Back استخدام معاداة السامية كسلاح Arabic Antisemitizmin silahlaşdırılması Azerbaijani Bevæpning av antisemittisme NB Weaponization of antisemitism SIMPLE 反犹太主义武器化 Chinese

Weaponization of antisemitism

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The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, is sometimes called weaponization of antisemitism.[1] Claims of weaponizing antisemitism have arisen in various contexts, including the Arab–Israeli conflict and debates over the concept of new antisemitism and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.[2][3]

Charges of antisemitism made in bad faith have been described as a smear tactic[4] and likened to "playing the race card",[5] and when used against Jews has been said to take the form of labeling as "self-hating Jews".[6]

The charge of weaponization has itself been criticized, with scholars of contemporary antisemitism saying it is a common rhetorical device and trope employed across the political spectrum to delegitimize concerns about antisemitism, particularly in anti-Zionist discourse on the left.[7]

  1. ^ Illustrative examples:
    • Landy, Lentin & McCarthy 2020, p. 15: "The weaponizing of antisemitism against US critics of Israel was evidenced in 2019 when Florida's upper legislative chamber unanimously passed a bill that classifies certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic"
    • Consonni, Manuela (1 March 2023). "Memory, Memorialization, and the Shoah After 'the End of History'". In Keren Eva Fraiman, Dean Phillip Bell (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 170. ISBN 9781000850321. In 2013, the Committee on Antisemitism addressing the troubling resurgence of antisemitism and Holocaust denial produced two important political achievements: the 'Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion'...and the 'Working Definition of Antisemitism'....The last motion raised much criticism by some scholars as too broad in its conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The exploitation, the instrumentalization, the weaponization of antisemitism, a concomitant of its de-historicization and de-textualization, became a metonymy for speaking of the Jewish genocide and of anti-Zionism in a way that confined its history to the court's benches and research library and its memory to a reconstruction based mostly on criteria of memorial legitimacy for and against designated social groups.
    • Medico International; Rothberg, Michael (15 February 2024). "The Interview :We need an ethics of comparison". Medico International. 'I do not doubt that antisemitism exists across German society, including among Muslims, but the politicization of the definition of antisemitism—for example, the way that the IHRA definition is used to stifle criticism of Israeli policies—makes it very difficult to reach consensus on what is and what is not antisemitic.' 'The far-right instrumentalization of antisemitism and solidarity with Israel is one of the most disturbing developments of recent years.'
    • Roth-Rowland, Natasha (28 July 2020). "False charges of antisemitism are the vanguard of cancel culture". +972 Magazine. Increasingly, however, those canards coexist with right-wing actors — above all those in power — increasingly labeling Jews as perpetual victims who must be protected, even as these same actors invoke well-worn antisemitic tropes elsewhere. By and large, these charges of antisemitism — especially as they relate to Israel — are made in order to gain political currency, even if the controversy at hand has no bearing on actual threats to Jews. Using the antisemitism label so vaguely and liberally not only stunts free speech, but also makes actual threats to Jewish people harder to identify and combat. This weaponizing of antisemitism is not only 'cancelling' Palestinian rights advocates and failing to make Jews any safer; it's also using Jews to cancel others.
    • Abraham 2014, p. 171: "As rhetoricians, we should be concerned by this possible misuse of history in these debates; indeed, the charge of anti-Semitism, if it is to be taken seriously, must be leveled with precision and not as a scatter-shot propaganda device for scoring cheap political points. In this discursive environment, every statement introduced into the debate contains a hidden motive, or at least a hidden rhetorical or historical resonance whereby nothing can be interpreted as being offered in good faith: 'You claim that the Rachel Corrie Courage in the Teaching of Writing Award is about X (rewarding courage, risk-taking, innovation, etc.) but it is really about Y (anti-Israelism, pro-Palestinian politics, and anti-Semitism).' It is this displacement of a particular conception of anti-Semitism, a conception that had a particular meaning and resonance at a particular point in history, which tends to confuse participants in contemporary debates about the Middle East. As rhetoricians, we should be much more vigilant about the prospects of importing this flawed conception of anti-Semitism into the field of rhetorical studies, particularly when doing so has the potential to hurt possibilities for dialogue and understanding."
  2. ^ Waxman, Schraub & Hosein 2022.
  3. ^ Hernon, I. (2020). Anti-Semitism and the Left. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-3981-0224-8. Retrieved 25 October 2024. The Jewish Socialists Group said that anti-Semitism accusations were being 'weaponised' in order to attack the Jeremy Corbyn–led Labour party
  4. ^ Examples of criticism as smear tactics:
    • White 2020: "Delegitimizing Solidarity: Israel Smears Palestine Advocacy as Anti-Semitic"
    • Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 9–11: "THE LOBBY'S MODUS OPERANDI... Yet because [former U.S. President Jimmy Carter] suggests that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a 'Jew-hater,' some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis."
    • Amor 2022: "...if the UN were to endorse the IHRA WDA, the harm would be exponentially greater... human rights defenders and organizations challenging Israel's violations would be fully exposed to smear campaigns based on bad-faith allegations of antisemitism"
    • Steinberg 2023: "Smearing one's opponents is rarely a tactic employed by those confident that justice is on their side. If Israel's case requires branding its critics antisemites, it is already conceding defeat."
  5. ^ Examples of the term "antisemitism card":
    • Quigley 2021, p. 251-252: "A difficulty in attributing anti-Zionist views to anti-Semitism is that such views are held by Jews... Opposition to Israel is depicted as a product of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is 'weaponized' to silence criticism of Israel. 'Shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel,' wrote one analyst, and 'makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims.' If anti-Semitism is invoked too loosely, allegations of anti-Semitism may come to be regarded with a jaundiced eye. The term 'race card' has been applied to this phenomenon in a related context... The same risk is present with inappropriate charges of anti-Semitism. 'False charges of antisemitism,' warned Special Envoy Forman, 'can hinder the real fight against hate.' Amnesty International expressed concern that 'conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy is detrimental not only to ending serious crimes under international law, but also to efforts to address and end antisemitism.'"
