The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel,[1] may be described as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card.[2] Bad-faith accusations against Israel's critics have been called a form of smear tactics.[3] Some writers have compared them to playing the race card.[5]
The charge of weaponization has been raised in context of the Arab–Israeli conflict, in related discussions of Israeli apartheid,[7][original research?] in various organizations' adoptions of the controversial working definition of antisemitism,[8] and in the controversy surrounding antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.[9]
Critics have argued that the charge of weaponization itself amounts to an antisemitic ad hominem attack whose use fails to address antisemitism as the issue at hand.[10][11] The charge has also been criticized as rooted in presumption rather than evidence.[12]
In The Fateful Triangle (1983), Noam Chomsky wrote that evaluations of Israel that were negative were often countered by accusations that the criticisms themselves were antisemitic, and that "The tactic is standard". Citing Christopher Sykes, he wrote that the phenomenon could be traced to 1943.[13] He adds that it is "in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible".[13]
In the early 1950s, American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who had been an advocate of Zionism, was called antisemitic after she began to write against Zionism, having witnessed Jewish terrorism against the British and the Nakba against the Palestinian Arabs. She wrote a critique of American Zionism in Commentary in 1950, accusing Zionists of dual loyalty;[14][15] in response, "Amid accusations of anti-Semitism, she lost friends, work, and political influence."[15]
Israeli historian Benny Morris said John Bagot Glubb was subject to a "tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism" (though Morris also said Glubb's anti-Zionism was "tinged by a degree of anti-Semitism").[17] Glubb wrote in his 1956 memoirs: "It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism".[18][17]
According to Cheryl Rubenberg, in the 1980s, journalists Anthony Lewis, Nicholas von Hoffman, Joseph C. Harsch, Richard Cohen, Alfred Friendly, authors Gore Vidal, Joseph Sobran, and John le Carré, and American politicians Charles Mathias and Pete McCloskey[20] were among those whom pro-Israeli groups called antisemites. In 1989, Rubenberg wrote of Mathias and McCloskey, "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as 'anti-Semitic' is a common practice among Israel's advocates."[20] In 1987, journalist Allan Brownfeld wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies, "One cannot be critical of the Israeli prime minister, concerned about the question of the Palestinians, or dubious about the virtue of massive infusions of U.S. aid to Israel without subjecting oneself to the possibility of being called 'anti-Semitic'".
In 1992, American diplomat George Ball wrote in his book The Passionate Attachment: America's involvement with Israel that AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups "employ the charge of 'anti-Semitism' so carelessly as to trivialize it", and that "Any Jewish American who equates that term with critical comments on transient Israeli policy implicitly acknowledges that he cannot defend Israel's practices by rational argument."
International Israeli advocacy groups have charged prominent individuals expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment with antisemitism, including Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu. (For example, Alan Dershowitz and David Bernstein called Tutu antisemitic for his comments about "the Jewish lobby", calling Jews a "peculiar people", and accusing "'the Jews' of causing many of the world’s problems".[25][26][27][28][29])
Chomsky and the academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Norman Finkelstein have said accusations of antisemitism rise after Israel acts aggressively: following the Six-Day War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifadas, and the bombardments of Gaza.[30][31] Chomsky argued in 2002: "With regard to anti-Semitism, the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called 'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel."
Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2008 that the charge of antisemitism can discourage others from defending in public those against whom the charge has been made. Rhetorical accusations of antisemitism put a burden of proof on the accused person, putting them in the "difficult" position of having to prove a negative, according to Mearsheimer and Walt. They wrote that accusations of antisemitism resonate in Jewish communities, "many of whom still believe that anti-Semitism is rife". While allowing that "we should all be disturbed by the presence of genuine anti-Semitism in parts of the Arab and Islamic world (and in other societies—e.g., Russia) as well as its lingering presence in some segments of European and American societies", they argued that "playing the anti-Semitism card stifles discussion" and "allows myths about Israel to survive unchallenged". Reviewing Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby in 2007, Jeffrey Goldberg responded to its claim that "[w]hile the charge of anti-Semitism can be an effective smear tactic, it is usually groundless", writing: "[n]o, not all criticism of Israel or AIPAC is anti-Semitic. But the idea that no criticism of Israel or AIPAC is anti-Semitic is just as ridiculous".[38] In 2010, Kenneth L. Marcus wrote that although Mearsheimer and Walt called such accusations "the Great Silencer", they had not themselves been silenced, having received a wide audience for their book and appearances. Marcus also wrote that many pro-Israel commentators who had condemned what they viewed as antisemitism in anti-Zionist rhetoric had also taken pains to say that much criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.
