Mick Hartley

An interview with Berlin-based Monika Schwarz-Friesel, "one of Europe’s most distinguished anti-Semitism researchers", at the Times of Israel:

Your book “Inside the anti-Semitic Mind” reviews over 15,000 letters, emails and other correspondence that have been addressed to Israeli embassies and Jewish institutions all over Europe. What do these correspondences reveal?

Many of these letters employ classical anti-Semitic stereotypes in order to abuse their addressees, while demonizing the state of Israel and Jews. Jews in general are blamed for alleged crimes by the State of Israel that is slurred as “a hypocritical terror regime, living of the blood of Palestinians,” or a nation of “child-eaters.” Zionism is being equated with racism and Israel is being called an “apartheid regime,” posing the greatest danger to world peace. Such ideas have nothing to do with the reality on the ground. Instead they reflect classic anti-Semitic stereotypes that have been with us for 2,000 years and that brand Jews as murderers and an omnipresent evil force in the world.

It is hard to believe that such views are prevalent in contemporary European mainstream discourse. Aren’t they just characteristic of uneducated, radical subgroups?

Unfortunately, no. The authors of the anti-Semitic letters that we reviewed included students, lawyers, journalists, doctors, priests, self-employed entrepreneurs, politicians and even university professors.

But still, people who address letters to Jewish institutions in order to condemn the State of Israel are not necessarily a representative sample of society.

True. However, other inquiries reveal the same anti-Semitic patterns as well in other domains, such as the social media and even in the quality press. In the framework of a new research project on anti-Semitism in the world wide web, supported by the German Research Foundation, I am currently reviewing Facebook posts and reader comments on articles in the quality media. What I am finding so far is a replication of the same anti-Semitic stereotypes. Israel and Jews are being portrayed as overly powerful and vengeful child murderers. Indeed, speaking for Germany, throughout the past 10 years, anti-Semitic content in comments on the internet and in letters to editors has almost tripled….

Most of the examples that you mention involve anti-Semitic demonizations of the State of Israel…

There is a global Israelization of anti-Semitic discourse. The articulation of traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes by projecting them onto Israel is by now the most dominant manifestation of modern Jew hatred.

But isn’t it difficult to distinguish such Israel-focused anti-Semitism without being liable to declaring all criticism of Israel per se to be anti-Semitic?

Not at all! Scientifically we can draw a very clear distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. We give many examples for both types in our book. Those who claim that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism cannot be distinguished do so in order to excuse or marginalize anti-Semitic views.

A lot of people express concerns that they would not be allowed to criticize Israel without being labeled as anti-Semites.

Yes. And remarkably, in the material that we reviewed, this concern is expressed exclusively by authors of letters that are actually anti-Semitic. None of the authors of the letters that criticized Israel without being anti-Semitic voiced any concerns that they could falsely be accused of Jew-hatred. It is the anti-Semites who actually commit the kind of false accusation which they claim to be a victim of, in order to deny their hatred of Jews. This implies a victim-perpetrator-inversion, which is a historically deep-rooted pattern in the standard repertoire of anti-Semitic constructions. Already in the 19th century anti-Semites accused Jews to use their alleged control over the media to censor and delegitimize anti-Jewish criticism.