Antisemitism is like a virus for which there is no cure
28 December 2023
Click here to read a great interview by Jennifer Rubin from the Washington Post of Deborah Lipstadt. Ms Lipstadt is:
An American historian and diplomat
Author of the books Denying the Holocaust (1993), History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (2005), The Eichmann Trial (2011), and Antisemitism: Here and Now (2019)
The United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism since May 3, 2022
The Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia since 1993.
I found these sections particularly interesting:
I began by asking whether antisemitism was increasing before Oct. 7 because of the rise of right-wing authoritarianism or whether growing antisemitism had fueled right-wing nationalist movements. “The two work in tandem, but I am always hesitant to make it left or right,” she said. Her friends on the left correctly spot antisemitism on the right; her friends on the right spot it on the left. “The problem is they don’t see it standing right next to people with whom they have ‘street cred,’” she said. She decried using antisemitism as a “political cudgel” to advance another agenda.
When I asked her how to combat antisemitic myths meant to delegitimize Israel (part of the internationally accepted definition of antisemitism) — by falsely labeling Israel as a colonizer, for example — she noted that she could point out that Jews have been indigenous to Israel for millennia or explain that more than half of Israeli Jews don’t come from Europe. (And, of course, more than 20 percent of the Israeli population is Arab; Jews were almost entirely chased out of Arab countries with nary a peep from those vilifying Israel.) Instead, she made clear that the accuser is subjecting Israel to a standard no other country must meet, which is the essence of antisemitism. During their history, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, she said, all displaced indigenous people. No one is calling these countries illegitimate or demanding they evacuate. “So why is Israel different?” [emphasis added]
An insidious form of antisemitism is holding Jews accountable and punishing them for what Israel does. When there are antisemitic incidents in Germany or Jews are attacked at a Hillel on campus, “That is not pro-Palestinian. That is antisemitism,” Lipstadt said. And when British Airways pulls a Jewish sitcom from its entertainment selections so as to stay “neutral” in the Israel-Gaza war, “A, that is stupid. And, B, it’s falling into antisemitism.”
Lipstadt returned to a point she frequently makes in public speeches about why we should care about antisemitism. “It is not just a threat to Jews,” she said. Even if you don’t care about Jews, “it’s a threat to democracy.” When people buy into a vicious conspiracy and call to combat the Jewish homeland “by any means necessary,” she argued, “they’ve given up on democracy.” Still, even if you don’t care about democracy, you should care about antisemitism because it foments “international instability,” she said. Adversaries use it to sow dissension, weaken adversaries and justify aggression against their own people and other countries.
Read the entire article here.
See my prior essay: Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, 15 November 2023
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