest Jewish values sometimes conflict with Israeli policy". The Mercury News. The impact of the silencing of debate about Israeli policy on Jewish life has been devastating.
  48. ^ Thompson 2012, p. 12: "They called the charge of anti-Semitism 'the Great Silencer'."
  49. ^ Alexander, Jeffrey C.; Adams, Tracy (2023). "The return of antisemitism? Waves of societalization and what conditions them". American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 11 (2): 261. doi:10.1057/s41290-023-00184-7.
  50. ^ a b Finkelstein 2008, pp. 34: "The chief political and ideological advantage of playing the anti- Semitism card, however, was succinctly (if unwittingly) put by one of Israel's most vigorous apologists, Harvard professor Ruth Wisse. 'In the case of the so-called Arab-Israel conflict,' she explained, 'to permit the concept of anti-Semitism into the discussion is to acknowledge that the origins of Arab opposition to the Jewish state are to be located in the political culture of the Arabs themselves, and that such opposition can end only if and when that political culture changes.' It displaces fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab 'opposition' to Jews, and fundamental responsibility for resolving it from Israel ending its occupation to the Arab world ending its irrational hostility toward Jews. Although Israel's apologists claim to allow for criticism of the occasional Israeli 'excess' (what is termed 'legitimate criticism'), the upshot of this allowance is to delegitimize the preponderance of criticism as anti-Semitic—just as Communist parties used to allow for criticism of the occasional Stalinist 'excess,' while denouncing principled criticism as 'anti-Soviet' and therefore beyond the pale."
  51. ^ Johnson, Alan (6 October 2023). "Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism". Routledge. pp. 92–99. doi:10.4324/9781003322320-13. Retrieved 5 March 2025.
  52. ^ Finkelstein 2008, pp. 16: "This shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel, makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims, and puts the onus on the Arab world to rid itself of anti-Semitism rather than on Israel to rid itself of the Occupied Territories. A close analysis of what the Israel lobby tallies as anti-Semitism reveals three components: exaggeration and fabrication; mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy; and the unjustified yet predictable 'spillover' from criticism of Israel to Jews generally..."
  53. ^ Segal 2024a: "Collapsing this distinction [between Israel and Jews] became a central element in the Israeli-led weaponization of the discourse about antisemitism starting in the 1990s. This political and diplomatic effort shifted the focus of the struggle against antisemitism from protecting Jews around the world, a people who historically faced discriminatory and violent states, to protecting Israel from criticism of its policies and violence against Palestinians. This weaponization contributed to the disavowal of Israeli settler colonialism by tagging as antisemites those who focused on the settler-colonial character of Israel at a time (the 1990s) when settler colonialism increasingly became a key framework in research and discussions about Israel. This also very effectively blurred settler antisemitism in the Israeli case, and institutes of global Holocaust memory strengthened the weaponization. This effort culminated in 2016 in the 'working definition of antisemitism' of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which defined any discussion of racism in Israel as antisemitic, thereby placing Israeli settler colonialism beyond accepted discourse without even mentioning it.
  54. ^ Leifer, Joshua (26 August 2019). "Israel's one-state reality is sowing chaos in American politics". +972 Magazine. Today, the Israeli hasbara apparatus's most active front is the attempted redefinition of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, with the goal of rendering any opposition to the occupation, Zionism—or even simply Israeli policies themselves—beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability.
  55. ^ Altozano, Manuel (4 December 2023). "How to criticize Israel without being antisemitic". El País.
  56. ^ Kasrils, Ronnie (17 December 2020), Against the Witch Hunt: On the Instrumentalization of Antisemitism in Britain's Labor Party
  57. ^ Ganz, Marshall (February 2024). "Calling for Respect, Freedom, and Security for All Is Not Antisemitic". The Nation. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  58. ^ For further details:
  59. ^ See:
  60. ^ See:
  61. ^ "EU needs to acknowledge the reality of Israeli apartheid". Amnesty International. 20 March 2023. 12 Israeli human rights organizations have since expressed "grave concern" about attempts to associate Amnesty's report with antisemitism, and they have rejected the Commission's failure to recognize Israel's apartheid. These organizations argue that weaponizing antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism actually undermines attempts to address rising antisemitism.
