Of course calling Israel racist is antisemitic. Here's a perfect example.

Nada Elia teaches American Cultural Studies at Western Washington University. She's a frequent contributor to Mondoweiss.

She recently wrote an article in Middle East Eye that shows both her ignorance and her antisemitism. 

After Israel’s interior ministry recently announced that members of the Jewish community of Uganda are not allowed to immigrate to Israel, many progressive Israelis and diaspora Jews denounced the decision as racist.

Of course it is; racism is a defining characteristic of Zionism, which privileges one ethnic group over others. The decision is also in keeping with the virulent anti-Black racism plaguing Israel, equalled or surpassed only by the country’s anti-Palestinian racism.

As anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israel understands, this decision by the Interior Ministry has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the Ugandans. It is because the State of Israel only recognizes conversions done by Orthodox rabbis, and the Abayudaya Ugandan community was converted by Conservative Jewish rabbis.

One can argue about whether Israel should accept non-Orthodox movement conversions, but this is not at all an issue of ethnic superiority or racism. If it was, then Israel would not have welcomed over 100,000 Ethiopian Jews. 

Anyone who visits Israel can also see that there is no "virulent anti-Black racism" there; an entire generation of Hebrew-speaking Ethiopian Jews have integrated into society and no one blinks an eye. There is some racism similar to every single other Western nation and it is not condoned by anyone. 

So why does Nada Elia lie?

Because calling someone a racist is the worst insult that one can hurl today. And Nada Elia delights in calling Israel (meaning, the Jews of Israel) racist. As a pejorative, it is the Leftist equivalent of "kike." 

"Ethnic cleansers," "colonialists," "racists," "apartheid," "white supremacists" - all of these terms are conscious insults against Jews and only Jews when referring to Israel. They are the modern progressive versions of "sheeny," "Christ-killer" and "Shylock." 

Calling Israeli Jews "Nazis" - which is what the critics of the IHRA definition condone -  is the direct moral equivalent, and designed to cause the exact same pain, as using the other "N" word against Black people.

In a way, these insults are worse, because they pretend to be portrayals of the truth about Zionist Jews, and may be used in polite company. The main argument against saying these slurs as antisemitic is that, in the twisted minds of the haters, they are accurate. Entire papers are written justifying Israel being called an "apartheid" state or a "racist" state without showing the obvious counterexamples that prove the arguments are nothing but insults with no basis in reality. 

The IHRA recognizes this and portrays these slurs accurately. Modern antisemites like Nada Elia pretend that the insults are so obviously true that they are barely worth proving. 

(h/t Aryeh Meir)

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