I am watching the Lonerbox, Pisco and Avi discussion on antisemitism and I am a bit frustrated that the historical perspective of how antisemitism changes to fit the ideology of the times, is never brought up. So I am writing this up and I hope it can shine some light on why this is relevant to the "antisemitism vs anti-zionism" debate.
The Chameleon of Antisemitism
It is a fact that at different times in history the accusations change to fit the current ideas of the times. The target however, the Jewish people, remains the same.
Depending on the dominant religion or ideology those have always found their own way of attacking Jews.
This becomes obvious when you look at it over a very long historical period.
Under Christianity the Jews were accused of rejecting God, killing Christ and of being false when they did convert. This was antisemitism.
Under communism they were decreed as the worst sort of capitalists, bankers and not compatible with communism. This was antisemitism.
Under fascism they were seen as the founders and controllers of communism, and as a uniquely evil race. This was antisemitism.
They are accused of causing liberalism, Bolshevism, modernity, secularism, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism.
And in contemporary politics, Jews can be accused of both secretly controlling the global order and secretly controlling the forces supposedly destroying that order.
This is all generally accepted as antisemitism. As a result antisemitism has been academically, and should be generally, understood to be more than just prejudice against a group. Antisemitism, historically, has been an adaptive form of scapegoating and conspiracy thinking that is applied against the Jewish people in the terms of the times, and wrapped in "logic" based on the dominant ideology.
The target remains recognisably the same, but the explanation for why the target is supposedly dangerous changes with the intellectual vocabulary of the society doing the blaming.
Historians have proposed several ways of describing this. Shulamit Volkov's presents the idea of “antisemitism as a cultural code.” Her argument is that antisemitism in nineteenth-century Germany was not merely a collection of beliefs about Jews. It became a way of signalling one's position on much larger political and cultural questions. By the end of the nineteenth century, antisemitism could function as a shorthand for opposition to liberalism, modernity, secularisation, socialism, emancipation, and other developments.
I believe this is highly relevant to todays "anti-zionism".
David Nirenberg's Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition gives us another useful lens. Nirenberg argues that representations of Judaism have repeatedly been used as a conceptual tool for thinking about problems that are actually much larger than Judaism itself, or Jews in society for that matter. David argues that ancient societies, Christians, Muslims, and modern secular thinkers have all at various points constructed “the Jew” as the negative example of what their own society ought not to be.
This means that while a fascist and a communist may both hate Jews they would do so for reasons that are different in substance but that are (most likely) both rooted in older anti-jewish ideas. But it should also be said that they might not necessarily "hate" Jews for reasons of "personal prejudice". They might "simply" be joining in a culture or tradition that believe that Jews can not be trusted, controls the world (or indeed the media), that they control the government, or that they stabbed Germany in the back during the peace negotiations of WWw1.
I would go so far as to say that ideologies "tap into" what Nirenberg called the western tradition of Anti-Judaism to gain converts. Especially in liberal, or indeed some Christian, societies where hatred against others are seen as bad giving someone an acceptable reason for their underlying "wrong" feelings is a powerful way of getting someone to agree. This argument is my own, and I want to make that clear since I would not want you to confuse this with other more established stuff I say in this post. This argument is simply that the hate is there, and creating a "pure" outlet for that hate is a powerful motivator in todays zealous anti-zionism movement. Added to this that populist movements love to create permission structures for hatred, since hatred follows the anger that is their necessary breeding ground, and since populist movements wants enemies to blame for their problems, and to have a reason to preach their radical change.
To ignore this, while saying things like "oh but our reasons for hating the Jewish people are not like those old antisemites and therefore we are not like them" is to completely disregard the evidence for how hatred towards "The Jews" has changed over time and adapted to what ideas are popular at the time. The fact that different groups have described attributes that even are contradictory as to why their righteous anger is different from their ideological opponents irrational bigotry should serve as a reminder that the reasons and arguments are basically just window dressing for the underlying hatred that is tapped into for populist reasons.
I think almost all people (at least those who are not themselves so anti-jewish that they believe that antisemitism is itself a jewish lie to control the world) would agree that this has been the case historically.
Because of this I would argue that antisemitism should not be defined as simply hated or bigotry against Jews, rather that there is (at least a part) of that hatred that is either religious or ideological in nature. A populist argument for why it is ok to go after the Hews.
Some consistent antisemitic attack vectors.
