When does Anti-Zionism become anti-Jewish racial hatred and villification? A post-Gaza reflection

Address to Australian Labor Party Caulfield Branch,  24 March 2009 by Philip Mendes

(An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Monash University conference on "Anti-Semitism in the Contemporary World" in February 2005, and to the Inner West Chavurah in Sydney in late 2008. I have now updated the paper with new examples from the recent Gaza conflict which are placed in BOLD)

I've chosen to use the amended title "anti-Jewish racism" rather than "anti-Semitism" in my title for three reasons:

•1)    The anti-Zionist Left often claims that because Arabs as well as Jews are ethnic Semites that anti-Semitism is directed at Arabs as well as Jews. Not true either today or historically, but a good strategy for avoiding dealing with racial hatred against Jews;

•2)    They often construct contemporary anti-Semitism as a relatively trivial matter involving occasional outbreaks of anti-Jewish graffiti or synagogue daubings, and in contrast argue that the only serious racism is Islamophobia. This construction of course ignores the salient fact that anti-Jewish ideas lead to the genocide of six million Jews, whereas anti-Muslim prejudice has never in modern times produced significant collective attacks on Muslim civilians.

•3)    What UK scholar David Hirsh calls the "Ken Livingstone" formulation whereas serious accusations of anti-Semitism are deflected by blaming the victim - that is claiming that it is all a conspiracy by powerful Jews to protect Israel against legitimate criticism.

In contrast, I am using the term anti-Jewish racism to clarify that what we are talking about here is not legitimate criticism of Israel or any criticism of Israel whatsoever, but rather straight-forward racial prejudice and bigotry.

Introduction

The question as to whether Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism are one and the same thing inevitably correlates with attitudes to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Those who lean towards the "Greater Israel" end of the spectrum are more likely to answer yes, whilst those who favor the "Greater Palestine" solution are more likely to answer no. As a long-time supporter of Israel but also of two states for two peoples, I sit close to the middle of these two spectrums, and hence my response to the question is necessarily a complex one. That is yes and no.

In historical terms, the answer is obviously no. Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism are separate ideologies. Anti-Semitism is a racist prejudice that exists independently of any objective reality. It is not about what Jews actually say or do, but rather about what anti-Semites falsely and malevolently attribute to them. As reflected in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it is a subjective stereotyping based on notions of collective Jewish guilt.

In contrast, anti-Zionism (particularly prior to the creation of the State of Israel) was based on a relatively objective assessment of the prospects of success for some Jews in Israel/Palestine. Opposition came from both Jews and the international Left.

For example, prior to the Holocaust Zionism existed as a minority movement throughout most of the Jewish world. It has been estimated that even in Poland, for example, only 25 to 30 per cent of Jews supported Zionism during the two inter-war decades.

Many Jews appear to have regarded Zionism as an extremist movement with utopian, if not politically dangerous, objectives, and feared that support for the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine would provoke accusations of dual loyalties. Ideological opposition to Zionism was particularly strong from three sources. Jewish socialists including the numerically significant Bundists opposed Zionism as a reactionary diversion from the task of fighting anti-Semitism and defending Jewish rights in the Diaspora. Many Reform and assimilated Jews defined their Jewish-ness in solely religious rather than ethnic terms. And many Orthodox Jews believed that the rebuilding of the Jewish homeland must await the coming of the Messiah.

Similarly, the international Left was sceptical of the merits of Zionism, although it is important to remember that individual socialist groups and theoreticians espoused a wide spectrum of views. The Soviet Union and orthodox communists were mostly hostile to Zionism, whilst many social democrats were sympathetic. In general, socialists distinguished between the maximalist Zionist aspiration to settle all Jews in Palestine, and the more minimalist Zionist goal to create and preserve a Jewish national homeland or refuge in Palestine. Most socialists were reluctant to endorse the former goal, but many supported the latter.