    • Finkelstein 2008, pp. 15–16
    • Hirsh 2010
    • Bronfman, Roman (19 November 2003). "Fanning the Flames of Hatred". Haaretz. ...when the waves of hatred spread and appeared on all the media networks around the world and penetrated every home, the new-old answer surfaced: anti-Semitism. After all, anti-Semitism has always been the Jews' trump card because it is easy to quote some crazy figure from history and seek cover. This time, too, the anti-Semitism card has been pulled from the sleeve of explanations by the Israeli government and its most faithful spokespeople have been sent to wave it. But the time has come for the Israeli public to wake up from the fairy tale being told by its elected government.
    • Marcus 2010, pp. 68–69: "Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that overplaying the 'anti-Semitism card' must be avoided for several reasons. These are, generally speaking, a subset of the risks of playing 'the race card' that Stanford Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford catalogued in his important recent book of that name. First, it is dishonest (at least if it is done intentionally)... Second, it is shortsighted and dangerous in the way of the boy who cried wolf. It may be regretted if it is needed later, especially if others become wary of false or exaggerated claims. Third, it can be mean-spirited because it involves the use of charges that in some cases can have serious repercussions. In addition, there are two other dangers that Ford does not discuss. Even if true, an overplayed 'anti-Semitism card' may distract socially concerned individuals and organizations from other pressing problems, including social injustices facing other groups. Finally, it may disrupt or retard outreach efforts to other groups, including Arab and Muslim groups, with whom partnership efforts may be jeopardized."
  6. ^ See:
    • Abraham 2014, pp. 67–68: "With increased attention being brought to Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights in the European press since the beginning of the Second Intifada in September of 2000, US supporters of Israel sought to blame the poor reputation Israel was developing in the international community on the rise of a New Anti-Semitism. As this line of thinking went, Israel had been targeted for criticism not because of what it does to the Palestinians in violation of international law, but because of a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism that has roots in age-old hatreds of the past. Israel's critics, then, were hiding their thinly veiled animus toward the Jewish state behind anti-Zionist arguments and were not motivated by humanitarian they purported to be. To draw this equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Israel's supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti-Zionist Jews who reject Israel's attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as 'self-hating Jews,' which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement."
    • Wecker 2007: "Overwhelmingly, the term is used to designate people who are viewed as critical of Israeli policy—any Israeli policy. Overwhelmingly, too, these same Jews will defend their views about Israel, however controversial, and reject the idea that Jews must give the Israeli government a perpetual pass on all its activities. These are the not-so-surprising findings of a series of conversations I had last summer with various prominent Jews who have been labeled 'self-hating' more than once. Contrary to their critics' disparagements, most of them struck me as quite secure in their Jewish identities."
    • Wecker 2007: "According to Joel Beinin, a Stanford University history professor and director of the Middle East Sudies department at American University in Cairo, Egypt, the phrase 'self-hating Jews' has 'no useful meaning except as a propaganda slogan. It is used to declare illegitimate those Jews who hold opinions—usually about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict—with which those who deploy this term disagree. No one has the right or the stature to declare a single interpretation to be correct or authentic,' Beinin continued. 'Dissent is part of the human reality. Dissent does not mean self-hate, and in fact, can be an expression of deep concern and even love of the tradition in question.'
    • Chomsky 1989, p. 433: "There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; 'one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all,' Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position. But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as 'self-hatred,' so that all possible cases are covered."
    • Goodman 2025: "Chomsky (1989) shows how Zionists have endeavoured 'to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism—or in the case of Jews, as "self-hatred"' (1989, 433), a point echoed by Butler (2012)."
    • Finlay 2005, p. 216: "Two points can be noted in these uses of self-hate, both of which serve to conflate right-wing Zionism with Jewish identity. The first is the simple dichotomy that is set up between those who agree with the writer, presented as on the side of the Jews in general, and the 'enemy,' the close associate of the self-hater in the quotes above. In these accounts there are no legitimate differences of opinion among the Jews, there is simply a hawkish version of Zionism on the one side, representing the authentic Jewish voice, and the enemy on the other. Critics of military actions, advocates of a negotiated settlement, and those who state that the Palestinians have suffered injustice are presented as committing an act of aggression against the Jews by allying themselves with those who would kill the Jews, either the terrorists or the anti-Semites in general… The second is that rather than acknowledging that differences of opinion might derive from a specific analysis of the current Middle Eastern conflict, the quotes broaden the issue and present those they criticize as suffering a complex related to their Jewish identities as a whole, a complex which blinds them. Thus words such as 'engulfed' and 'consumed' are used, references are made to the history of the Jews outside Israel (the goyim overseer, the Diaspora mentality), and pathology is indicated by the words infected (used in two of the quotes above), malady, sick, and by Givet's 'more solid' psychological analysis... The extracts above illustrate how Jews who speak out for Palestinian rights are often portrayed as siding with those who would wish to destroy the Jews… Of course, who one defines as an enemy is subject to debate among many groups, but if one constructs this as obvious and unproblematic, then to sympathize with them must necessarily involve rejection of one's own identity, and, taken to its logical conclusion, as suicidal. Progress toward a negotiated settlement is obstructed when those in power refuse to debate the possibility that the Palestinians have suffered injustice, react to international criticism as if it were just another example of aggression against the Jews, and brand any discussion of this by Jews as self-hate."
  7. ^ Such scholars include:

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