Loftwings and Demons

From anything I can see, antisemitism remains an enormous problem today, but in the current environment, claims of antisemitism are also being weaponized in an appalling way, to justify egregrious war crimes and genocide. And so I think it is important to be specific in terms of what constitutes antisemitism and what doesn't. Actually, I think this is true for any other kind of oppression as well, as a big part of my experience of learning about these kinds of issues was the experience both of minimization (eg 'this problem doesn't exist anymore') and of people wielding such accusations for selfish personal reasons or to try to justify their own hate of another marginalized group.

So I am going to try to delineate some ideas for distinguishing between actual antisemitism and spurious claims of such. I think everyone has a responsibility to do their own critical thinking on issues like this, though, and not just take what any one person says at face value.  I think it's vitally important to take a position, though, and not simply be swayed by whoever applies the most pressure at any given time. If you change your position on an issue (and sometimes it is morally incumbent on us all to do so), there should be concrete external justifications for that change, not simply an individual calculus of who is shaming you harder at the moment.

And so, here are some things that are clearly antisemitic:

* Holocaust denial -- a violently antisemitic position. I really can't imagine a person holding this position who isn't actively planning or at the least in full support of outright hate crimes towards Jewish people.

* Jewish people as a shadowy elite in the US or Europe -- this is one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book. Those with actual power have long used Jewish people as a scapegoat for aggressions they have instigated. The way Israel is being used today, as a tool to further US colonialist aggressions and as a buffer to insulate the US from accusations of apartheid and genocide is a continuation of this antisemitism. This is not to say that Israel is not culpable in what is happening here, but that the reason that Israel is a settler-colonial state is because European and American powers have historically set it up to be that way. Israel exists not out of guilt for antisemitism (for these governments have none and continue to foster their violent antisemitism to this day), but out of a colonial desire to control the resources of the middle east. For zionist Christians, it is also a religious perogative, but because of the colonialist motivations, I think this motivation is probably unnecessary for these countries to continue to prop this state up. It certainly doesn't help matters, however.

* Blaming Jewish people as a whole for what particular individuals or groups are responsible for -- Collective punishment is evil and never justified.

* Conflating Judaism with Zionism -- happens on both the left and the right. On the right it is used as a justification for antisemitism, especially towards antizionist Jews, and on the left as a justification for antisemitism in general. However because of the greater power of the right in much of the world, leftist antisemitism also disproportionately harms antizionist and leftist Jews. However, this doesn't mean that other Jewish people are not harmed by this form of antisemitism, or that this is ever acceptable in any context. Even if a person has done something worthy of criticism or even condemnation, conflating actions or traits that have nothing to do with their actual transgressions is morally unacceptable.

* Grilling every Jewish person encountered on whether they're antizionist or not -- A common activity for the antisemitic leftist.

But here are some things that are not antisemitic:

* Criticizing Zionism -- Zionism is a political position, not an inherent quality of being Jewish. To say this is antisemitic is to conflate Judaism with Zionism, which is itself an antisemitic position, as I discussed earlier.

* Criticizing Israel -- Israel is a state, a political entity, and therefore cannot and should not be considered immune to criticism. Given Israel's generational oppression of Palestinians and the current atrocities it is committing in the name of 'self-defence', it is in fact a moral imperative to criticize Israel.

* Condemning anti-arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian sentiments, including when these positions are advocated by Jewish people -- it is never racist to call out racism or other forms of oppression.

* Showing solidarity with oppressed people, and advocating for an end to their oppression -- I believe it is in fact a moral imperative to do this, and with, for example the Palestinians, also an essential part of specifically anti-racist activism. Attempts to suppress such activism actively promote atrocity.

While this post cannot be either a comprehensive or authoritative source on this topic, I think this is a vitally  important topic to think and talk about because to me, I don't think a person can be an effective anti-racist on good intentions alone. Not when there are so many people who use 'I'm not racist' as an attempt to shield themselves from all criticism of racism, and not when there are so many people willing to wield false accusations of racism in an attempt to forward their own selfish or even virulently racist agendas.

Like other forms of racism, and like other forms of oppression in general, people will confidently and forcefully assert that things that are very much antisemitic are not, and things that are not antisemitic very much are. These kinds of claims, regardless of the intent behind them, promote real and tangible harm. But there are no shortcuts to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between antisemitism and acts that are anything but. We must all take that responsibility on ourselves if we take these issues seriously at all.