TIME TO PUSH BACK

THE OTHER SIDE MAKES RIDICULOUS, INDEFENSIBLE BLANKET STATEMENTS WITHOUT EVIDENCE. WE NEED TO COMPETE ON THEIR TURF.

We’ve given antisemites a free pass. Enough!

When addressing the sensitivities of any and every group on the planet — Black people, transgender people, women, Indigenous people, every racial and other identity — we have generally adopted a hard line that puts the onus on the perceived offender to demonstrate goodwill. If one is going to criticize a person who belongs to an identifiable group or engage in a topic related to their issues, we tread as softly as possible, and the global audience is pretty much ready to pounce with allegations of racism, sexism, transphobia or other assertions at the remotest hint that a line has been crossed.

When it comes to Jews, you can accuse them of being Nazis, of methodical mass murder, you can engage in blood libel, and deny their right to national self-determination, and your union and advocates of free expression will defend you, based on the argument that this is all just legitimate political discourse.

It’s not antisemitism. It’s just anti-Zionism.

How did we get here?

We allowed it.

Zionists like me have equivocated for far, far too long. We have allowed racists and genocide-supporters to goose-step across the line between political discourse and blatantly racist antisemitism.

When “critics of Israel” and “anti-Zionists-not-antisemites” have insisted that their comments are legitimate political speech, not bigoted hatred, we have let them off the hook. They say they are criticizing Israel, not Jews, and we say, Oh, OK then.

We have basically sanctioned a scenario where there is a narrow spectrum of acknowledged antisemitism (it seems to range from “I hate Jews” to “Kill the Jews”) and everything else is anti-Zionism and therefore legitimate criticism.

Two points:

1. Anti-Zionism is not “criticism of Israel.” Anti-Zionism is the assertion that Jewish people do not have the right to national self-determination. If you accept that right for every people but Jews, how is that not antisemitism?

2. Antisemitism is a complex of biases, tropes, stereotypes, assumptions and prejudices that may be conscious or unconscious in the perpetrator. It can be far more subtle and diverse than simply declaring “I hate Jews.”

It’s time we applied similar guardrails around antisemitism that society accepts around discussion of homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism and other offenses against identifiable groups.

If we are to err on one side, let’s start erring on the side of Jews, not antisemitism. It’s time we started pushing back. It should not be the obligation of Jews to prove they are victims of racism. It must be the responsibility of people expressing dubious ideas to explain how they are not soaked in racist dogma.

This will elicit howls from the other side — people who insist that all we do is claim antisemitism where no antisemitism exists.

At the gentlest assertion that a statement or action is motivated by anti-Jewish bias, a global tsunami of outrage erupts to declare “There they go again! Imagining antisemitism under every bed!”

This is a sign of the times. When a faithful effort was undertaken to define antisemitism and create workable examples of this bigotry in action (the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism), antisemites and anti-Zionists rejected it. They rejected the definition because it described them. So they changed the definition — just as they have redefined the terms “refugee,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “settler-colonialism,” “indigeneity” and, now, “genocide.”

Of course, the hysterical assertion that “legitimate criticism of Israel” is routinely condemned as antisemitism is a deflection that puts good people (us) on our back foot and allows bigots to carry on unimpeded. We have repeatedly permitted people and groups to get away with the most transparent anti-Jewish racism rather than get into the weeds of where the line lies between legit discourse and antisemitism. And they smirk at us as we fall right into their trap.

In our defense, there are kabillions of them and so few of us. We have to pick our battles. I give immense credit to the Jews and allies who take up this fight.

But we need to push the Overton window, the range of socially acceptable discourse, back to a reasonable place.

Let’s start by levelling the playing field.

The next time someone tells you “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism,” respond with this: “Yes it is.”

Not because it is. It might not be. But if the other side is going to make ridiculous, indefensible blanket statements without feeling any need to provide evidence, we need to compete on their turf.

The statement “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” is such a profoundly reckless, un-progressive, dismissive assertion that it deserves an equally contemptuous rejoinder.

We need to stop accepting it without challenge. Responding with “Yes it is” throws the onus back on them to prove that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism, rather than burdening us with proving that it is.

Is this intellectually fair? No. Of course it’s not. But intellectual fairness went out the Overton window in this battle long, long ago. We kept fighting on a fair playing field. They abandoned all pretense of honesty, legitimacy, antiracism and fairness.

And they’re winning.

In my next post, on Wednesday, I will share a real-world example unfolding in Canada right now that shows where we end up when we allow bigots to set the rules of engagement.

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