It’s President Biden speaking. His suit is illuminated by a row of blue lights and the flickering candles of a freshly-lit menorah. The crowd in front of him, dotted with yarmulkes, holds their recording cellphones above their heads, hoping to immortalize the moment.
“Folks, were there no Israel, there would not be a Jew in the world who is safe.”
The Jewish attendees at the White House’s Hanukah reception erupt in cheers. The president’s honesty is matched only by the crowd’s shamelessness. A few sentences later, Biden condemns the ‘sickness’ of ‘surging antisemitism.’
If those of us in the imperial core want any chance of victory in the struggle against global fascism, colonialism and white supremacy, and if we truly want to fight for Palestinian liberation and an end to the zionist genocide, the white euro-american left needs to move on from its century old understanding of antisemitism and make combating philosemitism a core component of the anti-fascist struggle.
The Antisemites are Fighting Antisemitism: Part 1
Biden is an antisemite. But Biden is not just an antisemite. He is a philosemite too. He knows this. The crowd knows this. And they are both quite happy with the arrangement.
Not to be confused with ‘the opposite of antisemitism,’ philosemitism is the basis of post-Holocaust white euro-american identity formation vis-à-vis treatment of the Jews, where white euro-america resurrects itself as the “protector of Jews.” Through defining itself as a society that has ‘defeated antisemitism’, always proclaiming its commitment to fight antisemitism, and defining other societies (and oppressed groups within white euro-america) as producers of antisemitism, white euro-america absolves itself for its past (and present and future) crimes and creates justification for its various colonial and imperialist projects, now in the name of the Jews. Houria Boutledja perfectly explains how this plays out, in State racism(s) and philosemitism or how to politicize the issue of antiracism in France. According to her, philosemitism serves 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 ».
Philosemitism represents not a shift away from or abandonment of nazism but its post-Holocaust evolution. Both antisemitism and philosemitism work by maintaining the status of Jews as a perpetual “other,” against which white euro-america defines itself. And it is this perpetual ‘other’ status that makes the growth of violent antisemitism -for example, via conspiracy theories- not just possible but inevitable. In other words, philosemitism is built upon and invariably produces antisemitism; philosemitism cannot exist without antisemitism. and while not all antisemitism is philosemitic in nature, all philosemitism is antisemitic.
In On the Dangers of ‘Fighting Antisemitism,’ I describe how the shift in white euro-america from hegemonic antisemitism to hegemonic philosemitism has created a dynamic where “fighting antisemitism” today does not refer to the act of protecting Jews or working towards a world that is safe for Jewish people but of pushing forward zionism in particular and global white supremacy in general. Understanding this, we can see why efforts to ‘fight antisemitism’ seem to always lead to increasingly unstable and unsafe realities for marginalized people.
For instance, “fighting antisemitism” has been invoked by those seeking to get rid of bail reform, by those seeking to cleanse their universities of Black, Brown, Arab, Indigenous, Muslim, and radical students and professors, by those seeking to give the police and military more money, by those seeking to put more cops in Black neighborhoods, and by those seeking to rationalize and justify imperialist military campaigns. ‘Fighting antisemitism’ has been invoked by those working to shut down left-leaning political campaigns, by those pushing for censorship of radical and leftist political expression in general and by those pushing for an expansion of racist border policies. “Fighting antisemitism” has also, for the past 8 months, and 75 years, been invoked to justify, to enable, and to participate in the colonial fascist zionist genocide in Palestine.
It is impossible to understand the position of Jews today without understanding how antisemitism intersects and works in concert with philosemitic zionism. A perfect example of how philosemitism functions within white euro-america 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.” According to Biden, “Israel” is “the best 3 billion dollar investment” [the u.s.] makes. 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 and would support a white euro-american settler-colony in Palestine whether it was ‘Jewish’ or not. But because it is politically advantageous to narratively route his support for imperialism and colonialism through Jews, he does so. Biden knows this. The crowd knows this. And they are both quite happy with the arrangement.
Biden appreciates the carte blanche that ‘fighting antisemitism’ grants him to wage genocidal war on Palestine and the entire Muslim and Arab world, to bolster the surveillance and policing apparatus in the so-called u.s., and to violently crackdown on radical and dissident political organizing.
