Antisemitism has been in the news rather a lot lately.
Diane Abbott has been accused of antisemitism for suggesting in a letter to the Observer that Jews have not suffered from racism to the same extent as black people because they are not so visibly distinctive. Currently she is suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party, pending an investigation.
And the Guardian has been accused of antisemitism for publishing a cartoon of Richard Sharp, the departing Chairman of the BBC, which exaggerated the Jewishness of his features in a manner reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.
‘Antisemitism’ means very different things to different people. Some have argued that Abbott’s letter was antisemitic because she appeared to suggest that there is a ‘hierarchy of racism’; others would say that her comments were not antisemitic because she said nothing directly to disparage Jewish people. Some have argued that the Guardian cartoon was antisemitic because it played into ‘antisemitic tropes’; others would say that cartoonists always exaggerate the features of the public figures they lampoon, it is their job.
There are endless arguments within Jewish organisations and in Jewish publications over the meaning of the term ‘antisemitism’. At one extreme are those who regard any condemnation of the State of Israel as ‘antisemitic’; at the other are those who argue that use of the term ‘antisemitism’ should be restricted to the verbal or physical abuse of Jewish people for being Jewish.
The Labour Party alone has four different Jewish groups which distinguish themselves by their competing definitions of antisemitism (Jewish Labour Movement, Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Against Antisemitism and Socialists Against Antisemitism). Shades of the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
This lack of clarity over the definition of antisemitism has enabled people to exploit the term for political ends: what I have described in previous articles for the Daily Sceptic as the ‘weaponisation’ of antisemitism.
In January, I wrote about the smearing of Andrew Bridgen MP by Matt Hancock in the House of Commons as ‘antisemitic’ for having tweeted that the Covid vaccine programme was “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”. I described the smear as “patently ludicrous… part of a concerted campaign to ‘weaponise’ antisemitism, to use antisemitism as a cudgel with which to beat anyone who speaks out against the Covid regime.”
In February, I wrote about an attack by the Guardian on GB News presenter Neil Oliver for “indulging conspiracy theories… spreading ideas linked to antisemitism”. Oliver had referred in his programme to a “silent war” against the British people and to plans to impose a “one-world Government”, which supposedly echoed ‘antisemitic tropes’. I argued that these accusations were “so flimsy that they’re hardly worth rebutting“, and that they had been inspired by Mark Steyn’s recent departure from GB News: the Guardian sensed weakness and was looking to cause further trouble for a conservative broadcaster.
Now a similar line of attack has been used to persuade Fox News to sack its leading presenter, Tucker Carlson.
Many theories have been put forward by commentators to account for Carlson’s dismissal, such as his criticism of the conduct of the war in Ukraine, his revelation of what happened at the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and his discussion of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the broadcast media.
Some or all of these likely played a part in persuading Fox News to sack Carlson.
But another explanation is to be found in the persistent campaign for Carlson’s dismissal conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The ADL was established in 1913 in the aftermath of the lynching in Georgia of a young Jewish man called Leo Frank after he had been convicted of the murder of a local girl – widely considered to be a travesty of justice – and the state Governor had commuted his sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment.
The ADL has campaigned tirelessly against antisemitism for more than a century. It is much better funded and more influential than comparable organisations in other countries (such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism here in the U.K.).
The ADL has often been accused of exaggerating the extent of antisemitism to persuade people to give it more money, but it used to keep focused on combating hostility to Jewish people (and to the State of Israel).
Then in 2015 the ADL appointed as its Director Jonathan Greenblatt, who had previously worked as Special Assistant to President Obama.
Greenblatt’s appointment was a controversial one: he has been accused in many quarters both of politicising the ADL in a pro-Democrat direction and of stretching the definition of ‘antisemitism’ to encompass the entire ‘progressive’ agenda. According to his detractors, anything that Greenblatt disapproves of, he condemns as ‘antisemitic’ – whether it actually has anything to do with antisemitism or not.
