The opposition to antisemitism has become a proxy for real antiracist commitments.
States actively engaged in repressing racialised people both at home — primarily Indigenous people in Australia — and internationally can declare themselves anti-racist via a declared opposition to antisemitism.
What the Palestinian-German scholar Anna Younes calls the “war on anti-Semitism” primarily targets people of colour, who are constituted as the “real racists” despite being the primary targets of state and institutional racism.
By constituting racism as “hate”, a discourse heavily promoted by Zionist groups such as the United States-based Anti Defamation League, racism is detached from the policies and practices of the state (for example Aboriginal deaths in custody, endemic health disparities leading to lower Aboriginal life expectancy, etc) and presented as a matter of attitudes, qualified by individuals’ perceptions.
The institutionalisation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism, which strongly relates antisemitism to criticisms of Israel or Zionism, means that Jews (or indeed non-Jews) who identify as Zionists can claim to be victims of antisemitism if their ideology is criticised.
The further attempt to establish Zionism as an identity rather than an ideological position works to nullify the separation between actual antisemitism — discrimination against Jews as Jews — which is almost non-existent in Australia (Jews do not face systemic disadvantage) and anti-Zionism, a political position that can be held by anyone (including thousands of Jews in Australia), a position which a greater number of people identify with since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in October 2023, which has led to the killing of around 680,000 Palestinians.
The attempt to institutionalise anti-antisemitism measures by universities and other public bodies should be seen as the imposition of mandatory Zionism.
By using instruments such as the Racial Discrimination Act or diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the effect is to punish legitimate criticisms of Israel and Zionism using antiracism.
This has insidious effects on the ability for these instruments to be used to redress actually existing systemic discrimination based on race in Australia.
[Alan Lentin is a Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University. This piece was first published on her substack.]