General
While warning in 2010 against denying or minimizing antisemitism, Kenneth L. Marcus also cautioned against overuse of the "anti-Semitism card", paralleling concerns raised by Richard Thompson Ford with the broader misuse of "the race card": that it can be dishonest and mean-spirited, risks weakening legitimate accusations of bigotry, risks distracting socially concerned organizations from other social injustices, and hurts outreach efforts between Jewish and Arab or Muslim groups.[5]
Some scholars have said that the charge of antisemitism is becoming less effective as more people become aware of its political usage.
Left-leaning Jewish artists and academics have criticized anti-antisemitism in Germany as a McCarthyist weaponization of antisemitism that leads to Jews being deplatformed and accused of antisemitism "because they once had contact with someone who knew somebody who was supposed to be a supporter of BDS", as German political scientist Gert Krell put it.[42][43][44] In August 2024, 150 Jewish people signed an open letter in a German daily expressing concern that a German draft resolution "to protect Jewish life" was "fixated on artists, students and migrants as the country's most dangerous perpetrators of antisemitism" while what Jews actually fear is not their "Muslim neighbours, nor do we fear our fellow artists, writers and academics. We fear the growing right wing as evidenced by mass gatherings of neo-Nazis emboldened by a national climate of xenophobic fear. We fear Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country's second-most popular political party, whose leaders knowingly traffic in Nazi rhetoric. This threat is barely mentioned in the resolution."[44]
In 2021, Atalia Omer of the University of Notre Dame wrote that weaponization of antisemitism is bad for all involved, including Israel and the broader Jewish community.[45]
Nick Reimer of the University of Sydney wrote in 2022 that anti-Semitism "provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties".
Israel
In 2004, Joel Beinin wrote that the "well-established ploy" of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism exposes Jews to attack by suggesting they are responsible for the Israeli government's actions.
Various writers have argued that charges of antisemitism raised in discussions of Israel can have a chilling effect,[48] deterring criticism of Israel[48] due to fear of being associated with beliefs linked to antisemitic crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust.[50] In his 2005 book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Finkelstein wrote that use of "the anti-Semitism card" attempts to displace "fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab 'opposition' to Jews".[51] In 2008, Finkelstein wrote that some of what "the Israel lobby" claims is antisemitism is in fact "exaggeration and fabrication" and "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy".[52]
Raz Segal writes that not distinguishing between the state and Jews is part of the weaponization of antisemitism discourse, designed to protect Israel from criticism.[53]
Israel–Palestine conflict
Matthew Abraham, professor of rhetoric at the University of Arizona, wrote that accusations of antisemitism against those criticizing Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights have increased since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. Abraham wrote: "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."[54]
A presumption that all Muslims are antisemitic has been "increasingly deployed by Zionist groups to eliminate critical debate inclusive of Palestinian experiences", according to Mitchell Plitnick and Sahar Aziz. In 2020, Ronnie Kasrils compared claims of antisemitism in Britain to rhetorical strategies employed against the anti-apartheid movement by supporters of the South African government.[56] Finkelstein noted the parallels to Communist parties' denunciations of principled criticism during the Cold War as "anti-Soviet".[51]
In 2018, Jewish Voice for Peace authored an open letter signed by over 40 left-wing Jewish organizations warning that activists were the subject of "cynical false accusations of antisemitism".[57][58] In 2019, Raz Segal wrote of "the weaponization of the discourse of antisemitism, used often to silence and attack those who speak about Israeli state violence, especially Palestinians. It is a crude and cruel distortion: abusing the historical struggle of a vulnerable people, Jews, under attack by powerful states to blur the attack of a state, Israel, against a vulnerable people, Palestinians."[59] In May 2024, in reference to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, he wrote, "the blanket assertion by pro-Israel advocates is intended as a political cudgel: weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism of its attack on Gaza".[60]