The crowd appreciates the “unshakeable” political security granted to them (by the very same colonial and imperialist states responsible for creating antisemitism — for nurturing the growth of fascism and keeping its heart beating, for enabling and carrying out the Holocaust, for turning away boats of Jewish refugees escaping it, for protecting and integrating prominent members of nazi leadership into political and scientific roles, and for laundering the nazis’ image via revisionist holocaust education and double genocide theory) in the form of a Jewish fascist colonial settler-colony and the promise of relentless police repression against the movement opposing it.
All throughout the world, those who claim most ardently to ‘fight antisemitism’ are philosemites upholding the systems that make antisemitism possible (via reinforcing global colonial white supremacy, bolstering the anti-Black and Islamophobic police and surveillance apparatus, peddling eugenics, transphobia, xenophobia, anti-communism and sinophobia, and maintaining the status of Jews as perpetual ‘other’).
Philosemitism is the hegemonic position throughout basically all of white euro-america and is animating a resurgence in far-right politics. It can be seen in Germany’s attempts to offload its history of antisemitism to its Arab, Muslim, and Immigrant populations, pretending that surveilling, harassing, and arresting them is ‘fighting antisemitism.’ It can be seen in canadian parliament giving a standing ovation to a waffen SS soldier while warning of the ‘antisemitic threat’ of college students organizing against zionist genocide. It can be seen in Spain’s far-right Vox party chanting “Viva España! Viva Israel” at its rally which paid host to France’s Le Pen and Hungary’s Orbán. It can be seen in the Islamophobic Hindutva movement in India and its arms relationship with israel. And it can be seen in the white euro-american leaders calling the zionist genocide a ‘fight for western civilization.
The White House Hanukah reception is, in a certain sense, the ultimate realization of Theodor Herzl’s dream. The man who predicted, decades before the founding of the zionist settler-colony, that “the anti-Semites will become [the zionist’s] most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries [our] allies,” would smile dearly upon the crowd of racist Jewish colonists, temporarily welcomed into the heart of white supremacist empire, cheering for a racist anti/philosemite doing everything in his power to enable the Jewish settler-colony’s racist genocide while always making sure to remind everyone that the crowd is Jewish and he is not.
Global Judaism is Fascist; Global Fascism is Philosemitic
The Jewish settler-colony is carrying out fascist colonial genocide with the support of basically every major international Jewish organization, basically every Jewish cultural, spiritual, communal institution, synagogue and local community center, and with the support of numerous prominent Jewish public figures and celebrities.
When I write ‘support,’ I am not just referring to ideological or propagandistic support (which would still be wrong) but material support for (and involvement in) fascist colonial genocide in Palestine and fascist political action all across white euro-america. Synagogues and Jewish charities are hosting fundraisers for military equipment for IOF soldiers. Chabadniks are setting up Chabad Houses and reciting Jewish prayers in the homes of the Palestinians they dispossessed from Gaza. Jewish celebrities like Jessica Seinfeld are donating money to fund violent fascist gang attacks, where zionist mobs yell “I hope they rape you,” spit on, shout anti-Black slurs at, and physically assault students protesting zionist genocide, sending multiple to the hospital. Jewish students at Columbia University are spraying pro-Palestine students with chemical weapons, with the support of Jewish professors. Groups of prominent Jewish billionaires and business executives are privately pressing NYC politicians to attack pro-Palestine student protests, even offering to hire ‘private investigators’ to help. Jewish organizations, like the ADL, are calling on the FBI to ramp up its surveillance and targeting of the pro-Palestine movement with even more repression.
By any honest assessment, whatever we may call ‘the Jewish community’ today is fascist. This is true both in assessing the world they hope to build and the tactics they are using to get there. The point in bringing this all up is not to argue that Jewish fascists are exceptional but that they are not. Jewish fascism represents one piece of a much larger resurgence in global fascist political thought and mobilization and for the Jewish fascist movement, the philosemitic fascist majority and the antisemitic fascist minority, anti/philosemitism is not a mere ‘side issue’ or ‘pet project’ but is a core component of contemporary fascist, racist, and nazi identity.