Common socialist objections to Zionism reflected a range of motivations - idealistic, political self-interest and pragmatic - and typically included the following: that it was counter-revolutionary, and meant abandoning the battle for Jewish equality to right-wing anti-Semites; that the disproportionate number of Jews on the Left were desperately needed to ensure the success of the class struggle; that Zionism would have an unfair impact on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine; and that Zionism had little chance of success in the face of Arab hostility and British imperialist perfidy. Socialist anti-Zionism in this period bore no relation to anti-Semitism, and some of the strongest opponents of Zionism such as the German socialist intellectual Karl Kautsky and the Bolshevik leader Lenin were in fact key supporters of Jewish rights and equality.

The State of Israel and Beyond: 1948-1967

The Nazi Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel transformed attitudes to Zionism. Jewish opposition to Zionism largely vanished. The creation of Israel was viewed as a form of compensation for the Holocaust and many years of Jewish persecution. Religious Jews gradually came to see Zionism as a fulfilment, rather than contravention of Jewish religious destiny. Many Bundists and socialists remained critical of Zionism's negation of the Jewish Diaspora, but in practice offered strong support for the State of Israel. In general, Jews increasingly turned to national, rather than internationalist solutions.

The international Left also changed its views. The Soviet Union strongly supported the creation of the State of Israel, both via diplomatic means, and through the provision of badly-needed military supplies. To be sure Soviet hostility to Zionism resumed from the early 1950s onwards and the Soviet Union increasingly became a key source of international anti-Zionist and arguably anti-Semitic propaganda (as reflected for example in the famous 1963 book by Kichko, Jews without Embellishment, which drew international condemnation from left groups), but communist positions on Israel were not uniformly hostile. No communist groups supported Arab calls for the destruction of Israel.

Social democrats provided considerable political and ideological support for Israel throughout the 1948-1967 period. Influential factors included the high profile of Israel's collectivist institutions such as the Histadrut and the kibbutzim, and the domination of Israeli politics by the social democratic Mapai (Labor) Party; the impact of Nazism, and the concern to atone for the Holocaust; the reactionary nature of the Arab regimes which opposed Israel; and the virtual invisibility of the Palestinian refugees.

The Post Six Day War Divorce

The 1967 Six Day War pushed Jews and the Left in sharply different directions. Many Jews - even those who identified as non-Zionists - were galvanized during the war in support of Israel. Since that time Jews have increasingly come to define support for Zionism and Israel as a fundamental component of their Jewish identity.

For example, a recent study found that the centrality of Israel to Australian Jewish life and identity was reflected in and reinforced by the following communal structures and frameworks: the significant political influence of Zionist organizations, Zionist education in the Jewish day-school system, high participation rates in the Zionist youth movements, the pro-Israel activities of Jewish university student groups, regular coverage of Israel in the Jewish media, extensive fundraising for Israel, a high number of visits to Israel and a disproportionate rate of aliyah, and significant political advocacy on behalf of Israel.

Similarly, a survey of British Jews found that they supported Israel through fundraising activities, political advocacy, and emigration to Israel. 80 per cent expressed a strong or moderate attachment to Israel, 77 per cent had visited Israel, and 67 per cent had close friends or relatives living in Israel. Overall there was a close relationship between personal and emotional attachment to Israel, and Jewish identity. US studies have also confirmed the centrality of Israel to Jewish life and identity as reflected in communal structures, fund raising, political activity, education, and religious observance.

This means that for most Jews attitudes towards Zionism cannot be credibly dissociated from attitudes to Jews per se.

In contrast, Israel's victory in the Six Day War provoked a sea change in the attitude of Left groups to Zionism and Israel. The radical Left discovered the Palestinians, and the romance with the PLO began. Many younger Vietnam era activists saw the Israeli-Arab conflict as an extension of the struggle between Western colonialism and the Third World, rather than as a regional struggle between Arab and Jewish national aspirations. Much of the newer radical Left - whether Trotskyist, Maoist or orthodox Communist - viewed Israel with hostility, if not with apocalyptic hatred. This hostility to Israel inevitably extended to Jews in the Diaspora via conspiracy theories incorporating Holocaust denial and alleged Zionist-Nazi collaboration, and through the attempted purging of Jews from the Women's Movement.

