On the advantages of Antisemitism
On the advantages of Antisemitism
By Raz Segal and Amos Goldberg
The decision taken by the British Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, to reject some of the examples that accompany the definition of "antisemitism" as articulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has provoked controversy. The IHRA is the world's foremost international organisation dedicated to perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust, and the definition it formulated is the result of a discussion held in May 2016 in Bucharest, Romania.
The definition of a significant historical phenomenon is always very problematic. For this reason, historians and other scholars are still divided on the definition of the term "antisemitism." One of the most important historians of modern Jewry, Professor David Engel of New York University, even called, in a famous 2009 article, to stop using this concept, which obfuscates more than it clarifies. After all, what is common to offensive jokes about Jews, the smashing of tombstones by a neo-Nazi group in Europe, the legislation against Jews in the 1930s, the hate rhetoric of Muslim immigrants and the gas chambers in Auschwitz? These phenomena are so different from each other that their inclusion under one umbrella term is an intellectual error. However, the definition of antisemitism is not only a historical problem for scholars, but a political problem as well, whose damage outweighs its usefulness, as in the case of the definition issued by the IHRA.
The definition, adopted by many organisations and governments as a kind of code of ethics in the struggle against antisemitism is, unfortunately, an ahistoric definition that distances antisemitism from any other persecution and exclusion and refrains from addressing antisemitism, xenophobia, and racism prevalent primarily amongst the nationalist Right. On the other hand, and no less problematic, is that the definition serves as a central tool in the struggle against criticism of nationalist tendencies and violations of human rights in Israel.
The section of examples in the definition, some of which were rejected in the British Labour Party document, does indeed begin with a direct reference to criticism of Israel, whose name appears nine times. The concept of racism, on the other hand, appears only once, and even this is in the context of the argument that treating Israel as a racist project is a form of antisemitism. By adopting this component of the definition, Israel remains immune to the accusation made by many in regard to, specifically (but not only), other colonial countries. Thus, a discourse that is legitimate and reasonable in relation to the United States, Canada and Australia, for example, has been condemned as antisemitism in relation to Israel - and as such is taboo.
One clause permits criticism of Israel but adds the reservation that this criticism is legitimate so long as it "resembles the criticism directed at any other country." The document thus creates the false impression that there is a threshold of criticism in the public and international arena, which only the antisemites deviate from. Was the public criticism against South Africa during apartheid, Iran since the Islamic Revolution, the Soviet Union during the Cold War ("evil empire"), the United States during the Vietnam War and the Trump period, North Korea since it began to develop nuclear weapons and France during the Algerian War of Independence; and so forth, taken into account when drafting the definition? Well, the criticism of Israel is no greater than that which had been voiced or is being spoken against them.
What is clear is that the definition normalises Israel's prolonged occupation and turns it into a reasonable problem, the criticism against which need not be too "extreme". Moreover, when it comes to Israel, the definition effectively prohibits what is seen as legitimate criticism of other countries. Since criticism of Israel may be perceived as antisemitic, the definition creates a chilling effect absent from any other critical political discourse, thereby granting Israel privileges in the suppression of human and civil rights that are not given to other countries in the international arena.
As noted by [Israeli] political scientist Neve Gordon in his discussion of the definition of the IHRA, the great emphasis on Israel in the examples accompanying the definition creates a situation in which antisemitism today protects the nation-state, in this case Israel, while labelling certain criticisms of it as antisemitism whereas the struggle against antisemitism, from the 19th century to the founding of Israel focused on defending a group that had been discriminated against and persecuted by nation-states. The weakest group in the Israeli case are the Palestinians, especially those living under occupation and without political rights in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Thus, the definition of antisemitism in the IHRA helps to minimise and even deny Israeli violence against Palestinians. It is therefore an ironic reversal of one of the lessons of the Holocaust: acceptance and protection of the "other", ie, the weakened and persecuted minority attacked by the state.
This reversal recently reached the heights of absurdist theatre when the Hungarian government made the Jewish billionaire and Holocaust survivor George Soros the focus of a political attack, centred on images that clearly fit the definition of antisemitism in the IHRA, of which Hungary is a member. In recent years, Soros has been criticising nationalist and anti-democratic policies in Hungary and other countries, while supporting organisations working against these trends. In the summer of 2017, the ruling party in Hungary published hundreds of posters calling on the public not to let Soros have the last laugh", using a classic anti-Semitic image of the international influence supposedly held by the Jews.
No wonder, therefore, that there were those who added explicit antisemitic graffiti on the posters, such as "dirty Jew." The results of the last elections in Hungary in April 2018, in which Victor Orban's party won a sweeping victory, prove that many Hungarians react positively to antisemitic political propaganda. However, Hungary continues to be a member of the IHRA, an organisation that aims to combat antisemitism, but legitimises a government which is antisemitic according to its own definitions.
The Labour Party acted appropriately when it rejected some examples of the IHRA definition. It seems, however, that there should be no place in public discourse for a definition of "antisemitism," whose purpose, it seems, is much more to protect Israel from legitimate criticism rather than to protect Jews worldwide.
Dr Segal teaches at Stockton University, Galloway, NJ; Dr Goldberg is a lecturer in the Centre for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew Original: https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/.premium-1.6366330
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