In 2023, during the Israel–Hamas war, Bernie Steinberg, a former executive director of Harvard Hillel, wrote in The Harvard Crimson that pro-Israeli activists should stop the "weaponization" of charges of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian activists: "It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands." Marshall Ganz, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, criticized the "weaponization" of antisemitism, writing in The Nation that the "tactics are remarkably similar to those used by Senator Joseph McCarthy".[62] Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said at the Palestine Expo conference that "the accusation of antisemitism is being weaponised and abused".[63]
The Associated Press reported that the April 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses have been "branded" as antisemitic, "while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition".[64] Ahead of the appearance of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 20 Jewish Columbia and Barnard professors wrote Shafik an open letter stating their objection to what they called the weaponization of antisemitism.[65][66]
IHRA
In 2011, the UK's University and College Union Congress debated a motion to formally reject the IHRA's working definition.[67] According to antisemitism scholar David Hirsh, the definition was "denounced as a bad-faith attempt to say that criticism of Israel was antisemitic".[68]
In 2022, responding to widespread criticism that the definition classes legitimate speech on Israel as antisemitic, Bernard Harrison said such criticism was unfounded.[69]
A 2023 report by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies[70] analyzed 40 cases where UK university staff and/or students were accused of antisemitism on the basis of the IHRA definition between 2017 and 2022, and found that in 38 cases, the accusations were dismissed, with two yet to be resolved. According to the report, false accusations of antisemitism have caused staff and students severe stress.[71]
Nathan J. Brown and Daniel Nerenberg said in 2023 that the definition was weaponized by groups including the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Committee, and the Brandeis Center.[72] In 2024, Holocaust scholar Raz Segal wrote, "The weaponization of antisemitism by Israel and its allies, including the U.S. government, draws on the deeply problematic 'working definition of antisemitism' adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)."[73] In 2019 and 2024, Kenneth Stern opposed the weaponization of the definition on U.S. college campuses in ways that might suppress and limit free speech.[74][75]
Anti-Zionism
In 2019, Joshua Leifer, an editor of Dissent magazine, wrote that campaigns that consider anti-Zionism antisemitic aim to shift criticisms of the Israeli government "beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability".[76]
Bernard Harrison argues that, in debates about anti-Zionism and antisemitism, an ad hominem rebuttal consisting "of accusing one's Jewish accuser of making his putatively absurd accusation merely in hopes of 'silencing criticism of Israel' and of doing so because he is a Jew" is a "stock" anti-Zionist retort.[77][78] Derek Spitz calls this a "denial of antisemitism" and "a form of victim blaming" that calls into question the complainant's good faith and forces them into the "defensive posture of having to justify the very making of the allegation of antisemitism".[78]
In 2021, Holocaust historian Kenneth Waltzer wrote: "When anti-Zionists accuse Jews who call out antisemitism of raising the issue in bad faith in order to silence anti-Zionism, this too is antisemitic anti-Zionism. They accuse those who cry antisemitism of engaging in a swindle or a lie and acting in bad faith."[79] Mark Goldfeder, writing for the Penn State Law Review in 2023, expanded on Waltzer, writing, "it is ironic and idiosyncratically true of antisemitism—as opposed to other forms of discrimination—that even attempts to describe or define the phenomenon are often themselves rejected by antisemites using classic antisemitic tropes about Jewish power. Instead of believing or acknowledging the experiences of Jewish people who have been targeted and subject to abuse, and dispensing with any notion of good faith, the antisemitic rejectionists instead blame and smear the victims themselves, accusing the Jews/Zionists of once again organizing their secret cabal to act maliciously and manipulate others into doing their bidding and silencing others."[80]