  62. ^ Ken Roth. "This weaponizing of the charge of "antisemitism" to try to stop such perfectly legitimate and accurate criticism of Israel's apartheid in the Palestinian occupied territory is cheapening, and hence harming, the important fight against antisemitism". x.com.
  63. ^ See:
    • Abraham 2014, pp. 67–68: "With increased attention being brought to Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights in the European press since the beginning of the Second Intifada in September of 2000, US supporters of Israel sought to blame the poor reputation Israel was developing in the international community on the rise of a New Anti-Semitism. As this line of thinking went, Israel had been targeted for criticism not because of what it does to the Palestinians in violation of international law, but because of a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism that has roots in age-old hatreds of the past. Israel's critics, then, were hiding their thinly veiled animus toward the Jewish state behind anti-Zionist arguments and were not motivated by humanitarian they purported to be. To draw this equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Israel's supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti- Zionist Jews who reject Israel's attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as 'self-hating Jews,' which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement."
    • Plitnick & Aziz 2023, p. 47
    • Finkelstein 2008, p. 37
  64. ^ a b Segal, Raz (2022). "Israeli Apartheid and Its Apologists". Contending Modernities (published 31 March 2022).
  65. ^ Plitnick & Aziz 2023, p. 47
  66. ^ See:
  67. ^ Attanasio, Cedar; Offenhartz, Jake; Mattise, Jonathan (1 May 2024). "Columbia University threatens to expel student protesters occupying an administration building". Associated Press. Retrieved 30 April 2024. Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
  68. ^ Segal 2024b, Steinberg 2023
  69. ^ Segal 2024b
  70. ^ Steinberg 2023
  71. ^ See:
  72. ^ Tamkin, Emily (26 January 2024). "I Regret to Report There's a New Antisemitism Controversy at Harvard". Slate.
  73. ^ Deeb, Lara; Winegar, Jessica (2 July 2024). "Resistance to Repression and Back Again: The Movement for Palestinian Liberation in US Academia". Middle East Critique. 33 (3): 313–334. doi:10.1080/19436149.2024.2375669. ISSN 1943-6149. Over three thousand student protestors and dozens of faculty members have been arrested and/or disciplined. Students, faculty, and staff have faced brutal doxing, slander, and libel, sometimes leading to rescinded job offers, firing, or suspension. In a governmental attack on academia not seen since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, the US House of Representatives has held multiple hearings accusing college presidents of fomenting anti-Semitism because they allow criticism of Israel on campus. Thus far, these have had unprecedented consequences in the resignations of two Ivy League leaders. These attacks are part of a coordinated effort in the US to silence pro-Palestinian speech, abolish anti-racist teaching and diversity initiatives, eliminate academic freedom, and question the value of higher education in general.
  74. ^ Marcus, Kenneth L. (2015). The definition of anti-Semitism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-937564-6.
  75. ^ Hirsh 2013
  76. ^ See:
  77. ^ Harrison, Bernard (1 December 2022). "In Defense of the IHRA Definition (Despite Its Defects as a Definition)". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. 5 (2). Academic Studies Press: 43–66. doi:10.26613/jca.5.2.115. ISSN 2472-9906. The IHRA definition of antisemitism has been widely criticized on the alleged ground that it restricts freedom of speech by stigmatizing, as antisemitic, views that critics assert to fall well within the bounds of legitimate political controversy. In several recent papers, my legal colleague Lesley Klaff and I have argued that these criticisms are without foundation.
  78. ^ See:
  79. ^ Brown, Nathan J.; Nerenberg, Daniel (13 June 2023). "'Anti-antisemitism' was meant to unite American Jews. Why is it backfiring?". +972 magazine. What started as an honest attempt to tackle growing antisemitism quickly became weaponized by definitional warriors, among them the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Brandeis Center, all of whom have lobbied institutions and governments to adopt it
  80. ^ Segal 2024b
  81. ^ Hafetz, Jonathan; Aziz, Sahar (27 December 2023). "How a Leading Definition of Antisemitism Has Been Weaponized Against Israel's Critics". The Nation.
  82. ^ Gold, Tanya (October 2018). "Among Britain's Anti-Semites". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on 12 January 2025. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
  83. ^ Klaff, Lesley (2021), "The intersection of antisemitism and misogyny", Misogyny as Hate Crime, Routledge, pp. 155–177, doi:10.4324/9781003023722-8, ISBN 978-1-003-02372-2, retrieved 10 May 2024
  84. ^ Lerman 2022, p. 3.
