The deaf and blind hawkers of the 'anti-Israel is antisemitic' myth

The article by Akiva Eldar is followed by one from Lindsey German written when this conflation between antisemitism and marching for Gaza was widely made by rightwing commentators. Link to publicity given to Jewish criticism of Israel at foot.

Demonstration against Israel’s attack on Gaza, London, July 26, 2014

Anti-Israelism, not anti-Semitism, voiced in Europe

Does the sometimes virulent criticism of Israel in Europe, and around the world, reflect a rise in anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism?

By Akiva Eldar, trans. Aviva Arad, Al Monitor / Israel Pulse
August 27, 2014

Those who read the international press on a regular basis, especially those with an interest in what happens to the Jewish people in Israel and around the world, might have come away with a gloomy picture of the situation in Europe over the last month. Reports of mass flight and such words as “pogrom” and “Kristallnacht” kept appearing. The current situation was compared with the era of Nazi rule in Germany. Anti-Israeli sentiment has significantly increased during Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip and was manifested in many protests around the continent, but apart from such sentiment, is there any evidence supporting the assumption of our being in the midst of a new and powerful wave of hatred toward Jews?

The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University occasionally publishes reports on occurrences of anti-Semitism on the continent. During the Gaza conflict, the center published photos on its website showing demonstrations against the war under the headline “Anti-Semitic photos from demos for Gaza (July-August 2014).” Another page featured “Anti-Semitic cartoons and caricatures (July-August 2014).” Among the slides are images of demonstrators’ signs combining a swastika with the Star of David, anti-Semitic slogans, cartoons and photos of a non-Semitic nature of people protesting the war and the occupation, and caricatures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombing Gaza. Many demonstrators sport kaffiyehs, the traditional Middle Eastern headdress, and attire bearing the Palestinian flag or its colours. Most of the illustrations are taken from newspapers and websites from the Arab world.

Several hundred people gathered in the centre of Paris on Sunday August 3rd to demonstrate for peace. The Israel-Palestine rally was supported by several organisations including the French Union of Jewish Students who joined Muslim groups for the march. Photo by Fabien Jannic-Cherbonnel.

The appearance of racist, anti-Jewish elements at protests, including despicable slogans like “Return them to the gas chambers,” has blurred the boundaries between anti-Semitism and criticism of the settlement policy of the Israeli government and its conduct of Operation Protective Edge. Demonstrations against the slaughter of some 2,000 Gazans, including more than 400 children, have been filed next to the anti-Semitic remarks of Hamas figures, such as Osama Hamdan, who claimed that Jews bake matzo, the Passover flatbread, with the blood of Christian children. More than once, Jewish leftists have participated in these demonstrations, including some who consider themselves Zionists.

The July 29 cover story in Newsweek magazine, with the sensational headline “Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews Are Fleeing Once Again,” opens with a comparison of a July 14 attack by demonstrators on a Paris synagogue and the dark days of the 1930s in Europe. The article reports that according to a survey by the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union from the end of 2013, 29% of European Jews have considered emigrating, while 76% of respondents believe anti-Semitism has increased in the last five years.

‘Jews in Britain Against Genocide’ demonstrated outside the Board of Deputies of British Jews headquarters in central London voicing their concern and anger for the Boards’ uncritical support for Israel and the hundreds of deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, August 4th, 2014. Photo by Guy Corbishley, Demotix.

Has there indeed been a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in the world and in particular in Europe? The answer is no, based on data the Kantor Center and the European Jewish Congress published in April. The report records 554 anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2013. In the previous year, they documented 686 incidents. These episodes included physical attacks on Jews and Jewish sites (synagogues, community centers, schools, cemeteries and memorials) and private property.

The highest number of incidents in a single country, 116, was documented in France, where the largest European Jewish community, about 600,000 people, resides. Even if one triples the number of incidents, assuming that not all were reported or documented, it is clear that it is a wild exaggeration to compare the phenomenon of anti-Semitism at the beginning of the 21st century and the Nazism of the 1930s or the pogroms in Russia. The radical right in France, as in Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian countries, has ridden the waves of hatred and fear of growing Muslim communities more than waves of anti-Semitism toward small and non-threatening Jewish communities.

