CST’s new report on antisemitic discourse analyses rhetoric, words and imagery around Jews and Jewish issues in mainstream British media and politics during 2007. Antisemitism warns of malaise, division and extremism within society as a whole. It is therefore a subject that should concern not only Jews, but all of us.
The report’s publication follows the urging of the 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, which noted the importance and complexity of antisemitic discourse. The government’s command response to the inquiry concurred, stating:
’The government shares the Jewish community’s concerns over recent manifestations of antisemitism. We are specifically concerned about significant indications that, unlike other forms of racism, antisemitism is being accepted within parts of society instead of being condemned. We are also aware that current rhetoric against Israel and Zionism…employs antisemitic motifs that are consistent with ancient forms of hatred against Jews.’
The report examines ‘antisemitic motifs’ and modern language about Jews, Zionists and Israel. This is complex, as blatant antisemitism – like all racism and bias – is largely taboo in public life. Nevertheless, antisemitism persistently adapts to contemporary conditions, with its prior shapes including religious, nationalist, economic, and racial-biological.
Most antisemitic motifs, however, remain premised upon the accusation of deicide; Jews bore group responsibility for having killed the son of God – an irrevocable act, requiring demonic power and inhuman intent. These notions of conspiratorial power distinguish antisemitism from other types of racism, which usually depict their targets as ignorant, primitive and savage.
Throughout the Middle Ages, these antisemitic motifs underpinned the separation of Jews from society, enforced by distinctive clothing, trade restrictions, ghettoes, pales of settlement and entry quotas into cities, professions and education. These restrictions returned under the Nazis, paving the way for the Holocaust. For many British Jews, the long history of unfair bias, isolation and (recent) destruction is the prism through which they see current attempts to boycott Israel. This could not be further from the professed aims of pro-boycotters, but it aptly shows how antisemitic resonance may be incited, even where it is unintentional.
To be clear, criticism – or even rank hatred – of Israel or Zionism is not necessarily antisemitic; and it is certainly not CST’s intention to brand those quoted in the report as antisemites. Rather, the report primarily explains why certain motifs, words and images bear an antisemitic resonance where none appears to have been intended.
Nevertheless, as the government’s command response acknowledged, this rhetoric retains its antisemitic punch; including social shunning, racist attacks, terrorism, deteriorating morale, and often a reflexive dismissal of Jewish concerns from those who should know better.
CST’s report also utilises brazen antisemitism to illustrate enduring motifs, including a 1962 [UK] National Socialist Movement leaflet entitled ‘Free Britain From Jewish Control’. This shows a Jew outside Parliament, carrying a sack of money and a whip fashioned in the £ symbol. He is whipping Labour, Conservative and Liberal leaders who lick and beg at his feet. The underlying motif, of alien Jewish financiers controlling party leaders, begs comparison with some modern depictions of pro-Israel lobbying in Britain and America, and with some coverage of Jews in Labour party funding controversies during 2007.
In 2003, veteran Labour MP, Tam Dalyell, was widely criticised for referring to ‘a cabal of Jewish advisers’ around Tony Blair. The late Paul Foot, however, wrote in the Guardian that Dalyell had been ‘wrong to complain about Jewish pressure on Blair and Bush when he means Zionist pressure’. The messaging was clear: simply substitute Zionist for Jew and your accusations will be both accurate and kosher.
Such sleight of hand encourages antisemitic parasites, but also risks concealing the warning bell that antisemitism should be ringing for the rest of society. Furthermore, where antisemitic propaganda was once underground, today the internet facilitates and normalises extreme discourse to a global (and young) audience. This phenomenon is penetrating mainstream media, as regularly witnessed in the blogging sections of daily newspapers.
It is sincerely hoped, therefore, that this report will aid our understanding of these partly concealed motifs and their transmission, and aid the struggle against antisemitism, racism and extremism.
The pdf of the report can be accessed via the publication section of CST’s website