Philip Spencer - The shame of antisemitism on the left has a long, malign history
NB: As someone who is neither Jewish nor unaware of the gross violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, I find it significant that many comments by the leader of the British Labour Party (and others), refer to this as a matter that hurts Jewish sentiment. That it does - understandably - but surely all of us, not just persons of Jewish faith, should be offended by racial and communalist (in Indian terms) prejudice? Some years ago a nit-wit Indian restaurant owner used Hitler's name on his shop front; and an Indian advertising company did the same with Hitler images. Faced with criticism, they apologised for 'hurting Jewish sentiments' - 'hurt sentiment' is a typical phrase in Indian politics.
Many people are apparently so ignorant of the Nazi death camps (in which lacs of Romanis were also murdered, by the way) that they see it all through the lens of community only. Incidentally, here's some information on the ideological antecedents of India's ruling dispensation. Nazism was a criminal ideology, and its anti-Semitism an offence against humanity. These things cannot be reduced to a matter of Jewish sentiment. It is truly dismaying that persons who call themselves socialist should be so insensitive, ill-informed or infected by racial prejudice. DS
The current antisemitism
crisis on the left has not come out of nowhere. Instead, it has its
roots in a tradition on the left itself, which, at best, has always had
difficulty in responding swiftly to antisemitism and, at worst, excused or
condoned, even promoted it. It is not, of course, the only tradition on the
left, but unless we understand this history, we won’t get very far in resolving
today’s crisis. We need, above all, to
think about why some on the left have always seen Jews as a problem and why
they have helped the idea of a “Jewish Question” to re-emerge with such
potency. At root is the thought that if antisemitism exists, it must have
something to do with how Jews supposedly behave. That supposed behaviour may be
described in different ways – sometimes it has an economic character, sometimes
a social one, sometimes a political one. But what is common is the idea that
Jews are to blame for antisemitism and that to protest against
them is understandable, or even necessary.
This first became a
serious problem on the left in the late 19th century, as antisemitism first
became a political force in the modern world. Some on the left flirted with the
response that there might be something progressive about antisemitism: that it
was a kind of anti-capitalism, however crude, which could be harnessed to the
socialist cause. They also thought that philosemitism was more of a problem,
because it supposedly encouraged Jews to make too much of (or even fabricate)
antisemitism and to resist assimilation. One criticism of this approach at the
time was to call it the “socialism of fools”, a problematic formulation because
it suggested that antisemitism was still some kind of socialism.
As antisemitism was
radicalised by the Nazis – it no longer being enough to exclude Jews when they
should be wiped off the face of the Earth – this way of thinking made it
difficult for too many on the left to prioritise solidarity with Jews. Neither
the Social Democrats nor the Communists in Germany made opposition to
antisemitism a major issue, nor did the Resistance across Europe. The fear was
that to highlight the fight against antisemitism would alienate potential
supporters. This is not to ignore some wonderful examples of solidarity, though
the repeated invocations of Cable
Street can give a misleading picture. The Communist party soon
switched to loyally supporting the Hitler-Stalin pact, which effectively
delivered large numbers of Jews up to the Nazis… read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/shame-of-anitsemitism-on-left-has-long-malign-historysee also
