The Left must confront its unintentional anti-Semitism

While the aims of many pro-Palestinian campaigners are admirable, the left must look at the wider context of Israel and Palestine today

While the aims of many pro-Palestinian campaigners are admirable, the left must look at the wider context of Israel and Palestine today

Peace negotiations have failed and violence on the Gaza strip has resumed once again. As this happens the left and the wider pro-Palestinian movement needs to think hard about how the next intensification of campaigning can avoid contributing to a rise in anti-semitic sentiment.

Many will read that paragraph and immediately react with hostility. A recurrent feature of the last few weeks has been the forceful claims by the pro-Palestinian left that it is not anti-semitic to criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza. Some commentators have also been conscientious in combining their critique of Israel with strong condemnations of those who have used the situation to make overtly anti-semitic attacks.

However, to believe that such arguments and qualifications means the left is now excused of any culpability is to engage in a denial for which the left itself regularly criticises others. 

Left-leaning thinkers and movements have argued for many years that racism and sexism need not be overt to exist. Racist and sexist values are so deeply ingrained into much of our thinking and behaviour that it is quite possible for someone to unintentionally exclude or denigrate black people or women even while actively proclaiming themselves an anti-racist or feminist.

Unfortunately the left is at risk of becoming the bastion of unintentional anti-semitism just as individuals and organisations across the political spectrum purvey unintentional racism and sexism.

The way many rushed to the defence of the cultural venues which took decisions leading to the cancellation of events with Israeli links is a case in point. I have no doubt that the trustees and staff of those venues along with their supporters are deeply hostile to anti-semitism and are as troubled as anyone by the recent upsurge in anti-Semitic activity. It is also to the credit of one of those venues that they have now rescinded the decision to require the organisers of the event to cut their links with Israel.

However, to support an organisation that makes such demands and then claim you are not acting in a way that will leave many Jews feeling deeply uncomfortable is to reveal an ignorance of how central Israel is to the identity, culture and religion of the Jewish people.

Imagine if a venue decided it would not allow a Catholic cultural event to go ahead unless the organisers cut their links to the Vatican because of the poor record of the church on challenging paedophilia within its ranks. No doubt many would feel an immediate pang of sympathy with the venue. After all the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is truly shocking and has created enormous misery.

But we would soon recognise that such a demand is impossible for a Catholic organisation to meet given the absolutely central role the Vatican plays in Catholic identity and practice. If the theatre’s boycott were to catch on, we would be in a situation where a well-meaning protest against sexual abuse had rapidly turned in to an effective exclusion of Catholic people and organisations from the cultural life of the country. No-one will have deliberately set out to be anti-Catholic but that will have been the outcome.

The situation is no different for Jews yet demands for a much wider boycott of Israel and Israeli goods is now a staple of the pro-Palestinian movement. Whether intentional or not, the idea that Jews and Jewish organisations could be excluded from the economic, cultural and wider public life of the country because of their inevitably close links to Israel should cause grave concern to anyone who knows the long and violent history of anti-Jewish prejudice which regularly used boycotts as a tool of oppression.

And as recent events have shown, those demanding a boycott could well end up preventing Jews having access to the products (as well as wider cultural and religious institutions in Israel) which are central to the practice of their culture and faith.

Similar concerns should also extend to the political goals of pro-Palestinian campaigners. The ultimate aim of much of the movement and its left-wing supporters is admirable: a long-term negotiated settlement leading to peaceful two-state co-existence. However, under current political circumstances that would require the Israeli Government, its citizens and the Jewish people around the world to accept negotiations with Hamas: an organisation whose founding document quotes the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as though it were genuine, claims Jews run a secret global conspiracy to control the world through organisations such as the Freemasons and blames the Jewish people for instigating both world wars for their own material gain.

Hamas spokespeople have distanced themselves from the Charter since its publication in 1988 but frankly this is not good enough. Any right-thinking person would expect an organisation to make every effort to formally reject such a pernicious document if it were really serious about avoiding anti-semitism. Because Hamas has taken no such action, Israel is being asked to seek friendly relations with a body which is founded upon and promotes ideas which only seventy years ago led directly to the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children.

To dismiss or ignore such concerns, as many in the pro-Palestinian movement do, is again to fail to think through the implications of their own demands for the justifiable fears of Jewish people. If the Hamas Charter had included numerous references to the inferiority of black people, one cannot help but wonder if the left would be quite so willing to close their ears to the complaints.

