Weaponising antisemitism needs to stop
JVL Introduction
Tony Lerman looks at the ongoing weaponisation of antisemitism to describe criticism of Israel and Israel’s destruction of Gaza, which we are encouraged to see as a response to the 7th October attacks by Hamas, a narrative that ignores decades of oppression. The allegations of antisemitism started even as the attacks were taking place and later went into overdrive in relation to the initial South African submission to and subsequent call for interim measures by the International Court of Justice.
As Lerman puts it “.. reaction to the ICJ decision came as no surprise. After all, this is a gift that keeps on giving—using past experience of anti-Jewish persecution to neutralise criticism of, and generate sympathy for, the Jewish state—and is decades old.”
The latest “antisemitism crisis” in the Labour Party shows that this weaponisation still has legs. However, as Lerman writes that there is nothing more Jewish than anti-zionism.
LL
This article was originally published by Declassified UK on Wed 14 Feb 2024. Read the original here.
Weaponising Antisemitism: the Gift that keeps on giving
Apologists for Israel’s brutality against Palestinians in Gaza are continuing to use the past persecution of Jews to neutralise criticism of Israel.
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COMPARISON SITE
Fucking Grenada, southernmost of the Windwards Islands
Fucking Granada, the Andalusian city overlooked
By the Moorish palace, Alhambra
Fucking Guernica, not just the town in the Basque province
But the painting by Picasso
When the bombing started
Dogs ran toward their owners
Cats, in the opposite direction
Fucking Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Gujarati
The language spoken in Western India
Fucking India
Fucking Israel
Fucking igloos used by Inuits
Only one of these will get you suspended
From Starmer’s fucking Labour
The execrable Justin Webb on R4 Today was refusing to accept from an official Labour spokesman that criticism of Israel was not antisemitism
Good to read that there IS a difference in Judaism & the Zionist philosophy because Judaism is not Zionism & sadly these hateful, death wishes by Zionists of all Palestinians does nothing to help the Jewish
sector as many still remember what their parents & grandparents went through with the same occupations same imprisonment same torture, beatings starvations etc exactly the same hatred of Palestinians that is being done again but by Zionists who abuse the Holocaust by doing exactly the same thing but using Judaism as the excuse!!!!
Thankfully many people know the difference between Jews & Zionists & know that banding the word antisemitism falsely is actually causing antisemitism!!
Three points: antisemitism is a C19th invention produced by anti-Jewish advocates: there have been many holocausts, most ignored in colonialist states, notably that in the Congo:
watching ‘Concerning Violence’ (2014), based on the writings of Franz Fanon, will help clarify the actions of Hamas.
Well said, Tony.
And…….I see this conflation of ant-Zionism with anti-Semitism as driving the current wave of genuine anti-Semitism in the UK. If all Jews are pro Israel, then we become a target and anyone wearing a kipah is responsible for actions by Israel.
Excellent article. Resonates exactly with the ongoing terible situation in Palestine/Gaza
What can we do to change this rhetoric?
Yes Mike Kennard I shouted at the radio both yesterday and this morning. Webb is the most reactionary of all the Today presenters.
We are going through Groundhog Day — when will this ever end?
Newsnight, Today programme and Guardian yet again trotting out diehard Israel-defenders Ellman, Hodge and Freedland. I’m beyond rage and despair. The three young women convicted of terrorism for carrying paraglider decals on their rucksacks, meanwhile the far right walking into UK armed forces as Shapps complains in coded terms about Muslim recruits instead…
It did feel for a moment that the mass murder of Gazans might at last have made an opening for the truths we in JVL and JFP have been saying about Israel to be heard at last. Any progress seems to have been halted now.
BTW, were my comments on David Miller moderated/censored when I expressed opposition to the JVL/JSG statment that he had ‘crossed a line’ into antisemitism? From observation I don’t think his comments on the mainstream Jewish community were inaccurate. We have to face the fact that within in our lifetimes both women and minorities have been offered inducements to side with the powerful, and some have taken those opportunities.
I opposed Miller’s support for Iran and Syria regimes, still do. But I’m hoping JVL (and PSC) will not make the same mistakes again next time there is a show trial. Being timid has not helped us.
It’s wrong and it needs to be called out but it has become the standard riposte to any expression of support of the Palestinians. We have to accept that this is not going to change until Israel rejects the racist element of Zionism and moves towards a true inclusive democracy. And this won’t happen until the western powers stop supporting it.
It is beyond distressing that we are now contemplating a scenario in which our own country, together with Europe and the US, goes to war in defence of a state which is committing crimes against humanity, including land-theft and genocide. A war, moreover, in which nuclear weapons are bound to be used.
By coincidence, I sent this letter off to the Northern Echo yesterday, before I saw this post, in response to letter-writers who have accused others of antisemitism:
Several Echo correspondents have wrongly interpreted criticism of Israel as antisemitism. This is sad, but entirely predictable.
In his book, “Whatever Happened to Antisemitism?” Antony Lerman chronicles how, since the 1970s, pro-Israel lobby groups, backed by the Israeli government, have worked persistently to re-define antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. As he explains:
“By falsely conflating anti-Zionism – a form of legitimate political discourse and belief – and antisemitism – a form of ethnoracial hostility and hatred – and calling it ‘new antisemitism,’ and codifying it in the form of the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] ‘working definition’ of antisemitism, antisemitism has been redefined to be what it is not.”
The consequence, he argues, is that “The Palestinians’ public political struggle for justice, equal rights, an end to occupation… is simultaneously demonised, ignored, delegitimised and falls victim to double standards.”
Thus the Israeli government tries to silence or discredit its critics by falsely accusing them of antisemitism.
Lerman speaks with some authority. He is Jewish, and the founder and former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
This redefinition of antisemitism also underpinned the political assassination of Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Corbyn is no antisemite, and, contrary to popular myth, there is no evidence whatsoever of any increase in antisemitic attitudes among Labour supporters while he was leader. It would be wrong to deny that there is antisemitism within Labour, but it is no more widespread in the Labour party than in any other party, or in society at large.
Corbyn’s “crime” was being a long-time campaigner for justice and equal rights for Palestinians.
Pete Winstanley
Everything I want to say on the use of the term antisemitism has already been said. I’ll add this Twitter post I’ve been Tweeting.
At the end of WW2, if someone had said, at some time in the future a group of Jews will create their own Holocaust, you’d have told them to see a Psychiatrist.
Yet a group of Zionists have done just that.
So far I’ve not been accused of being an anti Semite.
A couple of days ago I happened to come across this Jerusalem Post opinion piece from February 13th entitled ‘Defund, dismantle, and do over the UN’, in which it says the following:
Further intelligence indicates that 10% of UNRWA staff and a shocking 23% of male employees are affiliated with the terrorist organizations Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). There is copious evidence that their offices were used to conceal and hold weapons and tunnel entrances….. and that the UNRWA schools in Gaza taught children to pursue violence and the annihilation of Israel.
Seventy-five percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza are teachers. On their Telegram group chat, these educators were celebrating the October 7 massacre in real time, encouraging the murder of hostages, and cheering the killers and rapists as heroes.
The ‘October 7 massacre’ words are highlighted and link to another article about Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian terrirtories, which has absolutely nothing to do with the teachers ‘celebrating’, which it gives every iimpression that it does – ie that the article linked to is proof that they DID celebrate.
I’ve come across the Sun doing precisely the same on a number of occasions over the years, and they do so knowing that the vast majority of readers won’t bother clicking on the link.
As for the teachers Telegram chat group, you would have thought the JP would include a few examples. Hmm……
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-786526?dicbo=v2-BwglsQT