  85. ^ Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party, p.35: "The Labour Party told us that it now seeks to comply with the Macpherson principle, that all complaints about incidents of racism should be recorded and investigated as such, when they are perceived by the complainant or someone else as acts of racism."
  86. ^ Hirsh 2020, Hirsh 2024
  87. ^ Hirsh 2020
  88. ^ "Antisemitism and the Labour Party" (PDF). Antisemitism Policy Trust. 2020. A number of high-profile Labour figures have made unhelpful, disparaging or dangerous comments in relation to accusations of antisemitism. Anti-Jewish hatred has been dismissed as a 'smear' or as being 'weaponised' by its victims for political ends. Talk of Jewish and/or right-wing media plotting is dangerous and contrary to the British model for addressing hate crime, namely, the Macpherson principle. This translates to treating perceived victims with sensitivity, recording the crimes they report as 'racist' if perceived as such, and investigating claims with due diligence. The Chakrabarti report, detailed below, is explicit: 'any seasoned activist who says that they are completely unaware of any such [antisemitic] discourse must be wholly insensitive or completely in denial'. Nonetheless, these claims are manifold and have continued.
  89. ^ "Forde Inquiry Report". Forde Inquiry. 19 July 2022. Archived from the original on 19 July 2022.
  90. ^ Zeffman, Henry (20 July 2022). "Antisemitism 'used as weapon' by Jeremy Corbyn's friends and foes". The Times. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
  91. ^ "Anti-Semitism used as factional weapon within Labour, says report". BBC News. 19 July 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2025. Thus, rather than confront the paramount need to deal with the profoundly serious issue of anti-Semitism in the party, both factions treated it as a factional weapon.
  92. ^ Stone, Jon (19 July 2022). "Anti-Corbyn Labour officials covertly diverted election cash to allies, inquiry finds". The Independent. Retrieved 19 July 2022. One example [of the factionalism] given by the report is that staff were 'diverted' to take part in 'validation exercises' ahead of the 2015 and 2016 leadership elections which 'cemented a lack of trust between LOTO and HQ which further hampered the party's ability to deal with antisemitism complaints effectively'.
    The report says both supporters and internal opponents of Mr Corbyn could be accused of 'weaponising the issue and failing to recognise the seriousness of antisemitism'.
  93. ^ "Netanyahu: ICC arrest warrants would be antisemitic hate crime, distortion of justice". The Times of Israel.
  94. ^ Neier, Aryeh (6 June 2024). "Is Israel Committing Genocide?". The New York Review of Books. 71 (10).
  95. ^ "What ICC arrest warrants mean for Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas". BBC News. 21 May 2024.
  96. ^ Roth, Kenneth (21 May 2024). "Why is the west defending Israel after the ICC's request for Netanyahu's arrest warrant?". The Guardian.
  97. ^ McKernan, Bethan (26 January 2024). "Israeli officials accuse international court of justice of antisemitic bias". The Guardian.
  98. ^ Lerman, Antonthy (14 February 2024). "Weaponising antisemitism: the gift that keeps on giving". Declassified UK.
  99. ^ a b Levi-Strauss, Robert. "Book Review │The Definition of Anti-Semitism". Fathom. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  100. ^ Schraub 2016
  101. ^ a b Becker, Matthias J. (2024), Becker, Matthias J.; Troschke, Hagen; Bolton, Matthew; Chapelan, Alexis (eds.), "Instrumentalisation of Antisemitism and the Holocaust", Decoding Antisemitism: A Guide to Identifying Antisemitism Online, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 273–288, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-49238-9_20, ISBN 978-3-031-49238-9, retrieved 24 February 2025
  102. ^ a b Rensmann, Lars (8 November 2021). "The Politics and Ethics of Anti-Antisemitism: Lessons from the Frankfurt School". Confronting Antisemitism from Perspectives of Philosophy and Social Sciences. De Gruyter. pp. 305–324. doi:10.1515/9783110671971-015. ISBN 978-3-11-067197-1. Today, more often than not, those who address the problem [of antisemitism] are targeted by portraying them as allegedly swinging 'the antisemitism bat' against innocuous 'Israel critics' or 'upset Muslim youth' in bad faith.