In December 2023, antisemitism expert David Feldman said that, while "some anti-Zionism takes an antisemitic form", the context must be considered when differentiating antisemitism and legitimate discourse and that there is "a long history of Israel and its supporters portraying anti-Zionism and other criticisms of Israel as antisemitic" in order to delegitimize them.[81]
International organizations
Referring to rumors that the ICC was preparing arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Aryeh Neier said that Netanyahu's assertion[82] "that ICC indictments would be antisemitic is indicative of his promiscuous use of antisemitism allegations".[83] Shortly afterward, on 20 May 2024, the ICC announced that it was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, and Netanyahu called chief prosecutor Karim Khan one of the "great antisemites in modern times", saying that Khan was "callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world".[84] Kenneth Roth described what Netanyahu said as a "common last resort for defenders of Israel" and said that it endangers Jews: "if people see the charge of antisemitism as a thin cover for Israeli war crimes, it will cheapen the concept at a time when a strong defense is needed."[85]
In February 2024, Israeli officials accused the International court of Justice of antisemitism following South Africa's genocide case against Israel.[86] Writing in Declassified UK, Anthony Lerman noted the officials' "deployment of weaponised antisemitism to deflect criticism" and said that "using past experience of anti-Jewish persecution to neutralise criticism of, and generate sympathy for, the Jewish state [...] is decades old."[87]
Sociologist David Hirsh coined the term Livingstone Formulation to refer to leveling of an accusation of bad faith in response to an accusation of antisemitism rather than engaging the accusation on its merits. The term comes from 2005, when former London mayor Ken Livingstone wrote, "For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been" after being criticized as antisemitic for accusing a Jewish journalist of behaving like "a German war criminal".[12][11][88][89][90] Kenneth L. Marcus wrote in 2015 of the Livingstone Formulation: "Jewish victims of anti-Semitism are so often smeared for bringing allegations in 'bad faith' that the gambit now has a name".[67]
Werner Bonefeld writes that antisemitism is often rejected "as an expression of bad faith—a camouflage for insulating Israel from criticism" by those who view antisemitism as "a phenomenon of the past that merely casts its shadow on the present but has itself no longer any real existence in it."[91]
In his 2016 review of Marcus's The Definition of Anti-Semitism, Robert Fine referred to an "extensive literature on the allegedly illicit uses of the word 'antisemitism' in political argument... This political culture... casts doubt on the motives of those who claim to experience or witness it in the here and now."[92]
Writing in 2016 about charges of "bad faith" responding to allegations of "bias, harassment, and discrimination", including those relating to antisemitism, Schraub called the charge of weaponization "a first-cut response that presents marginalized persons as inherently untrustworthy, unbelievable, or lacking in the basic understandings regarding the true meaning of discrimination."[12] In 2016, Lesley Klaff called the charge of bad faith a "denial of contemporary antisemitism commonplace in Britain."[93]
in 2018's Antisemitism and the Left, Robert Fine and Philip Spencer write: "We hear on the left... that the charge of antisemitism is mainly put forward for dishonest and self-seeking reasons; that people cry 'antisemitism' in order to deflect criticism of Israel; that the stigmatising of individuals and groups as antisemitic is more damaging than antisemitism itself; that the Jewish state and its supporters are the main source of racism in the modern world. It is said, for instance, that those who 'cry antisemitism' do so in order to shut down debate on Israel. This may be true in particular cases but the reverse is more plausible: that there are many who cry 'Israel' in order to shut down debate on antisemitism. When the critique of antisemitism is viewed as a problem, the problem may lie with the viewer."[94]
