Our political culture has become more civilized, but also more sophisticated in its use of demonization. While overt hatred is no longer generally acceptable, it can be rationalized if it is clearly couched in allegations that assert the racism of our political enemies: their collective hatred puts us in danger. Similarly, conspiracy theories are anathema, except for those who claim that others conspire against us on the basis of conspiracy theories about us—that is, about Americans, Jews, Jewish Israelis, and western civilization.
These observations regarding “higher racism” must be kept in mind if we are to distinguish anti-Semitism from—to borrow a phrasing from Norman Finkelstein—the Anti-Semitism Industry. Since the 1960s, both the United States and Israel have required regular upsurges in the “new anti-Semitism,” always with evocations of the Nazi Holocaust, as one aspect of imperial ideology—especially as it applies to the Middle East and the Islamic world, but also wherever criticism of Israel is to be found in the U.S. and Europe.
The New York Times recently reviewed three books that exemplify this “higher racism” among academic writers and their reviewers.
In reviewing Anthony Julius’s book Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England, prominent literary scholar Harold Bloom (5/7/10) writes: “He (Julius) is a truth-teller, and authentic enough to stand against the English literary and academic establishment, which essentially opposes the right of the state of Israel to exist, while indulging in the humbuggery that its anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.”
More recently in the New York Times (7/5/10), Edward Rothstein published an essay review that incorporated his perspectives on Julius’s above-mentioned book; Robert Wistrich’s A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad; and Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, by Jeffrey Herf. In discussing Herf’s book, Rothstein asserts that Arab anti-Semitism should be understood in relation to Nazi anti-Semitism rather than imperial American/Israeli behavior. And anti-Semitism, among historical racisms, must be understood as uniquely conspiratorial and threatening.
Rothstein writes: “It is easy enough to discern when responsible criticisms of Israel veer into something reprehensible: the structure of anti-Semitic belief is not subtle. There is a wildly exaggerated scale of condemnation, in which extremes of contempt confront a country caricatured as the world’s worst enemy of peace; such attacks (and the use of Nazi analogies) are beyond evidence and beyond pragmatic political debate or protest. Israel’s autonomy—its very presence—is the problem.”
Rothstein approvingly quotes Julius’s assertion that “Israel is the only state in the world whose legitimacy is widely denied and whose destruction is publicly advocated and threatened; Israelis are the only citizens of a state whose indiscriminate murder is widely considered justifiable.”
Finally, again in reference to Herf’s book, Rothstein concludes: “Nazi ideology bears many resemblances to that of contemporary Islamic extremism, some the consequence of careful teaching. That teaching is still present in the Arab world, amplified by political leaders and imams, often annexed to denigrations of Jews taken from Islamic sources.”
In comparing anti-Semitism to Islamophobia, Rothstein mitigates the latter and draws this bizarre conclusion: “Islamophobia is a concept developed within the last two decades by those who wish to elevate Islam’s reputation in the West; anti-Semitism was a concept eagerly embraced and expanded by haters of Jews. One was constructed by a group’s supporters, the other by a group’s enemies. Moreover, much of what is characterized as Islamophobia today arises out of taking seriously the impassioned claims of doctrinal allegiance made by Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters. Anti-Semitism, though, has nothing to do with any claims at all.”
This is sophistry. The fact that the term “Islamophobia” was not invented by its advocates can hardly serve to deny objective reality to Islamophobic paranoia and hatred, as we see now more clearly than ever. Moreover, to argue that anti-Semitism has “nothing to do with any claims at all” is transparent bad faith, whatever the perversity of genuine anti-Semites. No form of racism or conspiracism operates without reference to “evidence,” however distorted in its exploitation.
Most revealing, Rothstein seriously asserts the merits of and justification for Islamophobia (thus implying it is not unreasonable at all), based on “doctrinal allegiance made by Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters.” He implies that their conspiracism and the legitimate need for our (or Israel’s) violent pre-emption is a matter of our survival.
How different are these views from those of a serious Islamophobe such as Daniel Pipes? For example, Pipes wrote about Muslim Americans in a 1999 Commentary article: “Positive attitudes are very much the exception. At huge conventions closed to the press and public, in speeches and publications that tend to be couched in the historic Muslim languages rather than in English, nearly every Muslim organization in the United States—emphatically including those that carefully maintain a proper demeanor for public, English-language consumption—spews forth a blatant and vicious anti-Semitism, a barrage of bias, calumny, and conspiracy-mongering of a sort that has otherwise all but disappeared from American discourse.”
In truth, modern anti-Semitism (that is, racially rather than religiously-based anti-Semitism) has been no more “unique” in its ideological tactics than racism associated with either slavery or apartheid. This was cogently demonstrated by the late historian George M. Fredrickson’s in his book Racism: A Short History (2003).
Thus neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia has been singular in hatred based on the alleged racism of the other, and pre-emption justified by the alleged conspiracy theorizing of the other. For example, current rhetoric about Iran echoes Nazi rhetoric about Poland, in both ferocity and lack of validity. Islamophobia, especially in its “higher” expressions, has become a central ideological and propaganda component of the American/Israeli “War on Terror,” and is clearly the most dangerous form of politically-driven demonization on the current scene.
In contrast, anti-Semitism in its most virulent European/Christian form is moribund, unique only in that it cannot be allowed to die a dishonorable death. Instead, it is cynically revitalized as the lurid propaganda of anti-anti-Semitism; i.e., Islamophobia; and the memory of its real victims debased. This fabricated anti-Semitism is projected onto the Islamic world in service of the imperial regimes. Academics, journalists, and think tank propagandists are called to present all of this as consistent with scholarly understanding. As can be seen, they do the best they can.
David Green (davegreen84@yahoo.com), a 60-year-old Jewish-American social researcher and policy analyst; he has been involved in pro-Palestinian activities since 1997. He lives in Champaign, IL. He has published his political work at websites such as Counterpunch, ZNet, Palestine Chronicle, and Electronic Intifada.