Data from the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption indeed show an increase in the number of immigrants from Western Europe in recent years: from 3,339 in 2012 to 4,694 the following year. In the first five months of this year, 2,402 Israeli Jews immigrated to Western Europe, which reflects an annual rate of 5,764. These, however, are negligible numbers compared to the population of Western European Jews, who numbered more than 1.1 million in 2013, and far from the extent of Russian immigration in the 1990s, which reached a million people. An “exodus” it surely is not.

Not in Our Name: New Yorkers rally against Israeli war in Gaza in lower Manhattan, July 24 2014. Photo by Martyna Starosta.

To measure the real extent of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in the world in general and in Western Europe in particular, one must detach it from any connection to Israel in general and the occupation in particular. The cry of “Help, anti-Semitism!” distracts from the cry of “Help, occupation!” In this context, it is interesting to note a July 24 article by Yasmeen Serhan, a Palestinian American student, published on the website +972 under the headline “Anti-Semitism has no place in Palestine advocacy.” Serhan called on supporters of the Palestinian people to fight against any kind of zealotry or violence toward Jewish communities. In her words, expressions of anti-Semitism provide ammunition to those who wish to portray all advocates of Palestine, many Jews among them, as anti-Semites.

A linkage between the Jewish people and Israel in the consciousness of world public opinion associates members of Jewish communities around the world (for good and bad) with responsibility for the actions and failures of Israelis. In the 1967 Six-Day War and immediately after it, Israel was hailed worldwide. Many young non-Jewish people from various nations volunteered to pick oranges on kibbutzim. The erasure of the Green Line with dozens of settlements and outposts, however, has turned the Jews of the Diaspora, like all Israelis, into participants in the injustices of the occupation. The signing of the Oslo Accord turned Israel into a source of pride for Jews around the globe, but the photos of Israeli soldiers chasing children in the West Bank and reports of Palestinian families killed by bombs dropped by Israeli air force pilots have turned Israel into a burden on the shoulders of every Jew.

In coming articles, I will examine who gains and who loses from the exaggerated descriptions of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism. I will look into the motives of those elements who inflate and nurture this phenomenon, and the means of achieving that.

July 26th March, Deborah Maccoby carries one of the JfJfP placards.

Are the demonstrations against Israel’s attack on Gaza antisemitic?

Apologists for Israel’s barbarism allege that pro-Palestinian marches opposing the attack on Gaza are rife with antisemitism.

By Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition
July 29, 2014

NOT CONTENT with the French government ban on pro Palestine marches in Paris and elsewhere, Israeli MPs have been lobbying for restrictions on such protests elsewhere. This denial of free speech is being cloaked in terms that accuse protesters of antisemitism.

The demonstrations against Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza have been growing. But so too have complaints that these demonstrations are antisemitic, that the protests are criticisms not just of the state of Israel, but of Jewish people in general. Richard Littlejohn, one of Britain’s most right wing commentators, puts it in his own inimitable style:

The Stop The War crowd are myopically selective in their indignation. They’ll overlook all manner of atrocities in the Muslim world and in the former Soviet bloc, but become incandescent with fury when Israel exercises its inalienable right to self-defence. Underlying all this is a nasty streak of anti-Semitism, the unholy alliance between the self-styled ‘liberal’ Left and stone-age Muslim headbangers

Douglas Murray – who must surely qualify as a non-Muslim headbanger – writing in The Spectator called our demonstration on 26 July an antisemitic protest, in a slander against the tens of thousands of people who took part.

Some Israeli MPs have gone so far as to lobby EU officials to impose “strict regulations on the format and content” of pro Gaza demos. They want to see the creation of a Special Commissioner in the European Union who would be empowered to “monitor” antiwar protesters and restrict them from portraying Israel an “an aggressor” during its assorted invasions of Palestinian territory.

The Israeli government is badly hurt by the European demonstrations – and far beyond Europe – and therefore wants to discredit them. Moving the issue of antisemitism centre stage shifts the focus away from the reason these protests are taking place, as shown in the line of questioning on Sky News, when reporting last Saturday’s demonstration in London.

But how true are the accusations of anti-Semitism among those marching to protest at Israel’s attack on Gaza? Emma Barnett, writing in The Telegraph, has no doubt:

Last week’s major pro-Palestine rally, which stopped London’s traffic, was littered with placards comparing Israel’s – and Jews’ – actions to the Nazis (“Well done Israel – Hitler would be proud”, read one such sign, accompanied by a swastika)

Outside of that one placard, the photographic evidence to show that a demonstration of more than 50,000 marchers was “littered” with antisemitic placards is notable by its absence. However, for anyone on the left, these accusations are very serious.