Writing in 2019, Lars Rensmann identified "the trope that criticism of Israel is 'suppressed' or 'taboo' in society" as characteristic of "modernized antisemitism". Rensmann writes that anti-Jewish myths are applied to Israel and their antisemitic character is denied when called out, often entailing "charges of bad faith against Jews who allegedly exploit the problem of antisemitism... and even use the Holocaust for their own collective interests". He writes that, although laments about "illegitimate racism charges" are today rarely heard outside of far-right groups and fringe movements, the charge of bad faith is "almost ubiquitous" when Jews raise the issue of antisemitism, and "virtually without empirical evidence", constituting a "profound ethical problem". He writes, "Today, more often than not, those who address the problem [of antisemitism] are targeted by portraying them as allegedly swinging 'the antisemitism bat' against innocuous 'Israel critics or 'upset Muslim youth' in bad faith."[95] In his review of Antisemitism and the Left, Rensmann writes, "Judith Butler and some (post-)Marxist fellow travelers do not recognize current antisemitism... but only detect 'the charge of antisemitism' with its allegedly 'chilling effects' on debates, as they charge those who raise it with bad faith and argue that they ought to be combatted politically."[96]
In 2020, the EHRC investigated antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and found that party agents had committed "unlawful harassment" by "suggesting that complaints of antisemitism are fake or smears", asserting in their report that "this conduct may target Jewish members as deliberately making up antisemitism complaints to undermine the Labour Party, and ignores legitimate and genuine complaints of antisemitism in the Party."[90] Hirsh wrote that the EHRC's investigation found that the accusation of bad faith was "a significant antisemitic phenomenon in the real world."[89] Klaff found that supporters of Jeremy Corbyn "perceived Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger as deliberately manufacturing a crisis within the Labour Party by making false accusations about antisemitism", which led to online antisemitic and misogynistic abuse targeting Berger.[97] In 2022, Anthony Lerman wrote that "many hyperbolic claims" were made against Corbyn and that such claims politicized antisemitism and emptied the word of utility.
In 2022 Dov Waxman, Adam Hosein, and David Schraub write that people—generally Jews—who raise charges of antisemitism are frequently accused of being disingenuous, and that charges of antisemitism are bound to be contested because "antisemitism today is not always easy to identify or even define". They add that charges of bad faith may be defused by clarifying which of the potential understandings of antisemitism is being invoked, and that "it is reasonable to insist that persons who encounter a Jewish claim of antisemitism at least adopt a presumptive disposition towards taking that claim seriously and considering it with an open mind."
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."
Examples of the term "antisemitism card":
- 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.
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."
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." - Geddie, Eve (20 March 2024). "EU needs to acknowledge the reality of Israeli apartheid". Amnesty International.
12 Israeli human rights organizations have since expressed "grave concern" about attempts to associate Amnesty's report with antisemitism, and they have rejected the Commission's failure to recognize Israel's apartheid. These organizations argue that weaponizing antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism actually undermines attempts to address rising antisemitism.
Republished from Geddie, Eve (13 March 2023). "EU needs to understand the realities in the West Bank". Politico. Retrieved 19 April 2024. Eve Geddie was writing as the director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office. - Roth, Kenneth [@KenRoth] (29 February 2024). "This weaponizing of the charge of "antisemitism" to try to stop such perfectly legitimate and accurate criticism of Israel's apartheid in the Palestinian occupied territory is cheapening, and hence harming, the important fight against antisemitism" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- Handmaker, Jeff (18 February 2022). "Opinion – The Silencing of Amnesty International's Report on Israeli Apartheid". E-International Relations.
Amnesty's report is important and for many advocates it is affirming of what they have been stating all along is a racist regime of systemic discrimination. However, for many longstanding critics of Israel, accusations of Israeli apartheid are not new, nor is the predictable backlash against them whereby antisemitism has been weaponized by Israel and its supporters. This backlash is now been directed against Amnesty International
- "How a Leading Definition of Antisemitism Has Been Weaponized Against Israel's Critics". The Nation. 27 December 2023.
As Human Rights Watch noted, the first example opens the door to reflexively labeling as antisemitic human rights organizations and lawyers who argue that current Israeli government policies constitute apartheid against Palestinians
- "I Regret to Report There's a New Antisemitism Controversy at Harvard". Slate. 26 January 2024.