Claims of unintentional racism and sexism have been used in the past to silence debate and have, on occasion, reached absurd levels leading to accusations of racist or sexist behavior where none exists. No reasonable person would want a situation where awareness of unintentional anti-semitism made it impossible to criticise Israel because it undoubtedly does need criticising. However, it is very important for the pro-Palestinian movement and its supporters on the left to be clear that just because you distance yourself from those using the Gaza conflict to make overt attacks on Jews, you are not excused from thinking far more deeply about the consequences of your actions and demands for the well-being and liberty of the Jewish people.

 

Adam Lent is on Twitter here

81 Responses to “The Left must confront its unintentional anti-Semitism”

  1. Sara Apps

    I’m afraid this post is really an attempt to undermine the clear Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. The Tricycle Theatre, for example, took an excellent decision to offer funding for the UKJFF to compensate for not receiving funding from the Israeli Embassy. Palestinians have asked people not to support because of the Israeli Government’s role in the oppression and occupation of Palestinian people. The Tricycle only changed their mind when they were threatened with widely reported funding cuts.

  2. dave furioso

    you’ve really not done a very good job here of identifying ‘unintentional antisemitism on the left’ here.

    you can’t possibly think that people wanting to boycott the products of illegal settlements is somehow racist because of the overzealous actions of others on their side. To do that is simply to not allow people to actively oppose the awful actions of Israel in the West Bank. And that’s actually what you seem to want, under the guise of ‘opposing antisemitism’.

    If the best you can do is this, then you’re really not doing very well:

    ” support an organisation that makes such demands and then claim you are not acting in a way that will leave many Jews feeling deeply uncomfortable”

    I’m sure it did make some Jews feel deeply uncomfortable. So did Israel bombing fuck out of Gaza for various unconvincing reasons. Is that antisemitic too? By your logic, the answer is yes, so Israel shouldn’t have done it. But like I said, your logic makes absolutely no sense.

    Then your awful Catholicism analogy:

    “The situation is no different for Jews”

    it most definitely is – there is a serious difference in the relationship of Catholics to the Vatican and Jews to Israel. It’s too obvious to spell out. The idea that somehow Jews are as inseparable from the modern state of Israel as Catholics from Rome is simply laughable and ignores 2000 years of (often horrific) history.

    The analogy doesn’t work, and the fact that you immediately recourse to the fake analogy, as opposed to actually making a proper case, demonstrates the poverty of this argument.

    also:

    “Hamas spokespeople have distanced themselves from the Charter since its publication in 1988 but frankly this is not good enough”

    Yet Palestinians are supposed to be happy to see their representatives negotiate with outright racists, whose beliefs are more or less fascist, like Lieberman? Or with Netanyahu, worshipper of his father, and fellow believer in a ‘greater Israel’, who never wants to see the West Bank unoccupied? And do you remember when Israel refused to negotiate with the PLO, for EXACTLY the same reasons? You don’t make peace with your friends, you do so with your enemies, no matter how nasty they are.

  3. Sara Apps

    I’m afraid this article ignores the very clear call for Palestinians for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israeli institutions complicit in the occupation and oppression of Palestinians. Any debate really needs to tackle that to get to the heart of the issue. Also, on the Tricycle, it is fairly clear from several articles, including this one, that their about-turn was probably related to threats of funding and the future of their theatre than a genuine change of heart. Pity they backed down, but understandable under the circumstances. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4559028,00.html

  4. Soupy One

    Good points.

    But addressing: “you’ve really not done a very good job here of identifying ‘unintentional antisemitism on the left’ here”

    Please don’t believe anyone, then go on Twitter & watch odd Lefties interact with a neo-Nazi.

    https://storify.com/InTheSoupAgain/nazism-on-twitter-goes-mostly-unnoticed

    It ain’t hard to find evidence, assuming you are objective enough to.

  5. dave furioso

    I’m sure there are isolated cases, yes. Twitter is especially bad fr this as anyone can talk to anyone and doing a background check before interacting is rare – that’s not to absolve anyone of guilt on that front.

    But interacting on Twitter (and it is only the ‘odd lefty’ – not the same as anything organised, and the ‘odd righty’ is surely guilty of this too) is not the same as what Adam Lent is discussing here, which is the idea that somehow most legitimate political protest against Israel – but in truth, his logic extends as far as ‘anything which upsets a Jewish person’ – is enabling antisemitism.

    more generally, I really don’t see Britain as awash with antisemitism, close to a weimar state of affairs as many others do (not least Howard Jacobson). antisemitism on the continent is far more prevalent than it is here.That’s not to say we shouldn’t look out for it, but still.

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