The growing US panic about antisemitism isn’t a reflection of reality
JVL Introduction
Jay Michaelson describes how in the US humane reaction to Israel’s assault on Gaza is being mischaracterised as antisemitism to blunt its effect, a situation we are all to familiar with in Britain. Such a moral panic strengthens right-wing forces and diverts attention from the real threats from the antisemitic right.
Michaelson rebukes those who elide anti-Zionism with antisemitism and who claim that support for Palestinian rights derives from “the resurgence of an ancient, timeless hatred, rather than the obvious proximate cause: a brutal war, which is producing images of unthinkable horror to be streamed daily on social media.”
He distinguishes between often real feelings of being scared and actually being the object of an antisemitic attack, we do not have the right not to be upset.
None of this suggests there are not antisemitic incidents but collapsing all criticism of Israeli policy into antisemitism makes tackling antisemitism more, not less, difficult.
MC
This article was originally published by Forward on Fri 5 Apr 2024. Read the original here.
The growing panic about antisemitism isn’t a reflection of reality
Yes, antisemitism is up — but prominent voices are confusing protest with bigotry
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There is another aspect which is wider than the discourse around the war on Gaza. The USA is a settler colonial society as is in a different way is my home state of Britain. The economic war on Cuba, Iran and Venezuela is an expression of such values. The way that little attention is given to the war in Sudan or that against Kashmir another. And the US still has people locked up in the part of Cuba that it occupies in defiance of the laws to which it is signed up.