There have been a few lines of attack on Penslar, and there are thus a few issues at hand. First, there is the notion that he called Israel a regime of apartheid. & What makes the series of events at Harvard so disheartening is not that the attack on Penslar is unique but that it transparently gives the game away: There is no set of credentials that can prevent a person who is earnestly trying to do work in this space from getting sucked into the politicization and, yes, weaponization of antisemitism. This is the way that current public debates over antisemitism tend to go, in Congress and on debate stages, on social media and between friends, within families and within organizations. But when fact and understanding and nuance of the issue are all considered secondary, what gets sacrificed isn't just an individual's career or standing or time, but comprehension of the actual issue that is antisemitism.
Hirsh, David (2023). "Contemporary antisemitism". In Weitzman, Mark; Williams, Robert J.; Wald, James (eds.). The Routledge history of antisemitism. The Routledge histories. London ; New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 47–48. ISBN 978-1-138-36944-3. Sources include:
- Klaff, Lesley D. (2013). "Political and Legal Judgment: Misuses of the Holocaust in the UK". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2284423. ISSN 1556-5068. S2CID 154755601.
- Guhl, Jakob; Mering, Sabine von (22 March 2022). ""Everyone I Know Isn't Antisemitic"". Antisemitism on Social Media. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-55429-8.
- Allington, Daniel (1 August 2018). "'Hitler had a valid argument against some Jews': Repertoires for the denial of antisemitism in Facebook discussion of a survey of attitudes to Jews and Israel". Discourse, Context & Media. 24: 129–136. doi:10.1016/j.dcm.2018.03.004. ISSN 2211-6958. S2CID 149815128.
- "How the BBC proliferates antisemitism in the UK". The Jerusalem Post. 10 February 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
- R. Vaughan, James (17 December 2021), Rawnsley, Gary D.; Ma, Yiben; Pothong, Kruakae (eds.), "The media, antisemitism, and political warfare in Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party, 2015-2019", Research Handbook on Political Propaganda, Edward Elgar Publishing, doi:10.4337/9781789906424.00023, ISBN 978-1-78990-642-4, retrieved 14 January 2024
Chomsky 1983, p. 18: "The Perlmutters deride those who voice “criticism of Israel while fantasizing countercharges of anti-Semitism,” but their comment is surely disingenuous. The tactic is standard. Christopher Sykes, in his excellent study of the pre-state period, traces the origins of this device (“a new phase in Zionist propaganda”) to a “violent counterattack” by David Ben-Gurion against a British court that had implicated Zionist leaders in arms-trafficking in 1943: “henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic.” It is, however, primarily in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible."
The events of 1943 mentioned by Chomsky were reported at the time as follows: Sedgwick, A. C. (18 August 1943). "PALESTINE ISSUES SHARPEN AT TRIAL; British Effort to Stamp Out Gun-Running Brings Conflict With Zionists to Fore". The New York Times. Mr. Ben-Gurion described Maj. R. B. Verdin's much-discussed address to the court, in which, acting as counsel, he sought leniency for his two British soldier clients on the ground that they had been ensnared by the gun-running ring, as "characteristic of the lowest type of anti-Semitism." Many find it hard not to consider such a description exaggerated, especially when the Nazi excesses in Berlin and Warsaw are borne in mind. There are many, too, who feel that any charge of anti-Semitism in its accepted sense is most noticeably incompatible with the military court proceedings against the Jewish defendants, which are carried out with a scrupulousness and courtesy designed to preclude any such castigation, and where every consideration is accorded to the defense, even to the point of one judge's offering his cushion to one of the defendants, who looked uncomfortable on the hard wooden bench.
Christopher Sykes described this as follows in 1965: Sykes, Christopher (1965). Cross Roads to Israel. Mentor books. Collins. p. 247. This provoked Ben-Gurion, understandably exasperated by the publicity organized by British information services, to a violent counterattack in which he asserted that the court had acted under anti-Semitic influence. In keeping with the new spirit of absolute uncompromise, he opened a new phase in Zionist propaganda which lasted to the end of the mandate: henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic; to disapprove of Jewish territorial nationalism was to be a Nazi.