Greenblatt was never going to be a supporter of Tucker Carlson, who has been an outspoken critic of both the Democratic Party and the ‘progressive’ agenda. Greenblatt was particularly riled when Carlson started talking two years ago about the ‘Great Replacement Theory’, the notion that the Democratic administration is promoting the immigration of large numbers of people from developing countries because they are more likely to vote Democrat.
In April 2021 Greenblatt wrote to Suzanne Scott, the Chief Executive of Fox News, calling for her to sack Carlson, on the grounds that “the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ is a classic white supremacist trope that undergirds the modern white supremacist movement in America. … This is not legitimate political discourse. It is dangerous race-baiting, extreme rhetoric.”
Greenblatt also spoke to a meeting of the World Federation of Advertisers calling on its members to boycott Fox News on account of Carlson’s “promotion of the antisemitic replacement theory”.
In September 2021 Greenblatt renewed his call for Carlson to be fired, stating that “for Tucker Carlson to spread the toxic antisemitic and xenophobic ‘Great Replacement Theory’ is a repugnant and dangerous abuse of his platform.”
Carlson heard about this second attack live on air from his former colleague, Megyn Kelly, who asked him how he felt when “sure enough, the ADL comes after you”.
“The ADL?” Carlson replied. “Fuck them.” He continued:
The ADL was such a noble organisation that had a very specific goal, which was to fight antisemitism, that’s a virtuous goal. I think they were pretty successful over the years. Now it’s operated by a guy who’s just an apparatchik of the Democratic Party.
It’s very corrosive for someone to take the residual moral weight of an organisation that he inherited and use it for partisan ends.
The Great Replacement Theory is in fact not a theory, it’s something that the Democrats brag about constantly.
The problem Carlson has faced in talking about the Great Replacement Theory is that it has also been cited by people who have carried out antisemitic and other racist hate crimes. In May 2022 a white supremacist shot and killed 10 people in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood of Buffalo, New York. He cited the Great Replacement Theory as the reason for his attack, and claimed that “the Jews” were behind it.
The shooter never mentioned Carlson, and he expressed hatred for Fox News. But this did not stop the ADL from making the link. Greenblatt issued a statement that “the individual who allegedly carried out this attack was heavily influenced by white supremacist ideology, including the virulently antisemitic and racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory. … More must be done – now – to push back against the racist and antisemitic violence propounded by the far Right.”
On April 24th this year, as soon as Carlson’s departure from Fox News was announced, Greenblatt danced on his grave, posting on Twitter that:
It’s about time. For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LBGTQ hate to millions. @ADL has long called for his firing for this and many other offenses, including spreading the Great Replacement Theory.
The criticism of Carlson in connection with the Great Replacement Theory is an example of what the Germans call ‘contact guilt’ (Kontaktschuld, similar to ‘guilt by association’). Carlson has talked about the Great Replacement Theory, and so have bad people who hate Jews. So Carlson is somehow associated with these bad people.
The Jewish Chronicle published an article celebrating Carlson’s departure from Fox News in which it criticised him for discussing the Great Replacement Theory, which it said had also been cited by people responsible for antisemitic violence, while adding a caveat that “Carlson has never been found to have directly advocated violence against Jews”.
Well, exactly. Carlson has never said anything antisemitic. That notion comes entirely from his critics.
The Guardian argued that Carlson was actually a “fascist” and that, although he had been “careful to avoid explicitly antisemitic statements”, his “antisemitism” was “clearly dog-whistled”.
The American Jewish magazine the Forward also accused Carlson of “promoting antisemitic dog whistles”, adding that Carlson’s refences to the Great Replacement Theory were “always just veiled enough to maintain plausible deniability against accusations of antisemitism”.
‘Dog-whistle antisemitism’ refers to the use of coded language that is apparently intended to be understandable to antisemites but not to anyone else. Just like ultrasonic dog whistles which are audible to dogs but not to people. Anyone can be accused of ‘dog-whistle antisemitism’, because it doesn’t require any actual evidence of antisemitism, and is therefore an accusation against which it is impossible to defend oneself.