In Australia, Left anti-Zionist fundamentalism (accompanied by significant anti-Semitic rhetoric) was reflected in the campaign by Bill Hartley and other leading ALP leftists to de-legitimise Israel; the 1974-75 Australian Union of Students motions calling for the liquidation of Israel; and the subsequent refusal by community radio station 3CR to grant access to any Jewish supporters of Israel's right to exist. Nevertheless, most of the mainstream social democratic Left continued to oppose any manifestations of anti-Semitism, and to strongly support Israel's right to exist.

Left anti-Zionism seemed to go on the backburner during the period of the Oslo Accord. However, the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000 provoked a renewed outburst of anti-Zionist hysteria. The anti-Semitic rhetoric used at the United Nations Conference in Durban, the various proposals for academic and consumer boycotts of Israel, and the growth in verbal and physical attacks on Jews in Europe, the UK and elsewhere all suggest an increasing Left hostility not only to Israel, but also to Jewish supporters of Israel.

Generational change is important here. Many younger people on the Left don't remember the Holocaust and the earlier status of Jews as a victimized and persecuted group, don't remember the earlier Left support for Israel, don't recall the close link between the far Right and anti-Semitism, and don't understand the connection between the historical oppression of Jews and the Jewish need for a nation state. Their sympathy is not with the Jews whom they tend to stereotype as a powerful and influential group, but rather with the Palestinians and Arabs who are seen as victims of Israel and the USA.

The Current Political Context: What is or isn't anti-Semitic?

Historically, the Australian Left has incorporated a wide spectrum of views on Zionism and Israel ranging from unequivocal support for Israel to even-handedness to hardline support for Palestinian positions. Today there is probably three principal views on the Left.

One perspective - that held by the Australian Labor Party leadership, a significant number of ALP MPs from all factions, and some social democratic intellectuals and trade union leaders - is balanced in terms of supporting moderates and condemning extremists and violence on both sides.

During the Gaza conflict, the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, not only condemned calls for a boycott campaign against Israel, but invited the leader of the Israel's national trade union, the Histadrut, to address the AWU National Conference. Statements by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard also defended Israel's right to self-defence.

A second perspective - that held by the Australian Greens, some of the ALP and trade union Left, Christian aid organizations, some Jews represented in groups such as the Australian Jewish Democratic Society, and probably a majority of Left intellectuals - supports a two-state solution in principle, but in practice holds Israel principally or even solely responsible for the continuing violence and terror in the Middle East. This perspective holds that an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the key prerequisite for Israeli-Palestinian peace and reconciliation. In general, adherents of this view recognize that not all Israelis are the same, and understand the difference between particular Israeli government policies and the Israeli people per se. They are mostly genuine supporters of a negotiated peace, rather than simply partisans of Palestinian nationalism.

A good example of this perspective was the opinion piece by Professor Dennis Altman which appeared in The Age on 10 January. Altman argued that Israel's invasion of Gaza was unacceptable, even if clearly provoked. He argued the case for a more even-handed Australian government position on the conflict which would still support Israel's right to exist, but take a more critical approach to specific Israeli government actions. He acknowledged that his views were those of a relatively small minority in the Jewish community.

Some components of this second perspective may reasonably be characterized as unbalanced and naïve at best, and as failing to offer a corresponding critical analysis of contemporary and historical Palestinian actions and strategies which have acted as serious barriers to peace. Little  reference is made, for example, to the Palestinian rejection of Israeli offers of statehood at Camp David and Taba in 2000/2001, the extreme violence of the Second Intifada directed at mainly Israeli civilians, and the continued extremist demand for the return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel, rather than the Palestinian Territories. But their criticisms of Israel are generally not anti-Semitic per se given that they are related at least in part to real everyday events in the Occupied Territories.

The rights and wrongs of Israeli actions in the territories are legitimately subject to a robust international debate. This debate also takes place within the vibrant democratic structures of Israel itself. And many of the concerns about either the efficacy or morality of Israeli actions are shared by a significant minority of Israelis and Diaspora Jews.

