Since October 7th, zionist forces have murdered approximately 30,000 Palestinians, including 10,000 children, have dispossessed millions from their homes, and are using starvation, thirst, and disease as weapons. The IOF has systematically targeted Gaza’s medical infrastructure, its electricity, and its internet and zionist settlers, in coordination with zionist military forces, have been carrying out pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank. The horrors that the zionists are unleashing against the Palestinians are completely incomprehensible yet throughout white euro-america, there is a non-stop stream of articles, news segments, hearings, and state and federal bills focused on antisemitism. This is intentional.
In fact, this is one of the principal mechanisms by which the anti/philosemitic white euro-american world provides narrative support for zionism. Whenever the zionist project carries out one of its vicious and frequent campaigns of violence against the Palestinians, the white euro-american world demands we focus on antisemitism. A myriad of fraudulent zionist “anti-antisemitism” organizations have popped up throughout white euro-america to defend the zionist entity in this way. According to these organizations, reporting on or protesting the violence of zionism presents a threat to Jewish people which should be treated as the most pressing concern. The refusal to play into these antics and condemn antisemitism is itself condemned as antisemitism, ensuring that antisemitism is always the focus.
To be clear, the public figures and institutions making use of these rhetorical tools are interested not in combating antisemitism but in policing the terrain of scrutiny that so-called Israel faces. By accusing people who report on or oppose zionist actions of antisemitism, zionists are able to effectively turn conversations about zionism and its crimes into conversations about whether the reporting or public scrutiny was antisemitic.
Amidst the relentless anti/philosemitic zionist propaganda efforts to center antisemitism (not to mention the fact that the people directly carrying out the genocide claim doing so is itself ‘fighting antisemitism’) there are ‘allies,’ ‘non-zionists,’ and even some ‘anti-zionists,’ who make sure to condemn antisemitism too, and call on you to join them. Unfortunately, no matter how nuanced your take, ‘condemning antisemitism’ amidst this ongoing zionist genocide is a role in the zionist genocide that the anti/philosemitic zionist forces are happy for you to play.
Contending with the Reality of Anti/Philosemitism
Throughout white euro-america, antisemitic sentiment is pervasive. Though, this is not a recent development and has absolutely nothing to do with the growth of support and mobilization for Palestine. Instead, antisemitic sentiment is so pervasive because it has been baked into the hegemonic post-Holocaust white euro-american identity, and its racist and colonial institutions, for decades, through philosemitism. Houria Bouteldja states that philosemitism developed after the Holocaust to:
Soothe the whites’ conscience and turn the Shoah into a new « civil religion » by stripping it off all of its historicity. Commemorating the Shoah equals, in a way, to a full and final settlement of all claims. The state pays its debt to the Jews and buys a new moral probity. But in doing so, it generates a memorial discrimination, since, while using the memory of the genocide of the Jews as a political tool, it conceals the memory of the slave trade — which upsets the Afro-West Indian communities -, it conceals the memory of colonisation — which upsets the Muslim-Arab and the African communities -, it conceals the memory of the genocide of the Roma — which upsets the Roma community- and brings about resentment against the Jews who are rightly considered as the « sweethearts of the Republic ».
Through philosemitism, white euro-america keeps the nazi project intact- both ideologically and materially. Philosemitism maintains the status of Jews as a perpetual ‘other’ and turns Jewish people into ideas which symbolically represent white euro-america’s commitment to fighting racism, as Alana Lentin demonstrates in Why Race Still Matters. Through philosemitism, white euro-america also appoints itself the world’s ‘Jew defenders’ and makes use of those abstracted ‘Jews’ as justification for racist colonial policy decisions and imperialist military campaigns.
A perfect example of philosemitism is how Joe Biden has claimed numerous times throughout his political career “were there not an Israel, the u.s. would have to go in and invent an Israel to protect [u.s.] interests in the region.” Clearly, the fact that so-called Israel is “the Jewish state” does not factor into Biden’s support for the project, as he supports the colonial project due to its clear alignment with ‘u.s.’ imperialist interests. That Biden speaks about so-called israel as “The Jewish state” and claims to support it because of that marks the philosemitism- he would support a white euro-american settler-colony in Palestine if it weren’t related to Jews in any way. But because it is politically advantageous to narratively route his support for imperialism and colonialism through Jews, he does so.
Philosemitism represents not a shift away from or abandonment of nazism but its post-Holocaust evolution and this could not be more obvious today. Consider how Biden has stated multiple times since October 7th “without Israel there’s not a Jew in the world who is safe.” This is a clear threat: Jews are not ‘us’ but ‘them’ and white euro-american ‘tolerance’ for Jewish existence depends on the political value Jews provide.
It is obvious that philosemitism is, at its core, a deeply antisemitic project which must be dismantled, along with the entire white supremacist colonial world that upholds it. To do this we must contend with philosemitism and its narrative maneuvering. The philosemitic zionist forces, which produce antisemitism, employ narratively centering antisemitism as a strategy to protect the zionist project in general and enable this genocidal campaign in particular.
As a result, condemnations of antisemitism, no matter how nuanced, amidst the ongoing zionist genocide, function not to disrupt the anti/philosemitic project but to further entrench it. In other words: there is no mechanism by which condemning antisemitism leads to less antisemitism in a hegemonically anti/philosemitic society.
This applies to condemnations of antisemitism that are not philosemitic in nature as well, such as condemnations of the opportunistic antisemites seeking to launder antisemitic ideology through posts about the current genocidal zionist campaign, both for and against it. A host of fascist white-supremacist antisemites, such as Jake Shields, Lucas Gage, and the anonymous account “Stop Zionist Hate,” have garnered popularity since October 7th doing exactly that. I understand the impulse to denounce and condemn these fascist antisemites but, unfortunately, doing so does not bring us any closer to a world without antisemitism. This is not a matter of condemnations not working in general, but of the fact that centering antisemitism, not anti-colonialism, is one of the goals of anti/philosemitism.
Stopping the zionist genocide of the Palestinians and dismantling the zionist project must be our number one priority. We must wholeheartedly support the anti-zionist resistance that is currently fighting the genocidal zionist forces. This is true for no other reason than that genocide is despicable and those carrying it out must be held accountable. In recognizing that it is the white euro-american colonial/imperialist world that produces anti/philosemitism, and that calls on us now to center antisemitism, we must refuse to heed their call. Destroying the zionist project, and the white-supremacist colonial world that maintains it, is the only path towards a world without antisemitism, not condemnations.
