Anatomy of a moral panic

JVL Introduction

Time Magazine carried an article in February on “The New Antisemitism” and its supposed new source: the pro-Palestine left. Such articles have appeared since at least 1974, when Arabs and Blacks were the source of a “new antisemitism”.

In this thought-provoking article Adam Haber and Matylda Figlerowicz show how consistent this ever “newness” of the new antisemitism and its ever-new source—leftist social movements––has been.

It is, in short, a “moral panic”, and maps neatly onto the pattern of other moral panics, carefully analysed by the criminologist Stanley Cohen in the 1960s with his study of mods and rockers and the threat of social breakdown they purportedly represented.

It is essentially a weapon of repression in a vindictive political battle for control of the narrative and more. Drawing on Stuart Hall et al’s Policing the Crisis, about the moral panic of the Thatcherite turn, the authors show how “facts” are created to support a mounting campaign of panic to get the group that is being demonised policed and contained – a law-and-order solution to a political problem.

“By demonizing a subversive racialized minority, moral panics offer comfort to a mainstream morality in crisis. Anyone who pays even minimal attention to the utter horror of Israel’s attack on Gaza, and keeps on supporting the state of Israel has good reason to worry about their complicity. Thus, it can be reassuring to hear that those who claim we need radical change are not only wrong, but also immoral, and that we need to stick to the established structures.”

In the current case, argue the authors, the moral panic is a reaction to the real crisis of Zionism and of the imperialist project that has supported it.

RK

This article was originally published by Jewish Currents on Thu 2 May 2024. Read the original here.