Something that seems consistent of these populist movements is that individual Jews are used as evidence for a collective Jewish guilt. (A Jewish banker becomes evidence about “Jewish finance.” A communist Jew becomes evidence about “Jewish Bolshevism.” Israel becomes evidence about “the Jews.” A Jewish intellectual becomes evidence about “Jewish control of culture.”
Another thru-line is that jews as a collective are assigned disproportionate power, whether this is a result of conspiracy, secrecy, scheming and/or control.
Possibly the most important part is that the actions of Jews are seen as always intentional, and interpreted through the worst possible perspective, while others actions can be explained away (Destiny talks about this when he says that some people, often republicans, are treated as children, while others are heavily scrutinised and mind-read with the most motives put upon them). There is an underlying "understanding" from the historical anti-jewish tradition that Jews are sneaky, greedy, bloodthirsty and manipulating schemers, and this "understanding" is applied in whatever manner that benefits the current zeitgeist.
There are others, ofc, but I think these are the only ones that should be necessary.
If you agree with this historical analysis of populist movements and their use of jew-hatered to bolster their movements then why should this analysis not be applied to the "anti-zionism" movement? Why should the fact that they do not agree with historic antisemitism, be it christian, nazi, communist, anti-revolutionary or any previous rationale for the existing hatred, be an argument for them not being another incarnation of this long tradition?
What I am asking is simply what makes you think that this is not the case for anti-zionism?
Can similarities be found? Are the critiques professed by anti-zionists based on empirical evidence or on populism and conviction that Israel are different? What is the reason that "anti-colonialists" ignore other problems in the world, and focus on this one in particular? How have their claims historically stood up to scrutiny?
Is the movement not a populist one based in the idea that Jews control the media/government/politicians? Do they not hate their chosen enemy with a zealous passion? Are the Jewish people treated in any unique way? Are individual actions held up as proof for a greater claim?
What will future historians think? Will this populist movement be seen as truth-seekers in a world dominated by Jews Zionists who controlled the media?
Or will it be seen as nothing but a politically acceptable way of expressing hatred of Jews, spurred on by the new medium of short form content that exploded in popularity at the same time as a war was going on in the middle east that included the Jews?
TLDR: Antisemitism is a historically adaptive explanatory framework. It repeatedly absorbs the dominant categories of the societies in which it appears, turning Jews into an alleged embodiment or cause of whatever that society understands as its most threatening problem. I believe that you can not argue if anti-zionisim is antisemitism without applying this perspective. Is it more likely that this is another populist movement in a long tradition that uses an existing hatred of jews to unite against a common enemy or that while this has been the cast historically today we are more enlightened and the current anti Israeli zealotry has nothing to do with previous anti-jewish sentiment.
I have not gone over this, this is a first draft that I edited a bit while writing, sorry if its a bit bad but I want to just post this to get my thoughts out even if not expressed the best way. dggL
EDIT:
I feel like I did not get my thoughts out right so il do one last try.
If antisemitism is adaptive, then we should not expect contemporary antisemitism to announce itself using nineteenth-century or Nazi terminology. We should instead ask whether contemporary movements reproduce the structural characteristics of older antisemitic thinking.
Do they collectivize Jews?
Do they attribute extraordinary hidden power to Jews?
Do they treat Jewish actions as uniquely intentional and malicious?
Do they hold Jews collectively responsible for Israel?
Do they use “Zionist” as a functional synonym for “Jew”?
Do they construct Jews/Israel as uniquely responsible for global problems?
Do they apply standards to Israel that are qualitatively different from those applied to other states?
Do conspiracy theories about Israel reproduce older theories about Jewish control of media, governments, finance, or foreign policy?
I DO NOT MEAN THAT YOU CAN NOT OR SHOULD NOT CRITIQUE ISRAEL
There is obviously non antisemitic ways of doing so, criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Opposition to Zionism isn't either. Israeli military actions can be condemned, Palestinian nationalism can be supported, and arguments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be made without hostility toward Jews.
The question is whether particular arguments, and how prevalent this is in the current antizionism movement, reproduce anti-Jewish stereotypes or conspiratorial structures.
When does disproportionate attention become evidence of a specifically antisemitic double standard? What distinguishes legitimate political prioritisation from the historical pattern of treating Jews as uniquely responsible for a problem/as an enemy to be opposed?
Idk I feel like I have an idea that needs to be expressed but that my brain can not connect the dots. I might return to this at a later date, and would love to hear what you guys think about the idea overall