  103. ^ Waltzer, Kenneth (2021). "Contending with Antisemitism in Its Many Forms on American Campuses". Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate. Indiana University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv21hrhpz. ISBN 978-0-253-05811-9. JSTOR j.ctv21hrhpzHolocaust historian Kenneth Waltzer says such claims of "bad faith" are themselves antisemitic.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  104. ^ Goldfeder, Mark (2023). "Codifying Antisemitism". Penn State Law Review. 127 (2). Instead of believing or acknowledging the experiences of Jewish people who have been targeted and subject to abuse, and dispensing with any notion of good faith, the antisemitic rejectionists instead blame and smear the victims themselves, accusing the Jews/Zionists of once again organizing their secret cabal to act maliciously and manipulate others into doing their bidding and silencing others.
  105. ^ Schraub 2016
  106. ^ a b Hyman, John; Julius, Anthony (May 2021). "'Calling a truce with left-wing antisemitism': The Case Against the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism". Fathom. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
  107. ^ a b Arnold, Sina; Taylor, Blair (2019). "Antisemitism and the Left: Confronting an Invisible Racism" (PDF). Journal of Social Justice. 9. Fully explaining the reasons for these positions towards antisemitism within the United States left is beyond the scope of this article, so we can only briefly touch upon them here. However, it is important to stress that, in our analysis, these political patterns do not stem from conscious and open antisemitism. We are not saying these dynamics are motivated by antisemitic hatred, but are rather the result of unexamined assumptions, myopic political analysis, and, importantly, a genuine but inconsistent concern for the suffering of others. Nevertheless, the result is that the left has set an inordinately high bar for what constitutes antisemitism, in effect defining it out of existence – at least on the left. [...] As previously noted, we do not believe this is the result of antisemitic intent but rather unexamined assumptions, faulty political analysis, and social pressure to conform to left conventional wisdom. Nonetheless, the various political blind spots, peculiar bedfellows, and double standards we have addressed stand out by the uncommon prominence, tolerance, and emotional weight the left assigns them.
  108. ^ Rensmann 2019, pp. 343–371: "Judith Butler and some (post-)Marxist fellow travelers do not recognize current antisemitism... but only detect 'the charge of antisemitism' with its allegedly 'chilling effects' on debates, as they charge those who raise it with bad faith and argue that they ought to be combatted politically."
  109. ^ Tabarovsky, Izabella (1 March 2022). "Demonization Blueprints: Soviet Conspiracist Antizionism in Contemporary Left-Wing Discourse". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. 5 (1): 1–20. doi:10.26613/jca/5.1.97. ISSN 2472-9906.
    Tabarovsky, Izabella (May 2019). "Soviet Anti-Zionism and Contemporary Left Antisemitism". Fathom. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
  110. ^ See:
  111. ^ a b Sugarman, Daniel. "We must call out anti-semitism when it's on our own side—not just when it's politically expedient". www.prospectmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
  112. ^ See also:
  113. ^ Hirsh 2021
  114. ^ Hirsh 2018
  115. ^ Hirsh 2021
  116. ^ Sicher, Efraim; Weinhouse, Linda (2012). Under Postcolonial Eyes: Figuring the "jew" in Contemporary British Writing. University of Nebraska Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1d9nqv4. ISBN 978-0-8032-4503-7. JSTOR j.ctt1d9nqv4.
  117. ^ See also:
  118. ^ Bonefeld, Werner (2014). "Antisemitism and the Power of Abstraction: From Political Economy to Critical Theory". Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology. University of Nebraska Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1d9nnbd.16. ISBN 978-0-8032-4864-9. JSTOR j.ctt1d9nnbd.
  119. ^ Schraub, David (December 2023). "No one believes that any criticism of Israel is invariably antisemitic. The American Association of University Professors has set up a straw target to avoid admitting that some discourse about Israel is". Fathom. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  120. ^ a b Spitz, Derek (1 December 2021). "In the House of the Hangman One should not Mention the Noose: Jewish Voice for Labour's Attack on the Equality and Human Rights Commission". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. 4 (2): 47–92. doi:10.26613/jca.4.2.85. ISSN 2472-9906.
  121. ^ Spencer, Philip; Fine, Robert (2018). Antisemitism and the left: On the return of the Jewish question. Manchester University Press. hdl:20.500.12657/29966. ISBN 978-1-5261-0496-0.
  122. ^ Harrison, Bernard (6 October 2020). Blaming the Jews: Politics and Delusion. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-05249-0.

Bibliography

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