Новая антисемитская волна: антисионизм как ее проявление.

none

New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s. Proponents of the concept generally posit that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries much of what is purported to be criticism of Israel is in fact tantamount to demonization, and that together with evidence of a resurgence of antisemitic attacks on Jews, desecration of Jewish symbols and Judaism, Proponents argue that anti Zionism and demonization of Israel, or double standards applied to its conduct (some also include anti Americanism, anti globalization, and Third Worldism) may be linked to antisemitism, or constitute disguised antisemitism, particularly when emanating simultaneously from the far left, Islamism, and the far right. Critics of the concept argue that it is used in practice to weaponize antisemitism in order to silence political debate and freedom of speech regarding the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by conflating political anti Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government with racism, condoning violence against Jews, or the Holocaust. Such arguments have in turn been criticized as antisemitic and rhetorically irrelevant to the contested reality of new antisemitism. Further critical arguments include that the concept defines legitimate criticism of Israel too narrowly and demonization too broadly, and that it trivializes the meaning of antisemitism.

French philosopher Pierre André Taguieff argues that the first wave of "la nouvelle judéophobie" emerged in the Arab Muslim world and the Soviet sphere following the 1967 Six Day War. He cites papers by Jacques Givet (1968) and historian Léon Poliakov (1969) discussing the idea of a new antisemitism rooted in anti Zionism. He argues that anti Jewish themes centered on the demonical figures of Israel and what he calls "fantasy world Zionism": that Jews plot together, seek to conquer the world, and are imperialistic and bloodthirsty, which gave rise to the reactivation of stories about ritual murder and the poisoning of food and water supplies.

The 3D Test of Antisemitism is a set of criteria put forth by Natan Sharansky to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three Ds stand for Delegitimization of Israel, Demonization of Israel, and subjecting Israel to Double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism. The test is intended to draw the line between legitimate criticism towards the State of Israel, its actions and policies, and non legitimate criticism that becomes antisemitic. Earl Raab writes that "[t]here is a new surge of antisemitism in the world, and much prejudice against Israel is driven by such antisemitism," but argues that charges of antisemitism based on anti Israel opinions generally lack credibility. He writes that "a grave educational misdirection is imbedded in formulations suggesting that if we somehow get rid of antisemitism, we will get rid of anti Israelism. This reduces the problems of prejudice against Israel to cartoon proportions." Raab describes prejudice against Israel as a "serious breach of morality and good sense," and argues that it is often a bridge to antisemitism, but distinguishes it from antisemitism as such. Steven Zipperstein, professor of Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University, argues that a belief in the State of Israel's responsibility for the Arab Israeli conflict is considered "part of what a reasonably informed, progressive, decent person thinks." He argues that Jews have a tendency to see the State of Israel as a victim because they were very recently themselves "the quintessential victims".

Norman Finkelstein argues that organizations such as the Anti Defamation League have brought forward charges of new antisemitism at various intervals since the 1970s, "not to fight antisemitism but rather to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel against criticism". He writes that most evidence purporting to show a new antisemitism has been taken from organizations that are linked in some way to Israel, or that have "a material stake in inflating the findings of anti Semitism," and that some antisemitic incidents reported in recent years either did not occur or were misidentified. As an example of the misuse of the term "antisemitism," he cites the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia's 2003 report, which included displays of the Palestinian flag, support for the PLO, and the comparisons between Israel and apartheid era South Africa in its list of antisemitic activities and beliefs. He writes that what is called the new antisemitism consists of three components: (i) "exaggeration and fabrication"; (ii) "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy"; and (iii) "the unjustified yet predictable spillover from criticism of Israel to Jews generally." He argues that Israel's apologists have denied a causal relationship between Israeli policies and hostility toward Jews, since "if Israeli policies, and widespread Jewish support for them, evoke hostility toward Jews, it means that Israel and its Jewish supporters might themselves be causing anti Semitism; and it might be doing so because Israel and its Jewish supporters are in the wrong". Tariq Ali, a British Pakistani historian and political activist, argues that the concept of new antisemitism amounts to an attempt to subvert the language in the interests of the State of Israel. He writes that the campaign against "the supposed new 'anti semitism in modern Europe is a "cynical ploy on the part of the Israeli Government to seal off the Zionist state from any criticism of its regular and consistent brutality against the Palestinians Criticism of Israel can not and should not be equated with anti semitism." He argues that most pro Palestinian, anti Zionist groups that emerged after the Six Day War were careful to observe the distinction between anti Zionism and antisemitism.