Any sign of antisemitism should be challenged and opposed, wherever it occurs. It has a long and dishonourable history in Europe. Over 150 years, it was a key factor in shaping the history of the continent.

The pogroms in Russia and Poland at the end of the 19th century persecuted Jews and led to many of them migrating as a result, often to Britain and the United States. The Dreyfus affair in France led to a huge wave of anti-Semitism. The 1930s saw the rise of fascist and anti-semitic parties and governments, and of course led directly to Hitler and the Holocaust.

When fascist and far right parties began to revive with the economic crisis of the 1970s, anti-Semitic ideology was at the heart of their politics, and was bitterly contested by those of us who campaigned against fascism at the time, notably in the Anti-Nazi League, a mass movement that was central in defeating the neo-Nazi National Front, which had appeared on the brink of an electoral breakthrough.

So it would be inconceivable to tolerate a form of racism on pro-Gaza demos that we would otherwise find utterly unacceptable. The organisers of Stop the War’s marches – and the wide range of other organisations involved – have always been very clear on this. The protests are against Israel’s actions with regard to the Palestinians, not against Jews. They are against Zionism as an expansionist ideology which is used to justify driving Palestinians from their land.

In these circumstances, we have had on occasion to ask people to change slogans or to take down placards in order to make it crystal clear that our protest is not against Jews and that we do not equate what is happening in Gaza with the Holocaust. Had I seen a placard as described by Emma Barnett, I would have asked the carrier to take it down.

However, these instances are rare, and are dealt with by the organisers as they occur. To pretend, as Douglas Murray and Richard Littlejohn do, that they are symptomatic of the demonstrations is, quite simply, a lie.

Divisions on this question are not primarily religious. There are many Jews who define themselves as anti-Zionist, many of whom have played brave roles in opposing all forms of racism. At every demonstration they speak, carry banners and fully participate in the action, and they are always well received by the whole crowd.

There are many non-Jews who support Zionism on the other hand, ranging from Rupert Murdoch to the Washington neocons and their British counterparts like Douglas Murray and the Henry Jackson Society.

The tragedy of the Gaza conflict has been that some people may conflate Zionism with Judaism, and attack individual Jews. We must condemn that very strongly, and we do. But I have to say that the strong feelings over antisemitism and racism are fairly selective on the part of many of these commentators.

They often feel no such qualms about addressing Muslims in insulting and sometimes racist terms. And they obviously haven’t noticed the level of anti-Semitism even within governments in countries such as Hungary and Ukraine.

If there is a rise of antisemitism in Europe, then this is at least in part due to the rise of fascist and far right organisations who in countries such as Ukraine are harking back to the extreme right nationalism of the Second World War, when Jews were the subject of terrible persecution.

To the extent that it is influenced by the conflict in the Middle East (and let us remember that historically antisemitism has been a European problem) then it is incumbent on those of us who oppose what Israel is doing to make it absolutely clear that we also oppose any attacks, whether verbal or physical, on Jewish people.

This involves, as our campaign does, a range of organisations working together with people of different faiths and outlooks. In the process of doing so, we set an agenda for the campaign which rejects any racism based on race or nation.

In France, where the level of antisemitism is reported to be higher, it is even more important for the left and solidarity and peace organisations to work with the Muslim community to ensure there is a political outcome to the anger which is felt over Gaza. That should include opposing all government bans and regulation of demonstrations that want to express this anger in a political direction.

No one should be complacent about antisemitism, whatever form it takes. There has undoubtely been an increase in incidents in a number of European countries, and this is alarming, even if as yet it does not yet represent “a wave of antisemitic attacks” sweeping Europe.

It is imperative that all of us confront the issue, but even more so for the growing movement that campaigns for justice for the Palestinians. Any taint of antisemitism in that movement would not only be utterly intolerable, but would be a disservice to the cause of Palestinian rights that has in the last four weeks brought protesters onto the streets in hundreds of cities and towns across the world.

Link
For the widespread publicity given in Britain to Jewish critics of Israeli policy see Dissident Jews make the news