Stonebridge, Lyndsey (2017). "Humanitarianism Was Never Enough: Dorothy Thompson, Sands of Sorrow, and the Arabs of Palestine". Humanity. 8 (3): 441–465. doi:10.1353/hum.2017.0027. ISSN 2151-4372. S2CID 152073268. There can be no doubt that anti-Semitism was a theme in Thompson's later writing. Pathologizing Jewishness, in particular, became habitual for her in the 1950s. By May 25, 1950, she is writing to Maury M. Travis, darkly, of the "tragic psychosis of the Jew"... In the Commentary piece she warns: "We bring on what we fear. Any psychologist will tell you that a primary neurosis is the fear of rejection and that when that neurosis takes hold of a person he unconsciously strives to create the conditions for that rejection." The reference is to Jewish "neurosis," but the passage also rather elegantly describes the logic of Thompson's own fears. In what well may be a case of knowing your addressee, Thompson wrote to Winston Churchill in 1951: "I have become convinced that the Jews, phenomenally brilliant individually and especially in the realm of abstract thought, are collectively the stupidest people on earth. I think it must come from cultural inbreeding—perhaps physical inbreeding also—in a desire to retain a homogenous, in-group society in the midst of 'aliens.'
Benny Morris (3 October 2003). The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. I.B.Tauris. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-86064-989-9. Over the decades there has been a tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism. Zionists routinely branded Glubb an 'anti semite', and he was keenly aware of this.
Sir John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier With the Arabs, p.7: "In the course of this narrative, I have voiced criticisms of the actions of various governments, notably those of Britain, the United States, France, the Arab countries and Israel... Criticism of the Israeli government does, however, require a particular explanation. A number of people, both Jews and Gentiles, are apt to refer to any criticism of Israeli policy as "offensive anti-Semitism", an accusation implying a definite moral lapse. I wish to defend myself against such a charge. "Anti-Semitism", I assume, is an emotion of hatred or dislike towards Jews as a whole, whether considered from the point of view of race or religion. I can state categorically and with all sincerity that I feel no such emotion. But it is of the essence of Western democracy to allow free criticism of the government, a right freely exercised against the governments of the U.S.A., Britain, France and other free countries. It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism."
Rubenberg 1989, p. 358: "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as "anti-Semitic" is a common practice among Israel's advocates. For example, when Senator Charles Mathias [R., Maryland] voted in favor of the AWACs sale to Saudi Arabia, a Jewish newspaper in New York commented: "Mr. Mathias values the importance of oil over the well-being of Jews and the State of Israel. The Jewish people cannot be fooled by such a person, no matter what he said, because his act proved who he was." Former Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey [R., California] also has had the charge of anti-Semitism leveled at him: "When I ran for reelection in 1980, I was asked a question about peace in the Middle East, and I said if we were going to have peace in the Middle East we members of Congress were going to have to stand up to our Jewish constituents and respectfully disagree with them on Israel. Well, the next day the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith accused me of fomenting anti-Semitism, saying that my remarks were patently anti-Semitic." Indeed, it may be that the weapon of greatest power possessed by the pro-Israeli lobby is its accusation of anti-Semitism. George Ball comments: "They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out." In Ball's view, many Americans feel a "sense of guilt" over the Holocaust, and the result of their guilt is that the fear of being called anti-Semitic is "much more effective in silencing candidates and public officials than threats about campaign money or votes."" Dadoo, Suraya (30 December 2021). "Desmond Tutu's inconvenient pro-Palestine legacy". The New Arab. Retrieved 31 October 2024. Almost as enduring as Tutu's support of the Palestinian liberation struggle has been smear campaigns against him, accusing the Archbishop of anti-Semitism. Tutu took on the pro-Israel lobby and the weaponisation of anti-Semitism head-on. Tutu wrote plainly: "…the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic. People are scared in the US to say 'wrong is wrong' because the pro-Israeli lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what?..." In doing so, Tutu angered the pro-Israel lobby in the US and in South Africa. In 2009, Alan Dershowitz referred to Tutu as 'a bigot and a racist'
Hanau, Shira (26 December 2021). "Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid leader who identified with Jews and criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinians, dies at 90". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 31 October 2024. remarks that some Jewish leaders called antisemitic, earned Tutu criticism from some Jewish leaders. In his 1984 JTS speech, he addressed some of that criticism while further fanning its flames with references to a "Jewish lobby." "I was immediately accused of being antisemitic," Tutu said in his speech, referring to the reaction to an earlier speech. "I am sad because I think that it is a sensitivity in this instance that comes from an arrogance — the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support." In a 1989 visit to Israel and the West Bank, Tutu made the controversial suggestion during a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, that the Nazis ought to be forgiven for their crimes against the Jewish people.