Historian Bernard Lewis argues that the new antisemitism represents the third, or ideological, wave of antisemitism, the first two waves being religious and racial antisemitism. Lewis defines antisemitism as a special case of prejudice, hatred, or persecution directed against people who are in some way different from the rest. According to Lewis, antisemitism is marked by two distinct features: Jews are judged according to a standard different from that applied to others, and they are accused of cosmic evil. He writes that what he calls the first wave of antisemitism arose with the advent of Christianity because of the Jews' rejection of Jesus as Messiah. The second wave, racial antisemitism, emerged in Spain when large numbers of Jews were forcibly converted, and doubts about the sincerity of the converts led to ideas about the importance of "la limpieza de sangre", purity of blood. Dina Porat, professor at Tel Aviv University says that, while in principle there is no new antisemitism, we can speak of antisemitism in a new envelope. Otherwise Porat speaks of a new and violent form of antisemitism in Western Europe starting after the Second Intifada.

Antony Lerman, writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in September 2008, argues that the concept of a "new antisemitism" has brought about "a revolutionary change in the discourse about anti Semitism". He writes that most contemporary discussions concerning antisemitism have become focused on issues concerning Israel and Zionism, and that the equation of anti Zionism with antisemitism has become for many a "new orthodoxy". He adds that this redefinition has often resulted in "Jews attacking other Jews for their alleged anti Semitic anti Zionism". While Lerman accepts that exposing alleged Jewish antisemitism is "legitimate in principle", he adds that the growing literature in this field "exceeds all reason"; the attacks are often vitriolic, and encompass views that are not inherently anti Zionist. Lerman argues that this redefinition has had unfortunate repercussions. He writes that serious scholarly research into contemporary antisemitism has become "virtually non existent", and that the subject is now most frequently studied and analyzed by "people lacking any serious expertise in the subject, whose principal aim is to excoriate Jewish critics of Israel and to promote the "anti Zionism = anti Semitism" equation. Lerman concludes that this redefinition has ultimately served to stifle legitimate discussion, and that it cannot create a basis on which to fight antisemitism. Peter Beaumont, writing in The Observer, agrees that proponents of the concept of "new antisemitism" have attempted to co opt anti Jewish sentiment and attacks by some European Muslims as a way to silence opposition to the policies of the Israeli government. "[C]riticise Israel," he writes, "and you are an anti Semite just as surely as if you were throwing paint at a synagogue in Paris."

Scholars including Werner Bergmann, Simon Schama, Alan Johnson, David Hirsh and Anthony Julius have described a distinctively 21st century form of antisemitic anti Zionism characterized by left wing hostility to Jews. According to historian Geoffrey Alderman, opposition to Zionism (being against a Jewish state) can be legitimately described as racist in essence.

In France, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin commissioned a report on racism and antisemitism from Jean Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice president of Médecins Sans Frontières, in which Rufin challenges the perception that the new antisemitism in France comes exclusively from North African immigrant communities and the far right. Reporting in October 2004, Rufin writes that "[t]he new anti Semitism appears more heterogeneous," and identifies what he calls a new and "subtle" form of antisemitism in "radical anti Zionism" as expressed by far left and anti globalization groups, in which criticism of Jews and Israel is used as a pretext to "legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict."