There are the non-Jewish philosemites like Joe Biden, Matt Goodwin and Douglas Murray who view zionism as an indispensable tool of global white supremacist hegemony and as a weapon to be used against the Black, Muslim, and Arab world. There are the fascists like Richard Spencer who, at one point, identified as a “white zionist” and tweeted out his support for “Israel’s” racist ‘nation-state law,’ claiming it showed “a path forward for europeans.” There are the non-philosemitic, purely antisemitic, fascists like David Duke and Lucas Gage, who openly praise hitler and who oppose zionism because they believe it is Jews controlling white people, against white people’s interests.
The various factions of global white supremacy work together and benefit from the existence of the other. The Jewish fascists and non-Jewish philosemitic fascists use the existence of the purely antisemitic fascists to try to bolster the police and surveillance apparatus, legally codify zionist ‘antisemitism’ definitions, and make rhetorical connections to the anti-zionist movement. The purely antisemitic fascists use these efforts as proof that the world is secretly ruled by Jews. This cycle repeats endlessly.
The seeming ‘disagreements’ or contradictions that exist within elements of the global fascist project are, for lack of a better word, just skin deep. They all want to preserve and protect the white supremacist world. They all fundamentally agree with the 14 words. They all believe in the nazi project of ‘western civilization.’
The White Anti-Fascists are Philosemitic too
While the necessity for genuine anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggle in the imperial core today could not be any clearer, the white euro-american left is largely failing, relying on the same set of tactics, which are based on the same set of assumptions, that have failed us spectacularly for decades. In Fascism & Anti-Fascism, Don Hamerquist rightly points out that “most of the U.S. left operates on the unstated assumption that in any competition with fascists for popular support we win by default.” Although absolutely a factor, I do not believe the white left’s failure to take seriously the urgency of anti-fascist struggle in response to zionist genocide is purely due to the misplaced belief Hamerquist describes.
Armed with the most superficial understanding of antisemitism and basically no understanding of philosemitism , the white euro-american left has largely spent the last 8 months fumbling through their statements in opposition to zionist genocide, either offering ‘both sides’ equivocations between genocidal colonizer and anti-fascist anti-colonial partisan, or even condemning the anti-zionist resistance entirely, pretending as if genocides magically end on their own or that our only response to them should be to wait until they are finished so we can begin the process of ‘commemorating the victims.’
Throughout much of the white euro-american left in general and the self-described ‘anti-fascist’ movement in particular, we hear quips like “if there’s a nazi at a table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 nazis” and “anytime, anyplace, punch a nazi in the face.” Then, a Jewish person sits at the table and white euro-american anti-fascists are forced to choose between philosemitism and anti-fascism. The white euro-american anti-fascists make their choice. Suddenly we should make distinctions about those at the table or should pay special attention to their sensitivities. Suddenly there’s a wrong time and a wrong place. Suddenly we must hold our fist, we must carefully choose our words. Suddenly a nazi is not a nazi.
The white euro-amereican left struggles here, because, the simple reality is that the call to truly end the zionist genocide and hold those who enabled it accountable for their actions, the call for an end to zionist colonization, and the call to seriously struggle against the global fascist movement, is, in part, a call for violence against (some) Jews.
Neither zionist genocide, colonization, or fascism, will be stopped by convincing those carrying it out that it is wrong or by ‘raising awareness.’ Zionist genocide and zionist colonization will be stopped on the battle field and through militant anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggle. As Fanon notes in The Wretched of the Earth, “National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.”
Hitler is Everywhere
In Confronting Fascism, J. Sakai argues that the left is still underestimating Hitler. While I agree, I would also offer one slight adjustment: it is not that Hitler is being underestimated, it is that his politics- his support for eugenics, anti-Blackness, colonialism, queerphobia, patriarchy, etc- are so normalized within white euro-america, that to chart a path forward requires a complete break with any semblance of ‘normal.’ When you seriously engage with what the politics of nazism are, how they are represented and defended in the world today, you realize that there are hitlers everywhere and there’s hardly a single table in white euro-america without a nazi.
