Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Israel

Criticisms of Israel, and even being opposed to many facets of Israeli policy, isn't the same as being Antisemitic, is it? Some people think that this is the case. They argue that even if such criticisms are legitimate and not motivated by any sort of Antisemitism, they can still be "anti-semitic in their effect" and, hence, people should take care.

Judith Butler argues in the London Review of Books that this attitude is just all wrong:

In holding out for a distinction to be made between Israel and Jews, I am calling for a space for dissent for Jews, and non-Jews, who have criticisms of Israel to articulate; but I am also opposing anti-semitic reductions of Jewishness to Israeli interests. The ‘Jew’ is no more defined by Israel than by anti-semitism. The ‘Jew’ exceeds both determinations, and is to be found, substantively, as a historically and culturally changing identity that takes no single form and has no single telos. Once the distinction is made, discussion of both Zionism and anti-semitism can begin, since it will be as important to understand the legacy of Zionism and to debate its future as to oppose anti-semitism wherever we find it.

Judith Butler makes the important point that equating “criticism of Israel” or even “anti-Israel arguments” with “anti-Semitism,” one has to equate Jewishness and Judaism with Israel and all of these with Zionism. Not only is none of this fair and accurate — not to mention overly simplistic — but such an assumption is ultimately the position of real anti-Semites.

Of course, it's not just self-professed "defenders" of Israel who make the mistake of conflating Israel with Jewishness. It's also common for critics of Israel to make this same mistake and thereby slip from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies into illegitimate anti-Semitism.

I found myself on a listserv on which a number of individuals opposed to the current policies of the state of Israel, and sometimes to Zionism, started to engage in this same slippage, sometimes opposing what they called ‘Zionism’ and at other times what they called ‘Jewish’ interests. Whenever this occurred, there were objections, and several people withdrew from the group. Mona Baker, the academic in Manchester who dismissed two Israeli colleagues from the board of her academic journal in an effort to boycott Israeli institutions, argued that there was no way to distinguish between individuals and institutions. In dismissing these individuals, she claimed, she was treating them as emblematic of the Israeli state, since they were citizens of that country.

But citizens are not the same as states: the very possibility of significant dissent depends on recognising the difference between them. Baker’s response to subsequent criticism was to submit e-mails to the ‘academicsforjustice’ listserv complaining about ‘Jewish’ newspapers and labeling as ‘pressure’ the opportunity that some of these newspapers offered to discuss the issue in print with the colleagues she had dismissed. She refused to do this and seemed now to be fighting against ‘Jews’, identified as a lobby that pressures people, a lobby that had put pressure on her. ... To say that all Jews hold a given view on Israel or are adequately represented by Israel or, conversely, that the acts of Israel, the state, adequately stand for the acts of all Jews, is to conflate Jews with Israel and, thereby, to commit an anti-semitic reduction of Jewishness.

It’s people like Mona Baker who inspire the idea that criticism of Israel is a form of anti-Semitism. First she starts out with what is presumably a legitimate and fair disagreement with Israel, then she moves towards a potentially legitimate boycott of Israeli institutions. I say only “potentially” legitimate because the problematic slippage is already occurring. If the boycott is general and indiscriminate, then it fails to acknowledge the possible existence of institutions within Israel that also oppose the policies of the Israeli government. Israel is being treated as a monolithic force lacking any substantial dissent or disagreement.

Even assuming a legitimate boycott which discriminates between those institutions that are complicit with the opposed Israeli policies and those which aren't, Mona Baker immediately goes too far by applying that boycott to individual Israelis. If it’s illegitimate to ignore the possibility that some Israeli institutions may dissent from the Israeli polices that one opposes, it’s even more illegitimate to ignore the possibility that some Israeli citizens also oppose those policies. I wonder if Mona Baker would accept someone discriminating against her because of policies of the British government — policies which Baker herself might also oppose?

Finally, Mona Baker’s disagreement with Israel is extended to “Jews” as a whole — it’s not the policies of certain Israeli institutions, political parties, and political leaders which is the problem, but “Jews” as a group. Jews are a “lobby” which must be opposed if one is to also oppose the ideas and policies of certain parts of Israel.

Now, to be fair we must acknowledge that Israel itself is partially responsible for this. After all, Israel keeps insisting that it is a “Jewish” state and keeps pursuing policies in the interest of maintaining this “Jewish” status, even including policies which appear to be anti-democratic and illiberal. If people have a tendency to conflate “Israel” with “Jew,” the fault may not always be entirely their own. Still, even if Israel itself encourage this, it doesn’t really excuse it when critics do it — it’s a mistake for Israel to communicate the idea that being Jewish means being pro-Israel and it’s also a mistake for critics of Israel to simply accept and run with this as if it were true. Critics of Israel need to be more careful.

 

More:

• Palestine and Israel
• Antisemitism
• Jews and Judaism