Mearsheimer & Walt 2008, pp. 190–191"Supporters of Israel have a history of using fears of a "new anti-Semitism" to shield Israel from criticism." Alexander, Jeffrey C.; Adams, Tracy (2023). "The return of antisemitism? Waves of societalization and what conditions them". American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 11 (2): 261. doi:10.1057/s41290-023-00184-7. Finkelstein 2008, pp. 34: "The chief political and ideological advantage of playing the anti- Semitism card, however, was succinctly (if unwittingly) put by one of Israel’s most vigorous apologists, Harvard professor Ruth Wisse. “In the case of the so-called Arab-Israel conflict,” she explained, “to permit the concept of anti-Semitism into the discussion is to acknowledge that the origins of Arab opposition to the Jewish state are to be located in the political culture of the Arabs themselves, and that such opposition can end only if and when that political culture changes.” It displaces fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab “opposition” to Jews, and fundamental responsibility for resolving it from Israel ending its occupation to the Arab world ending its irrational hostility toward Jews. Although Israel’s apologists claim to allow for criticism of the occasional Israeli “excess” (what is termed “legitimate criticism”), the upshot of this allowance is to delegitimize the preponderance of criticism as anti-Semitic—just as Communist parties used to allow for criticism of the occasional Stalinist “excess,” while denouncing principled criticism as “anti-Soviet” and therefore beyond the pale." Finkelstein 2008, pp. 16: "This shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel, makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims, and puts the onus on the Arab world to rid itself of anti-Semitism rather than on Israel to rid itself of the Occupied Territories. A close analysis of what the Israel lobby tallies as anti-Semitism reveals three components: exaggeration and fabrication; mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy; and the unjustified yet predictable “spillover” from criticism of Israel to Jews generally..." 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." Attanasio, Cedar; Offenhartz, Jake; Mattise, Jonathan (1 May 2024). "Columbia University threatens to expel student protesters occupying an administration building". AP. Retrieved 30 April 2024. Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel's critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
New York Times, In Congress, Columbia’s Leaders Try to Please. At Home, They Face Anger Marcus, Kenneth L. (2015). The definition of anti-Semitism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-937564-6. Hirsh, David (2013). "Struggles over the Boundaries of Legitimate Discourse: Antizionism, Bad-Faith Allegations and The Livingstone Formulation". In Small, Charles Asher (ed.). Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity. Vol. V: Reflections. Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
Harrison, Bernard (1 December 2022). "In Defense of the IHRA Definition (Despite Its Defects as a Definition)". Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. 5 (2). Academic Studies Press: 43–66. doi:10.26613/jca.5.2.115. ISSN 2472-9906. The IHRA definition of antisemitism has been widely criticized on the alleged ground that it restricts freedom of speech by stigmatizing, as antisemitic, views that critics assert to fall well within the bounds of legitimate political controversy. In several recent papers, my legal colleague Lesley Klaff and I have argued that these criticisms are without foundation.
Stern, Kenneth (13 December 2019). "I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 June 2020. starting in 2010, rightwing Jewish groups took the "working definition", which had some examples about Israel (such as holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of Israel, and denying Jews the right to self-determination), and decided to weaponize it with title VI cases.
Leifer, Joshua (26 August 2019). "Israel's one-state reality is sowing chaos in American politics". +972 Magazine. Today, the Israeli hasbara apparatus's most active front is the attempted redefinition of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, with the goal of rendering any opposition to the occupation, Zionism – or even simply Israeli policies themselves — beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability.
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