In June 2011, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks (Lord Sacks), said that the basis for the new antisemitism was the 2001 Durban Conference. Rabbi Sacks also said that the new antisemitism "unites radical Islamists with human rights NGOsthe right wing and the left wingagainst a common enemy, the State of Israel." In September 2006, the All Party Parliamentary Group against Anti Semitism of the British parliament published the Report of the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, the result of an investigation into whether the belief that the "prevailing opinion both within the Jewish community and beyond" that antisemitism had "receded to the point that it existed only on the margins of society." was correct. It concluded that "the evidence we received indicates that there has been a reversal of this progress since the year 2000". In defining antisemitism, the Group wrote that it took into account the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report, which was published after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, that, for the purpose of investigating and recording complaints of crime by the police, an act must be recorded by the police as racist if it is defined as such by its victim. It formed the view that, broadly, "any remark, insult or act the purpose or effect of which is to violate a Jewish person's dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him is antisemitic" and concluded that, given that, "it is the Jewish community itself that is best qualified to determine what does and does not constitute antisemitism." The report states that some left wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for antisemitism, and that the "most worrying discovery" is that antisemitism appears to be entering the mainstream. It argues that anti Zionism may become antisemitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation " Having re defined Zionism, the report states, traditional antisemitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are often transferred from Jews onto Zionism. The report notes that this is "at the core of the 'New Antisemitism', on which so much has been written," adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements."

In November 2001 according to the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, in response to an Abu Dhabi television broadcast depicting Ariel Sharon drinking the blood of Palestinian children, the Israeli government set up the "Coordinating Forum for Countering Antisemitism", headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior. According to Melchior, "in each and every generation antisemitism tries to hide its ugly face behind various disguisesand hatred of the State of Israel is its current disguise." He added that, "hate against Israel has crossed the red line, having gone from criticism to unbridled antisemitic venom, which is a precise translation of classical antisemitism whose past results are all too familiar to the entire world."

In September 2006, Yale University announced that it had established the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti Semitism, the first university based institute in North America dedicated to the study of antisemitism. Charles Small, head of the institute, said in a press release that antisemitism has "reemerged internationally in a manner that many leading scholars and policy makers take seriously Increasingly, Jewish communities around the world feel under threat. It's almost like going back into the lab. I think we need to understand the current manifestation of this disease." YIISA has presented several seminars and working papers on the topic, for instance "The Academic and Public Debate Over the Meaning of the 'New Antisemitism. In July 2006, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a Campus Antisemitism report that declared that "Anti Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti Israelism or anti Zionism." At the time, the commission also announced that antisemitism is a "serious problem" on many campuses throughout the United States. The U. S. State Department's 2004 Report on Global Anti Semitism identified four sources of rising antisemitism, particularly in Europe:
"Traditional anti Jewish prejudice This includes ultra nationalists and others who assert that the Jewish community controls governments, the media, international business, and the financial world." "Strong anti Israel sentiment that crosses the line between objective criticism of Israeli policies and anti Semitism." "Anti Jewish sentiment expressed by some in Europe's growing Muslim population, based on longstanding antipathy toward both Israel and Jews, as well as Muslim opposition to developments in Israel and the occupied territories, and more recently in Iraq." "Criticism of both the United States and globalization that spills over to Israel, and to Jews in general who are identified with both." He writes that what he calls the "backlash against globalization" has united a variety of political elements, from the left to the far right, via a common cause, and that in so doing it has "foster[ed] a common enemy." He quotes the French Jewish leader Roger Cukierman who identifies the anti globalization movement as "an anti Semitic brown green red alliance", which includes ultra nationalists, Islamists, and communists.

Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, argues that Strauss has "inflamed, not enlightened" the debate over globalization by making "no distinction between the far right's critique of globalization and that of the global social justice movement", which is premised on "respect for human rights and cultural diversity". She notes that the Council of Canadians has condemned antisemitism, and that it expelled some individuals who tried to organize a David Icke tour under its auspices. John Cavanagh of the International Policy Centre has also criticized Strauss for using unproven allegations of antisemitism to criticize the entire anti globalization movement, and for failing to research the movement's core beliefs. In response to these criticisms, Strauss has written that antisemitic views "might not reflect the core values of the Global Justice Movement or its leading figures, yet they are facts of life in an amorphous, grassroots movement where any number of individuals or organizations express their opinions or seek to set the agenda". He has also reiterated his concern that "anti capitalist rhetoric provides intellectual fodder for far right groups".