Does Academic Freedom Protect Antisemitism?

The examples listed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism suggests that some political views common in humanities and social science disciplines are antisemitic. In some disciplines, these views are well estab­lished in both teaching and publication. Yet the American Association of University Pro­fessors has long used prevailing disciplinary views as a guide to which faculty statements cannot be sanctioned. What should universities do when not just individual faculty, but entire disciplines have been captured by radical antizionism, when students are taught that Israel has no moral legitimacy and must be eliminated? How should personnel decisions be affected? Should this evolving situation lead us to rethink the relationship between advo­cacy and indoctrination? Can universities keep the search for the truth at the core of their mission in the wake of disciplinary solidarity behind antisemitism?

How the Word “Zionist” Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary

This paper is a partial response to the intuitive claim that hostility to “Zionists” is not hostility to Jews and so is not antisemitic. It examines ways in which the terms “Zionist” and “Zionism” themselves feature in antisemitic text and discourse. It argues that antisem­itism should be understood as a complex phenomenon that is observable in the social world only with some difficulty, and that understanding should begin in a consideration of that observation data. This paper is critical of the opposite method, which sees the observ­able world only through pre-existing a priori concepts; an example of this is the construction of the concept of Zionism as essentially racist. This method treats observable phenomena, like racism, as inevitable manifestations of the predetermined concept, Zionism. Zionism, and its relationship to racism, should be understood after observing their actuality in the world, not as a priori definitions, which then structure what is observed. Much under­standing of Zionism therefore adds a methodological double standard to the double stan­dards of judgment, which have already been well described. The paper draws on a number of case studies, that is, actualizations of Zionism and antisemitism in the existing world: the opposition to David Unterhalter’s nomination to the Constitution Court in South Africa; the antizionist construction of Zionism as racism without the consent or the col­laboration of people who self-identify as Zionists; statements circulating in academia that define the communities of scholarship and of morality in ways that exclude most Jews; the designation of Israel as apartheid. The paper concludes with a word on how antizionist nostalgia resists facing the material changes to Jewish life, which were enforced during the twentieth century.

In the House of the Hangman One should not Mention the Noose: Jewish Voice for Labour’s Attack on the Equality and Human Rights Commission

In May 2021 Jewish Voice for Labour (“JVL”) published a combative document entitled How the EHRC Got It So Wrong-Antisemitism and the Labour Party. The document criti­cises the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s October 2020 Report of its investiga­tion into antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Commission found the Labour Party responsible for antisemitic conduct giving rise to several unlawful acts in breach of the Equality Act 2010. In addition to its legal findings, it also made critical factual findings, identifying a culture of acceptance of antisemitism in the Labour Party, which suffered from serious failings in leadership, where the failure to tackle antisemitism more effectively was probably a matter of choice. The essence of JVL’s attack on the Commission’s Report is as follows. First, it is said that the Commission did not and could not lawfully investigate antisemitism as such; to the extent that it purported to do so, its findings of unlawfulness are purportedly meaningless. Secondly, JVL claims that the Commission made no finding of institutional antisemitism. Thirdly, by failing to require production of evidence referred to in a certain leaked report, probably prepared by Labour Party officials loyal to Jeremy Corbyn, the Commission is accused of nullifying at a stroke the value of its own Report as a factual account. Fourthly, JVL claims the Commission’s Report is not just legally unten­able, but purportedly a threat to democracy. Finally, JVL claims the Commission’s analysis was not just wrong, but that it exercised its statutory powers in bad faith. This article offers a response to each of the five pillars of JVL’s attack, all of which collapse under scrutiny. As to the first pillar, the article identifies the disappearing of antisemitism as the linchpin of JVL’s argument and shows how JVL’s criticism is underpinned by a political epistemology of antisemitism denialism. As to the second pillar, it shows that the absence of the term “institutional antisemitism” in the Commission’s Report is a semantic quibble. In sub­stance, the Commission found that the conduct under investigation amounted to institu­tional antisemitism. As to the third, the article demonstrates that JVL’s complaint about the Commission’s failure to call for production of the leaked report is perverse because that report constitutes an admission of the correctness of the complaints put before it. More­over, the Corbyn-led Labour Party itself decided that it did not want the Commission to consider that material. As to the fourth pillar, the article shows that far from being a threat to democracy, the Commission’s Report grasps the nettle of antisemitism denial. It con­cludes that continuing to assume and assert that Jews raising concerns about antisemitism are lying for nefarious ends may itself be, and in at least two cases was, a form of unlawful anti-Jewish harassment. As to the fifth, the article rebuts the extraordinary charge that the Commission exercised its powers in bad faith. Rather strikingly, neither JVL nor Jeremy Corbyn was willing to take the Commission on judicial review. The article concludes by considering how the poverty of JVL’s reasoning, coupled with the extravagance of its accu­sations, invites a symptomatic reading of Antisemitism and the Labour Party as a disap­pointing illustration of left-wing melancholia.

The Palestinian Flag as a Tool of Oppression

The outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in May 2021 encouraged a wave of protests against Israel’s actions across the United Kingdom. What was the explicit and implicit meaning of these protests, what was their impact and what can they tell us about antizionist antisemitism? This paper assesses the way the signifiers of the pro-Palestinian movement convey aggressive antisemitic meanings across a range of platforms, not only causing significant distress to Jewish communities but also misrepresenting a complex con­flict, which, in turn, hampers the prospects of a workable peaceful solution.