For example, the former Israeli coordinator of activities in the Territories Shlomo Gazit recently condemned the continuing Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as that of a "foreign and alien occupier". Similarly, the former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami labeled the creation of "a dense map of settlements throughout the territories" as "the most absurd march of folly that the State of Israel has ever embarked on". It is important to note that Gazit and Ben-Ami are not marginal figures on the radical Israeli fringe, they are rather influential mainstream centre-left commentators.

So in summary the following issues clearly fall within the realms of legitimate non anti-Semitic political debate:

• 1) Questions about the legal and moral legitimacy of Jewish settlements in the Occupied West Bank;
• 2) Concerns about Israeli military incursions and assassinations within the Territories, and the blockade of Gaza;
• 3) Concerns about the impact of the Jewish security fence on the daily lives of the Palestinian population in the Territories;
• 4) Concerns about continuing discrimination against Palestinian Arabs living within Green Line Israel;
• 5) Reflections on the extent to which the creation of the State of Israel contributed to the historical injustice that has befallen the indigenous Palestinians;
• 6) Reflections on the extent to which a resolution can be found to the Palestinian refugee tragedy that reasonably satisfies both Israelis and Palestinians.

As a qualification, it needs to be acknowledged that some anti-Zionist fundamentalists disingenuously use these legitimate criticisms of Israel in an attempt to disguise their extremist agenda.  It is not always easy to distinguish between the two groups. But generally the language employed opens them to exposure. As we will discuss in regards to the third perspective, the use of emotive terms such as apartheid and particularly Nazism almost always correlate with the anti-Zionist fundamentalist perspective.

It is useful to draw an analogy here with criticisms of Australian policies. Many Australians vigorously opposed the policies of the Howard Government on issues such as welfare retrenchment, attacks on wages and working conditions via Work Choices, the war in Iraq, indigenous policies, asylum seekers, and the zero tolerance approach to illicit drugs. But they would argue quite correctly that they were critics of a particular government, rather than anti-Australian. However, if non-Australians had accused all Australians of being racists, and Australia of being the world's worst human rights abuser and implementing Nazi-like policies, then we could reasonably conclude that they were hostile to Australians per se.

Having clarified what constitutes legitimate debate about Israel, it must be acknowledged that some Israelis and some Jews do label all criticisms of Israel - reasonable or otherwise - as anti-Semitic. I would call such false allegations "crying wolf". For example, former Labor Party Minister Barry Cohen alleged that anti-Semitic critics of Israel were "now rampant in the Labor Party". Yet Cohen's diatribe failed to provide any real evidence to support his serious allegations, made no distinction between critics (however unbalanced) of Israeli policies and those who deny Israel's right to exist, and overly exaggerated the influence of pro-Palestinian partisans within the parliamentary ALP.

Such wholesale attacks are not only inaccurate, but also counter-productive in that they play into the hands of hardline critics of Israel who both deny even the possibility of a linkage between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and simultaneously allege that Jews are not willing to permit a rational and evidence-based discussion of the Middle East conflict. In short, they seem intended to stifle the free speech and robust criticism that is necessarily part of democratic societies, whether that of Israel or Australia.

In contrast, more sophisticated Jewish and non-Jewish friends of Israel acknowledge that criticisms of Israeli policies do not necessarily correlate with anti-Semitism. For example, four of the speakers who spoke in favor of the Australian Parliamentary Resolutions Against Racism and Antisemitism - Michael Danby, Senator Ursula Stephens, Petro Georgiou, and Senator Kim Carr - carefully distinguished between reasonable criticisms of Israel, and criticisms that were driven by anti-Semitic rhetoric and agendas.

At the same time, many Left critics of Israel respond with their own fallacy: that Israeli actions are directly creating anti-Semitism. This analysis has two fundamental flaws: it makes no distinctions between particular Israeli government actions and the Israeli people, and hence appears to legitimize the ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis or all Jews whatever their political perspectives; and it has the potential to blame the Jewish victims of racism, rather than targeting the perpetrators. It appears to reinforce age-old notions of collective Jewish guilt and perfidy. Instead of all Jews being responsible for the actions of a few, now all Jews are being blamed for the actions of Israel.