For the white euro-americans who are benefiting from, rather than being targeted by, colonial fascist violence, it is much easier to simply ignore the threat and to continue benefiting from the safety and security of global colonialism. As a result, the white euro-american anti-fascist movement ends up not struggling against colonialism and fascism in a serious way but hyperfocusing on the most insignificant elements of it. We should do what we can to deplatform, doxx, and dismantle the Goyim Defense League- a neo-nazi organization which 99% of the world has never even heard of- but we should not pretend that they represent anywhere near the same level of fascist threat as biden, brian mast, greg abbot, eric adams, and the police in general.
Hamerquist, talks about this tendency, writing “at times the anti-fascist movement may win military victories, but these are often pyrrhic. While fascists may have been driven off the street in some situations, this is no ground for triumphalist claims if, as is often the case, fascist sentiment and organization keeps on growing in other forms. It is always possible that our “victories” are only part of a process of different fascist tendencies gaining ascendancy and working out new and possibly more effective tactics, ones that can minimize our impact.”
As Hamerquist argues, the problem is not militancy or confrontation with fascists- this is important work. The problem is that it is rarely directed towards the systems and figures which pose the most urgent fascist threat and which make fascism inevitable.
Césaire’s book Discourse on Colonialism is useful here:
I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.
The white euro-american left and its anti-fascist movement must recognize that there is no possible way to combat fascism today (or antisemitism) without shaking off the philosemitism that is stopping it from truly understanding what it means that zionism is a fascist colonial project and then being honest about what struggling against it entails. We must genuinely commit to destroying ‘western civilization.’
The Antisemites are Fighting Antisemitism: Part 2
The Palestinians didn’t get to choose the identity of those operating the drones that target them. They didn’t get to pick the religion of the people that showed up and violently dispossessed them from their homes. The anti-zionist resistance has been forced by the zionists to make a choice between militant resistance against genocidal fascism or death. Though constantly accused of antisemitism, the anti-zionist resistance is not hamstrung by philosemitism as the white left is. Or, it would be more accurate to say that the anti-zionist resistance doesn’t have the luxury of being philosemitic. While the zionists, the fascists, the anti/philosemites and much of the white euro-american left differentiate between Jew and non-Jew, the anti-zionist resistance only differentiates between nazi and non-nazi.
The anti-fascist anti-colonial struggle being waged by the anti-zionist resistance, against genocidal zionist colonialism, is piercing the heart of the systems of global white supremacy and ‘western civilization’ that have made philosemitism a core component of their identity. and it is these very systems that produce antisemitism in the first place. In this way, every booby trap set by the anti-zionist resistance which detonates under a tank on its way to raze a Palestinian neighborhood and every well-placed sniper shot brings us closer to a world without antisemitism.
This would be true whether the anti-zionist resistance cared or not, but I don’t think they refer to the zionist genocide being waged against them as the Nazi-Zionist War of Aggression by accident. They fully understand the global forces supporting the fascist colonial zionist project. The anti-zionist resistance is simply staying true to the principles of militant anti-fascism; it is honestly assessing who is sitting at the table of nazis and acting accordingly.
I don’t write this to generalize the anti-zionist struggle or as a vague and immaterial platitude. I don’t say this as an attempt to ‘grant legitimacy’ to the anti-zionist resistance or justify supporting the anti-zionist resistance by arguing that it ultimately benefits us or has ‘grander’ goals- the anti-zionist resistance doesn’t need my or any other white euro-american’s ‘permission’ or ‘approval’ to struggle against genocidal fascism.
For those of us in the imperial core who sincerely want to live in a world free of antisemitism, who want to effectively struggle against global fascism, We must contend with philosemitism and we must recognize that our primary goal must be to completely dismantle the systems that craft their identities on it. This is the only path forward. And this is the path the anti-zionist resistance is taking. In effect, it is those deemed ‘antisemites’ by the philosemitic white supremacist world that are fighting antisemitism. We must join them in this fight, celebrate their successes and mourn their martyrs, study their tactics and ideas, and do everything in our power to put an end to the zionist genocide.
