Criticising the Israeli government is not usually antisemitc
An annoying graphic poses an interesting question
The graphic above was posted by a Facebook friend whom I usually agree with (I don’t know where he got it from). I found it especially annoying. I don’t think it helps us understand when criticism of Israel morphs into antisemitism, as it so often does. It does give an insight into how defenders of Israel try to morph criticism of Israel into accusations of antisemitism. But for the more thoughtful of us, it may also help clarify our understanding of what antisemitism is. I want to do this by looking at each box in turn.
Double no: you’re one of the good guys
You get into this virtuous box by not criticising Israel and by not making statements about Jews in general. According to this graphic that is the only way in - which tells you all you need to know about whoever drew this chart up. Its premise is that all criticism of the Israeli government is antisemitic, and even talking about Jews in generality is. I’ll come back to that second one, but the curiosity is that you can go through all the boxes in the other column answering “No” and get nowhere. There is no “No” path on the last box! A grudging admission that you might not actually be antiseptic, but you’re certainly not a good guy!
Are you making statements about Jews in general (control, conspiracies, etc.)?
Answer Yes and you are an antisemite. I think the drafters would prefer that people didn’t talk about Jews in generality at all - but doubtless they saw that this was a bit of a problem. How about his statement for example: “Jews have been persecuted for two millennia, so it is only right that they can claim their ancestral homeland as a safe space.” That is a statement about Jews in general, but it isn’t antisemitic. Doubtless this is why they put the examples in brackets. I sort of know what they mean and there are a lot of antisemitic tropes out there that don’t mention Israel.
Are you ONLY criticising Israel, while ignoring similar or worse abuses by other countries?
Yes means antisemitism through singling out Israel. Firstly this is quite rare - critics of Israel from the left are often free in their criticism of western countries, and especially those with an imperial history - or America. But inconsistency is commonplace. I will come to the issue of double standards later. Singling out Israel can be an example of antisemitism, but it might just be good old-fashioned hypocrisy. Or perhaps you have a special interest (for example Palestinian friends or relatives - or Israeli friends or relatives for that matter). It is not necessarily hypocritical to be critical of developments in your own street, but neutral for developments elsewhere, because your knowledge level is that much higher.
Are you holding Israel to standards you do not demand of any other country?
Yes means antisemitism through double standards. The trouble is that nobody claims to do this. It opens the question of what standard should Israel be judged by? That of developed democracies such as members of the EU? That of its Middle Eastern neighbours? Defenders of Israel are often inconsistent here - on the one hand they say they should get support because they are a frontier for advanced democracies - on the other hand they say what they do is OK because they behave better than their neighbours. But by and large people criticising Israel for carelessness or worse on targeting civilians aren’t shrugging when Russia bombs apartment blocks in Kyiv. And the Assad regime in Syria, advised and assisted by the Russians, were heavily criticised for their indiscriminate attacks on hospitals and the like. Not criticising Israeli would be the oddity here.
Are you silent on actual genocides or atrocities elsewhere (e.g. Syria, Sudan, Uyghurs)?
If yes then it is antisemitism through selective outrage. To be honest, many left-wing critics of Israel don’t seem that bothered by atrocities occurring elsewhere in the world, and there are plenty. But there are possible reasons other than antisemitism. There is a stronger connection between our countries and Israel than other countries where comparable or worse horrors are occurring. It was no less a person than JD Vance, the US Vice President, who suggested a hierarchy of concern depending on a level of connection. Indeed trying to treat the whole world as your next-door neighbour is recipe for hurt - if only because you understand more distant places less. Still, the obsession of the left with Israel, and the awkward alliances this creates with Islamists, is something that annoys me. In some cases this is antisemitism; in others it’s just old-fashioned nonsense.
Do you blame all Jews worldwide for Israel’s actions?
Yes and you are guilty of antisemitism through belief in collective guilt. I agree.
Do you deny Jews the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland while supporting it for others?
Yes and it’s antisemitism by denying Jewish rights. I find this especially annoying, and it sparked an exchange with the original poster of this graphic on Facebook. In fact I think denying Israel’s right to exist in the land of Palestine, as some on the left do, probably is antisemitic. They have that right by UN resolution, and it reflects the position of millions of people who have no other home, and who in other respects conform to our idea of a nation. I similarly think that Israelis who don’t think that Palestinians have a similar right are whatever the Jewish inverse of antisemitism is: regarding all non-Jews as a lesser form of human being. Still, I don’t think the ancestral homeland argument carries much weight. The only reason that it carries any weight is the fact that Jews have consistently maintained their connection with Jerusalem throughout their millennia of absence (and indeed they maintained a small presence throughout that period) - just as more recently the many Palestinians keep the keys of the properties from which they were expelled in 1948. But otherwise I could argue, as an English person, that my ancestral homeland is in Denmark and north Germany - and where I actually live is the ancestral homeland of Welsh people. Populations move over history for good reasons and bad, leading to ethnic tensions in many places. Making ancestral homelands the basis for how we resolve the rights of nations a non-starter. That should not stop us from expressing moral judgements, for example, on the rightness of the historical treatment of native Americans, of the colonisation of South Africa, or the massacres carried out by Israelis in their war for independence.
Do you use antisemitic tropes, slurs, or slogans when talking about Israel (“global control”, “from the river to the sea”)?
Unsurprisingly, if you use an antiseptic trope, you are being antisemitic. Perhaps some might suggest that that “from the river to the sea” doesn’t necessarily mean removing Jewish people from Palestine (or Palestinians for that matter - the trope is used by Jewish extremists too) - but this is now forbidden language. This comes to the core of what antisemitism is.
In my view antisemitism is a belief, or expression of belief, that singles out Jews as special and evil. It usually treats Jews as a collective entity, rather as we do for national groups. It is actually rather different from common or garden racism, which tends to focus on people not belonging to your own group, rather than singling out a particular group. It is closer to Islamophobia. It is evil because it has been the basis, for millennia, for ill-treatment of a group of people who have contributed so much to humanity at large. This ill-treatment has frequently included mass killings up to the Holocaust, one of the worst crimes against humanity ever. It is shockingly hard to eradicate - including amongst people who really should know better, including on the left in British politics. That is why it is so important to make a stand against it - but we need to be clear about what it is and isn’t.
Israel is a country with many, even mostly, decent people. But it is currently being controlled by racists who seek to drive the Palestinian people away from their homeland, small step by small step - with the war in Gaza comprising a dramatic escalation. They should be judged by their actions not their words. These racists are winning, and they protest that any criticism of their actions is antisemitic. Decent Israelis are tolerating this through fear and a feeling of collective solidarity. It remains a crime against humanity. It is not amongst the worst of such crimes, and no worse than what my nation has perpetrated in its history. But my nation has (mostly) moved on - the restraint shown by the British government in Ireland is an example of that, even if there were excesses, that compares favourably with how Israelis have dealt with a terrorist threat. It is not wrong to call out the actions of the Israeli government for what they are, and certainly not antisemitic.