In contrast, I would argue that Jewish solidarity with Israel as a nation state does not make Jews everywhere responsible for all Israeli actions anymore than all Americans should be held responsible for the Iraq War, or all Australians should be held responsible for John Howard's policies towards asylum seekers. And we need to remember that only anti-Semites are responsible for anti-Semitism. Having said that, it needs to be acknowledged that the tendency of many Jews worldwide to interpret Jewish solidarity with the Jewish nation state of Israel as involving absolute endorsement of all Israeli government policies (hawkish or otherwise) without qualification does at the very least raise some serious political and moral questions about the potential limits of such solidarity. And some pro-Israel lobby groups seem to use methods of personal bullying and harassment which are more likely to create, rather than combat anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

It is within the third Left perspective - which I call anti-Zionist fundamentalism and others label as simply a form of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" - that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism undoubtedly converge. This perspective, held mainly but no longer exclusively by the far Left sects, regards Israel as a racist and colonialist state which has no right to exist. Adherents hold to a viewpoint opposing Israel's existence specifically and Jewish national rights more broadly which is beyond rational debate, and unconnected to contemporary or historical reality.

Of course, this perspective is different to the traditional anti-Semitism of the far Right. Firstly, it is a form of political rather than racial anti-Semitism. Secondly, most proponents - with some exceptions such as UK pro-Palestinian activists Gilad Atzmon, Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir - deny being anti-Semites. We can make our own judgements as to whether this denial is genuine. But without doubt this group create an anti-Jewish discourse and the potential for an openly anti-Semitic movement by demonizing all Jewish supporters of Israel as the political enemy.

Israelis and their Jewish supporters are depicted as inherently evil oppressors by the simple process of denying the historical link between the Jewish experience of oppression in both Europe and the Middle East and the creation of Israel. Conversely, Palestinians are depicted as intrinsically innocent victims. In place of the fundamental and objective centrality of the State of Israel to contemporary Jewish identity, anti-Zionist fundamentalists portray Israel as a mere political construct, and utilize ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis and all Jewish supporters of Israel in order to justify their claims.

The purpose of negating the reality of Israel's existence is to overcome the ideological barrier posed by the Left's historical opposition to racism. Any objective analysis of the Middle East would have to accept that Israel could only be destroyed by a war of partial or total genocide which would inevitably produce millions of Israeli Jewish refugees, and have a catastrophically traumatic effect on almost all Jews outside Israel. But advocacy of genocide means endorsing the most virulent form of racism imaginable. So instead anti-Zionist fundamentalists construct a subjective fantasy world in which Israel is detached from its specifically Jewish roots, and then miraculously destroyed by remote control free of any violence or bloodshed under the banner of anti-racism. And of course the perpetrators cannot reasonably be accused of anti-Semitism because they deny holding any prejudices towards Jews. Problem solved.

Anti-Zionist fundamentalism typically incorporates a number of manifestations many of which originally emanated from the Soviet "anti-Zionist" propaganda of the 1960s and 70s including:

• 1) A pathological and obsessive hatred and demonisation of Israel unrelated to the actual actions and reality of that State. For example, claims that Israel is the world's worst human rights abuser, or that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Some of this critique seems to be based on the discriminatory notion that because Jews experienced the Holocaust, they have a moral obligation to behave better than any other people. Yet no such obligation is imposed on other historically oppressed groups. Conversely, examples of Palestinian extremism such as suicide bombings and calls for the military elimination of Israel are either denied, or alternatively approved as a rational response to Israeli policies;
• 2) Proposals for academic and other boycotts of Israel based on the ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis. The aim of such caricatures is to impose pariah status on the whole Israeli nation. These campaigns have resulted in a number of examples of discrimination against Israeli scholars and researchers in British academic institutions;
• 3) The extension of the denunciation of all Jewish Israelis to all Jews - Zionist or otherwise - who are supportive of Israel's existence, whatever their actual ideological and political position on solutions to the conflict. For example, Australian academic Ned Curthoys argues that left-wing Jews who defend Israel's right to exist should effectively be excluded from progressive political discourse. John Molyneux from the UK Socialist Workers Party argues that "an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically)". A Canadian academic Michael Neumann is even harsher, accusing Jews of "complicity in Israeli crimes against humanity" no different to the complicity of Germans in Nazi war crimes.
• 4) Stereotypical descriptions of Jewish behaviour, and attacks on alleged Jewish wealth and influence. Conspiracy theorists accuse Jews of controlling western governments, banks and the media, and of responsibility for the US-led war in Iraq. For example, during the Hanan Ashrawi Affair, a number of commentators accused the Jewish community of exerting undue financial and political influence.
• 5) Deliberate attempts are made to diminish and trivialize the extent of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust by comparing Jews with Nazis. For example, numerous critics have equated the Star of David with the swastika, Prime Minister Sharon with Hitler, claimed that the Israeli army is the equivalent of the Nazi SS, and argued that the assault on the Jenin refugee camp was reminiscent of the Nazi assault on the Warsaw Ghetto. Some Left commentators go even further and allege that Zionist Jews collaborated with the Nazis to perpetrate the Holocaust in an attempt to shift the blame or responsibility for the Holocaust from the Nazi perpetrators to the Jewish victims, or in some cases endorse overt Holocaust denial.

•6)    A willingness to form opportunistic political alliances with far Right anti-Semitic Islamic movements whether in the West, or via collusion with racist Middle Eastern groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. For example, pro-Palestinian activists chanted at a large UK rally during the 2006 Lebanon War, "We are all Hezbollah now". And during the January 2009 rallies, they supported the Hamas position, chanting  "Destroy Israel" and "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free". Just as concerning as noted recently by UK journalist Nick Cohen is the reluctance of many on the broader Left to openly condemn such alliances.

International examples from Gaza conflict:

•1)    The January 2009 rally in defence of Gaza is marked by numerous equations of the Palestinians in Gaza with the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. The rally is followed by direct attacks on Jewish targets in North London including the arson of a synagogue, and threats by a youth mob in Golders Green.

•2)    John Pilger publishes an article online on 8 January called "Holocaust denied: The lying silence of those who know" which also appears under a different title in the New Statesman. Pilger manages to include eight separate equations of Israel's actions in Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust.

•3)    Pilger adds in "A criminal's medal" published in the New Statesman 22 January 2009 that Israeli "government and society" are guilty of perpetrating a "militarist, racist cult" that duplicates the Nazi campaign against the Jews. He then deflects any reasonable criticisms of his racism by stating the Livingstone formulation: that his arguments will be unfairly smeared as anti-Semitic by apologists for Israel.

•4)    The South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Fatima Hajaig tells a mass Gaza solidarity rally in Johannesburg that "the control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money". And the Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU, hold a rally outside the Jewish communal leadership offices at which their International Relations Secretary states: "We want to convey to the Jews in South Africa that our 1.9 million workers who are affiliated to the COSATU are fully behind the people of Palestine. Any business owned by Israel supporters will be a target of workers in South Africa". A related email lists Jewish owned companies as potential targets of an anti-Israel boycott.

Local examples from Gaza conflict:

1) A number of groups hold placards during anti-Israel rallies in December 2008 and January 2009 comparing Israel or Jews to Nazis, and alleging that Israel was perpetrating a Holocaust. The Socialist Alliance, a Marxist group which should know better, openly marketed placards stating "Stop the Holocaust in Gaza".

2) A self-titled human rights activist Maqsood Alshams organizes a conference on "Justice for Palestine" to be held in the NSW Parliament House. The conference receives financial support from three NSW universities, and Alshams' views are allocated a full page in the National Indigenous Times. It later emerges that Alshams is allegedly an unrepentant anti-Semite who has sent a series of private emails claiming that Jews were as bad as or worse than Nazis. The conference is then cancelled after several key speakers withdraw, but there is a surprising silence as to how and why three universities decided in the first place to support an alleged racist.

