Antisemitism as World Cultural Heritage

The obsession with Israel unites a pathological world

Ever since I first came into contact with the strange species of the “anti-Zionist intellectual”, I was confronted with a logical dilemma: if the critique of Israel is not automatically antisemitic, as these tenured radicals often told me, how, given that, reversely, all antisemites are staunch critics of Israel, are we supposed to tell the difference? On the basis of what criteria would a Venn diagram have to put anti-Zionists and antisemites in two separate circles? First, “Israel the state” and “the current Israeli government” are not the same, but the anti-Zionist faction would hardly limit themselves to a criticism of the latter. After all, “Zionism” is the idea of a Jewish state in a general sense, a state where Jews live in protection and “are given the chance to prosper”, as Theodor Herzl would have it. Anti-Zionists, per definitionem, don’t like the idea of a Jewish state per se. And antisemites don’t like it much either. Insofar as the history of the past two millennia taught us that Jews are fair game – not just in Europe, in the Soviet Union, or the Middle East – we could say that a Jewish state would be protective of Jews, at least in theory. We can also say that the opposition against a Jewish state equals the opposition against the idea for Jews to live in relative peace and security.

In other words: unless I have a meaningful criterion of difference between anti-Zionist and antisemite, I pretty much assume that what is fancifully called “anti-Zionism” is just leftie speak for antisemitism.

What has been increasingly fascinating to watch in the comments I received from some self-avowed anti-Zionists recently is how it manifests itself in the allegedly more subtle, seemingly innocuous: "oh, and just by the way, and on a totally unrelated note: do you happen to be Jewish?" Sometimes, naturally, the comments here are more aggressive, the predictability of which just bores me, but the subtle ones are truly fascinating. For the Ostensible Innocuousness^TM is the point. The psychoanalytical profile of an antisemite is telling here: feelings of subjective inferiority/omnipotence ascribed to the object of one’s desire (“those cunning Jews master everything”) incite feelings of helplessness, victimhood, and deep, bottomless rage. And yet, the antisemite knows he is not allowed to openly express his anger too publicly. That would be dégoutant. The poor antisemite must suppress his rage, investing all his energies into keeping the “tone” - though even that last bit of decency has been taunted. Aaron Maté is a case in point:

In that sense, in a recent job interview, the company’s boss – all sharply dressed in a grey silk suit - asked me in a perfectly calm and conversational tone, á propos of nothing: “Why is it that you are no longer allowed to criticize Israel?”

It's the grey silk suit, the casual, oh-by-the-way antisemitism that has become a cultural world heritage. There is a rather indicative 1930s anecdote, attributed to the inimitable Kurt Tucholsky:      

"The Jews are to blame for everything”, said one. “And the cyclists”, I said. “Why the cyclists?" he replied, puzzled. “Why the Jews?" I asked back.

After the Holocaust, when Germans wrung their hands in helpless gestures, and the word “Jew” was forbidden at the day care home that my parents sent me to as a kid – but I remember this vividly – it soon transpired that God damn, the Jews have won again, even if only in terms of moral authority. Decades ago, Hermann L. Gremliza, the last anti-German communist correctly stated that “the Germans will never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust”. There is only so much guilt you can carry before something twists. And blaming the Jews even for one’s own guilt certainly served as a collective valve to release the “nameless rage” that still haunts German self-perception today.

Hardly anyone, on the German scene at least, has identified this better than political commentator Henryk M. Broder, enfant terrible both of the left and the right: “That the Jews are to blame for everything is part of the folklore of everyday life, not because it is so, not even because it could be so, but because it has been presented that way for 2000 years. Any rumour that circulates long enough will eventually become a fact.”[1]

It is as though through the Covid and inflation years, when, globally, ordinary people were confronted with more urgent questions than whether Zionism is the scourge of mankind, left-wing anti-Zionist rage (and there really is only left-wing anti-Zionism) has been suppressed for the longest time. It might have been that, came Covid, many on the left found themselves out of their depth, not in their area of expertise. But since Oct 7^th, anti-imperialist Palestine solidarity committees, student flash mobs, and Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib could finally get back to business as usual: their obsession with Israel. Now on speed. After all, suppressed rage is always looking for a valve, and the longer you suppress it, the more violently it seeks for a way out. Broder:

Millions of people in Europe, the USA, South America, Asia and Africa are taking to the streets to protest against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Essen, where a caliphate was proclaimed on the occasion, in London, Paris, Madrid and Malmö, in New York and Washington, in Cape Town, Delhi and Jakarta. They are calling for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea". What they overlook, if they ever knew it, is that the territory of historical Palestine also includes today's Jordan, in which Palestinians form the state people. In other words, a Palestinian state already exists, which would only have to be renamed - certainly easier than wiping Israel off the map. But that is exactly the point: Israel must go!

