Thursday, June 22, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
Prominent leaders in the field of antisemitism and anti-Zionism will be speaking. Most of their testimonies have been published ahead of time. Here are some highlights.
Natan Sharansky, the famous Soviet dissident, describes how the Soviet Union's pretense of using "anti-Zionism" as a proxy for antisemitism has now been widely adopted by much of the world:
In the Soviet Union, where I grew up,...each time when official Soviet propaganda starts a new round of attacks on Israel, every Jew, whether he knows what Zionism means or not, knows that he has a problem. They are all treated as not loyal to the Soviet Union, but loyal to Zionist Israel. Attacks on the Jews have always been a convenient platform for attacks on Israel and vice versa. Assuming that all this is a direct result of the dictatorial regime of the Soviet Union, which needs a convenient scapegoat for accusations, an external and internal enemy, and a more convenient scapegoat than the Jews and Israel cannot be imagined. Therefore, when in 1975 the Soviet Union initiated a resolution that Zionism is racism, it was adopted only thanks to the communist bloc. The Free World voted against it.I thought that in the free world, this would not happen.It was all the more surprising when at the beginning of 2000 at the first U.N. conference against global racism in Durban - the only result of this conference was the accusation of Israel as an apartheid state. Soon the cartoons published in the international press against Israel surprisingly began to resemble those in the Soviet and Nazi press against the Jews. Israel, which fights against terrorist attacks daily in defense of itself, has been declared to be fighting the Palestinians, as the Nazis fought the Jews, and Palestinian refugee camps were compared to Auschwitz. All this had nothing to do with constructive criticism of the policies of Israel, which deserved this or that criticism like any other democratic country. It was then, 20 years ago, that I proposed my three-D test to distinguish justified criticism of Israel from new antisemitism.Over the 20 years, I have visited about 100 American campuses, where I have clearly seen how the new antisemitism is creating a very difficult environment for Jewish students who consider themselves Zionists. There is much evidence of how the growing attacks on the Jews are encouraged, developed and reinforced by the attacks on Israel, like colonial white racism. Much like in Soviet times, antisemitic attacks on Israel are weakening the sense of security of Jewish students at American universities. And attacks on Jews are often accompanied by anti-Israeli slogans. It is impossible today to analyze the growth of antisemitism without seeing that these phenomena are very closely linked.That is why there must be one explanation linking the demonization of the Jews, the double standard towards the Jews, the denial of the Jews as a nation with the demonization of the State of Israel, the double standard towards the State of Israel and the denial of Israel's right to exist.There can be no success in the fight against antisemitism if we do not fight it on all fronts. Therefore, the exact definition of antisemitism is crucial. It is very important that the US administration adheres to this definition of antisemitism in its policy.
Prof. Eugene Kontorovich shows why the IHRA Working Definition is important and how the "Nexus Document" that was welcomed in the Administration's strategy plan against antisemitism is an effort to whitewash modern antisemitism:
Not surprisingly, the IHRA definition is opposed by those who wish to engage in precisely the kind of anti-Israel double standards that it warns of. In an effort to confound or counteract the legitimacy and clarity of the IHRA working definition, a few other groups have offered definitions of antisemitism that greatly minimize the role of Israel-focused antisemitism. One such effort is the Nexus Document, a project hosted by Bard University. The Nexus definition differs from IHRA primarily in its treatment of Israel-focused conduct. Nexus does not regard as presumptively antisemitic either the questioning the basic legitimacy of Israel’s existence or the application of double standards to Israel. According to Nexus, such views may have legitimate grounds.Unlike IHRA’s adoption by a wide range of countries (including many states that are often sharply critical of Israel), not one single country has adopted the Nexus Declaration. The IHRA definition was developed by an international group of scholars not known for their views on Israel or their politics one way or another. The Nexus Advisory Board, by contrast, is overwhelmingly left-wing and includes people, like the head of J-Street, who can only be described as professionals in the field of Israel bashing. Members of Nexus’s advisory board have described Israel as “fascist,” denounced it as an “apartheid state,” and justified those who say it should have never existed.While IHRA has become the global benchmark, the narrow Nexus definition has languished in total obscurity—that is, until the White House suddenly announced its “welcome and appreciation” of the Nexus Document last month, while still “embracing” IHRA. Nexus leaped from the discussions of like-minded academics straight into a White House policy document. While the IHRA definition remains the only one officially used by the government, the White House’s National Strategy harms efforts to respond to antisemitism by referring to two different, and fundamentally contradictory, definitions...The obsessive focus on the supposed wrongs of this one tiny group has resurfaced across an amazing array of cultures and epochs. From the Romans to the Crusades. From the Reformation to the Inquisition. From National to International Socialism. The justifications change, the target remains same. Then after two thousand years, the Jewish people reconstituted their nation—and immediately found it the subject of unparalleled international defamation and libel—accompanied by ongoing efforts at physical elimination. Jews have been hated sometimes as adherents of a faith, sometimes as members of a people. Now the extraordinary enmity is aimed at their State. The coin lands on the same side on every toss. The segue from earlier modes of antisemitism to “anti-Zionism” is a remarkable coincidence....The accusations leveled against Israel often resemble those made by antisemites throughout history. Instead of the Jews being accused of killing Gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children; instead of Jews being accused of causing plague among Gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease among Palestinians. And the accusation of “apartheid” is a modern blood libel—an absurd “Big Lie,” but inciteful in ways that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. Just as the classic blood libel resonated with the theological preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice concerns of our times.
Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic ties all forms of antisemitism, from Left to Right, to conspiracy theory:
For almost as long as there have been Jewish people, there has been anti-Jewish prejudice. This bigotry predates the United States of America and the modern state of Israel. It is older than capitalism and communism, Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives. And it precedes Christianity and Islam. Because of this, while antisemitism is expressed by these communities, it cannot be caused by them. The source is something much more fundamental.Consider recent antisemitic incidents that on the surface seem to have little connection to each other. In 2018, a white supremacist massacred 11 congregants in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. In 2019, assailants tied to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement shot up a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, killing three. And in 2022, an Islamic extremist held an entire congregation hostage in Colleyville, Texas, for much of the Jewish Sabbath.To take another odd example: Both the supreme leader of Iran’s Islamic theocracy and Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh shooter who hated Muslims, posted memes on social media alleging Zionist control of American politics. During the 2016 presidential race, supporters at campaign events for both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were captured on tape claiming that “Zionists” run America’s finances.What unites all of these seemingly disparate antisemitic actors? Not their identity or background, but their adherence to a conspiracy of Jewish control. The Pittsburgh white supremacist believed that Jews were responsible for flooding the country with the brown people he hated, as part of the so-called “great replacement” of the white race. One of the Black Hebrew Israelite sympathizers in Jersey City wrote on social media about how Jews controlled the government. And the British Islamic extremist who targeted the Texas synagogue did so because he thought American rabbis held sway over the U.S. authorities and could free someone from prison....Because people have long been conditioned to conceive of Jews in an underhanded fashion, it doesn’t take much to update the ancient conspiracy theory to persuade contemporary audiences. And thanks to centuries of material blaming the world’s problems on its Jews, conspiracy theorists seeking a scapegoat for their sorrows inevitably discover that the invisible hand of their oppressor belongs to an invisible Jew.
Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch explains how antisemitism forms the core of Palestinian Authority ideology:
PA Antisemitism is not a collection of disconnected hate-speech; it is a systematically disseminated ideology that is by now deeply ingrained in the Palestinian national and political identity. It serves as a primary source of loathing towards Jews and Israelis and is a significant motivator for Palestinian terror.The PA’s Political Antisemitism asserts the following:1. Jews are inherently evil, endangering not only Palestinians but all of humanity.2. Accordingly, Jews themselves are responsible for the antisemitism and hatred they have faced throughout history.3. The PA turns this demonization of Jews into its political ideology: the Western countries were anxious to get rid of the Jews and solve their "Jewish problem,” so they initiated the establishment of a Jewish state. The Jews would never have come to Palestine on their own because the Jews have no history in the land. Israel is defined as an illegitimate result of "settler-colonialism" with no right to exist.This ideology is disseminated by PA leaders, Mahmoud Abbas appointees, and through the structures controlled by the PA.
Other speakers include Hillel Neuer from UN Watch, Yona Schiffmiller from NGO Monitor, and the ADL's Sharon Nazarian, all of whom show how anti-Israel bigotry is a proxy for anti-Jewish bigotry.
The webcast can be seen here at 11:00 AM EDT.