•3)    John Docker and his son Ned Curthoys choose this moment to renew their call for an academic boycott of all Israelis. They also form a committee to dismantle Zionism which praises Mahatma Gandhi for opposing Palestine as a refuge for Jews fleeing Hitler in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Given that Docker and Curthoys seem remarkably unconcerned about the first Holocaust, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that their ideas could potentially lead to a second Holocaust.

•4)    Antoun Issa argues in New Matilda 2 March 2009 "Who's Calling who a racist" that calls for Australia to boycott the UN's April anti-racist forum are an attempt to deflect legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies. Issa deliberately omits reference to the fact that the earlier Durban conference was blighted by an hysterical anti-Semitic campaign by numerous non-governmental organisations. There was an overwhelming public vilification, intimidation and harassment of Jews throughout the conference. For example, some NGOs distributed pamphlets supporting Hitler's Holocaust on the Jewish people. Once again the Livingstone formulation comes into play. Issa pretends that anti-Jewish bigotry is just legitimate criticism of Israel. He also totally misrepresents the views of Law Professor Hilary Charlesworth and Tzipi Livni (in two cited links) in his analysis.

•5)    Even Michael Brull, active member of the anti-Zionist Independent Australian Jewish Voices, acknowledges the reality of Left anti-Semitism. In his blog dated 29 January 2009 (www.iajv.org/michael), he condemns Maqsood Alshams as allegedly anti-Semitic, criticizes the presence of right-wing religious fundamentalists such as Sheikh Hilali in anti-Israel rallies, and condemns Palestinian Socialist Alliance activist Rihab Charida as a racist for addressing a neo-Nazi conference organized by the Sydney Forum.

•6)    And Sol Salbe from the left-wing Australian Jewish Democratic Society, argues that those who fail to condemn explicit manifestations of anti-Semitism at pro-Palestinian rallies are "accomplices of antisemities". He argues that their "accommodation to prejudice is often motivated by moral cowardice".

Conclusion

Criticisms of Israel per se are not anti-Semitic, particularly when they involve judgements about real Israeli actions and policies. The worst that can reasonably said about most such judgements is that they may be unbalanced, and reflect a partisan pro-Palestinian view of the conflict. This does not mean that Jewish concerns about the possible motives of some persistent critics of Israel are completely unfounded. It is also understandable that an historically oppressed group may interpret (from their experiences of persecution) such attacks as reflecting anti-Jewish prejudices, rather than more dispassionate political or ideological agendas. But in my opinion, more often than not such concerns appear to be a response to, and a part of, the political intensity and harsh rhetoric associated with the conflict, rather than reflecting any objective documented evidence linking specific criticisms of Israel with overt racial hatred of Jews.

Nevertheless, anti-Zionism does become anti-Semitism when critics of Israel shift the analysis from one of objective reality to subjective fantasy. Instead of depicting Israel as a real state with real people - most of whom are either refugees themselves or the descendants of refugees fleeing oppression - anti-Zionist fundamentalists collectively label all Israeli Jews and their supporters as guilty of colonialism and racism. And traditional anti-Semitic prejudices around disproportionate Jewish power, influence and wealth are utilized to justify these stereotypes. The complex debate about the relative merits of Israeli and Palestinian claims is removed from its real national, cultural and historical context, and instead reduced to a mere political conspiracy in which Jews are constructed as inherently evil and immoral oppressors trampling over the rights of innocent Palestinians.

Some Further Examples of Anti-Semitic rhetoric being utilized by anti-Zionists

(Dr Philip Mendes is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy & Community Development in the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, and the author or co-author of six books including joint editor with Geoffrey Brahm Levey of Jews and Australian Politics, Sussex Academic Press, 2004. An earlier version of this paper was published in the online Covenant journal in May 2008: Philip.Mendes@med.monash.edu.au)

Further Recommended Reading

Hirsh, David (2007) Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections. Yale University, available online.

www.engageonline.org.uk