The actual reason for Israel's military action is being courageously minimised by the protestors: the Hamas attack on Israel, in which around 1,500 - wait, so much empathy is needed! - "innocent civilians" were killed, "bestially", i.e. by hand.

The German situation, Broder points out, is especially uncanny:

In Germany, where Israel's security is seen as part of the raison d'être of the state, people stand perplexed and marvelling at the ruins of the policy of selective perception. How could it come to this, that young people trained in diversity march in front of the Foreign Office and shout revisionist slogans in English so that they are not mistaken for stupid neo-Nazis? "Free Palestine from German guilt!", in plain language: "Let Israel fall!"

Aren't we told every day that there is "no place for anti-Semitism in Germany"? All this happens while Jewish institutions - schools, daycare centres, retirement homes, synagogues and now even the Holocaust memorial - must be protected like fortresses. But from whom, actually? Catholic scouts, Protestant allotment gardeners, Rhineland carnival jesters?

Meanwhile, the biggest concern of German politicians, think tank pundits and left-wing NGO leaders is that “imported”, i.e. Islamic antisemitism could be blamed as accomplice in rising, um, antisemitism. After all, once Social Democrat Nancy Faeser’s plans to hand out German citizenship to anyone crossing the country border materialize, the government has a vital interest in keeping good relations with the new citizens. This cannot be tainted with the notion of “imported antisemitism”, even if explicit neo-Nazi attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions gone down to as much as zero.

In any case, any suspicion that the protests at which a spontaneous Caliphate had been proclaimed have anything to do with Islam has to be stifled, because, I assume, the proclamation of a Caliphate might have equally taken place at a Palatinate Whitsun procession.

The question of how exactly an “appropriate response” to the 10/07 pogrom should have looked like as to not be portayed as “committing genocide” is not inessential (the contest is open). More interesting is the tacit invitation to question Jewish historical reactions more generally. In retrospect: Did the Jews react appropriately to the Holocaust by founding Israel? Or did they already completely overreact back then? Broder:

I fear that anything less than an unconditional surrender combined with an immediate handover of the keys to Hamas would have been "unacceptable" to the great defenders of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations, to Putin, Erdogan, Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, who addressed the world with a simple message: Just "because Hamas committed an act of terror against Israel, Israel does not have to kill millions of innocent people".

Today, Israel is "the Jew among states", as the French philosopher Leon Poliakov once put it. In the course of globalisation, anti-Semitism has established itself as a world cultural heritage site, like the cathedral in Speyer, the old town of Quedlinburg and the Zollverein colliery in Essen. The latest product of scientifically dressed-up global anti-Semitism is the narrative of Israel as the last project of colonialism that has survived decolonisation.

And though my recent experience has taught me that the most unlikely scenario can turn to reality, I agree with Broder that

it is only a matter of time before 7 October is declared World Heritage Day by some UN organisation, preferably Unesco.

I’m not great at painting optimistic pictures.

What I have to offer may be naïve, perhaps childish, but I feel I must come forward with something (it’s Christmas, after all).

Would not a more optimistic image of the future be one where we would simply be a little less emotionally invested in the other? Be a little more indifferent, care a little less about this specific country you probably have never even been to. This would include a little more indifference to any “anti-X-ism” – in yourself and others. Perhaps, once we stop defining ourselves via our enemies, there is a chance this and a lot of the divisive territory we have slid into over the past three years can finally become a thing of the past.

I wish everyone, including my anti-Zionist readers, happy holidays.

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[1] https://www.welt.de/debatte/plus248407122/Antisemitismus-Warum-er-zum-Weltkulturerbe-gehoert.html?icid=search.product.onsitesearch