Global InformationWeaponization of antisemitism information
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The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism for political purposes, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel,[1] may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card.[2] Such accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics.[3][needs copy edit] Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.[4][5]
Suggestions of such exploitation have been raised during phases of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,[6][7] in various organizations' adoptions of the controversial working definitions of antisemitism,[8][9][10][11] during the 2014–20 allegations of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party,[12][non-primary source needed] at the 2023 US Congress hearing on antisemitism,[13] and during the 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses.[14][15][non-primary source needed]
Critics have argued that the charge of weaponization amounts to an antisemitic ad hominem attack whose use fails to address antisemitism as the issue at hand.[16][17] The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.[18]
- ^ 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 (July 28, 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 (2003-11-19). "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."
- ^ 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.""
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Marcus68was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Muzherwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Chomsky 2002, p. 1.
- ^ Ahmed, Nasim (2023-09-15). "Weaponised definition of anti-Semitism is a 'tool' to undermine free-speech". Middle East Monitor.
- ^ Stern, Kenneth (2019-12-13). "I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it". the Guardian.
- ^ Amor 2022.
- ^ Adalah 2023.
- ^ Graeber, David (2020-04-12). "The Weaponisation of Labour Antisemitism". Double Down News.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ McGreal, Chris (May 3, 2024). "How pervasive is antisemitism on US campuses? A look at the language of the protests". The Guardian.
Ahead of Shafik's testimony to Congress, Jewish members of the Columbia faculty wrote to her denouncing what they called "the weaponization of antisemitism" for political ends.
- ^ Goodman, Amy; Bartov, Omer (2024-04-30). "Israeli Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov on Campus Protests, Weaponizing Antisemitism & Silencing Dissent". Democracy Now!.
- ^ 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 (2022-03-22). ""Everyone I Know Isn't Antisemitic"". Antisemitism on Social Media. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-55429-8.
- Allington, Daniel (2018-08-01). "'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 | JPost.com. 2019-02-10. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
- R. Vaughan, James (2021-12-17), 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 2024-01-14
- ^ Hirsh 2010
- ^ Schraub, David (2016). "Playing with Cards: Discrimination Claims and the Charge of Bad Faith". Social Theory and Practice. 42 (2): 285–303. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract201642216. ISSN 0037-802X. JSTOR 24871344.