We are now in a situation in which the definition of antisemitism has been widened so far as to be almost meaningless. As was pointed out by fellow GB News contributor Dominique Samuels after the Guardian’s attack on Neil Oliver, “if everything is antisemitic, then nothing is”. The real problem of antisemitic abuse and violence gets buried under a mountain of gobbledegook.
And because almost anything can be described as antisemitic, the accusation of antisemitism can be weaponised against any political opponent who contradicts the officially sanctioned narrative, even though he or she has said nothing about Jews at all.
As Oliver pointed out to James Delingpole, nobody complains when people on the other side of the argument, such as Klaus Schwab and Ursula von der Leyen, talk about one-world Government. They are not accused of being antisemitic, yet as soon as a sceptic mentions globalism or one-world Government, the accusations of antisemitism begin. “Just Kafkaesque nonsense,” said Oliver.
It could even be argued that Diane Abbott has suffered in a similar way. Far be it from me to defend Abbott, who by denying the Jewish experience of racism showed an apparent ignorance of the concerns of the very large population of ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews in her own constituency – the ones who dress out of 18th-century Lithuania – who are subjected to racist abuse on a daily basis.
But there is an argument to be made that the majority of Jews today do not suffer from racism in the same way as blacks because they do not stand out so conspicuously. Whether or not one agrees with this argument, it is not clearly not beyond the bounds of civilised debate – though Abbott made it very poorly in her letter to the Observer.
Why, one might wonder, was Abbott suddenly excommunicated from the parliamentary Labour Party following her letter, despite having apologised (again badly expressed)? Was she suspended for reasons of morality? Or because the present Labour leadership saw an opportunity to rid itself of one of the last remaining high-profile supporters of Jeremy Corbyn? To this extent, one could argue that antisemitism was weaponised against Abbott too.
None of which serves the interests of Jewish people, whose welfare should surely be the focus of all discussions about antisemitism. Baroness Anderson, who as Ruth Smeeth was subject to a good deal of antisemitic abuse when she was a Labour MP under Corbyn’s leadership, was interviewed on GB News about Abbott’s suspension. “I’m tired of my identity being used as a political football,” Anderson said. “Suddenly from 2016 onwards, the only bit of my identity that seemed relevant for certain people was the fact I also happened to be Jewish.” I can see her point.
Andrew Barr is the founder of Jews for Justice, which campaigns for free speech and civil liberties from a Jewish perspective. The first public Jews for Justice debate will be held in North London on the evening of Monday May 22nd. Email here for more information.
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One thing often overlooked about Andrew Bridgen’s tweet is that he was quoting someone else. Also, Tucker Carlson’s entertaining of the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ is only insofar as political parties such as the Democrats – and New Labour in the UK – have never hidden their use of mass migration to increase the size of a left wing voter base – to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity.’ To the best of my knowledge, Tucker’s not advocated nor entertained any ‘White Genocide’ beliefs.
It appears the major reason for his ousting is his habit of offending the Republican ‘donor class’. And the easiest way to attack someone whose views one disagrees with is to claim he’s some sort of bigot in order to dehumanise him and people who watch and listen to him. It also assumes that every single person who watches that person agrees 100 per cent with everything the commentator says, which is part of the problem with polarised politics.
Tucker Carlson is accused of many things by those who have declared themselves his enemy. Many of them never watch him and define him through hostile intermediaries. As I discussed elsewhere, there’s also a kneejerk tendency nowadays to assume the worst interpretation of something someone says. It’s the scenario of saying: ‘This morning I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.’ And the response being: ‘So you hate Jews!’ Usually, it’s just someone saying he had bacon and eggs for breakfast!!
Those who have attacked Bridgen haven’t overlooked the fact that he was quoting someone else (actually a Jewish/Israeli Medical Expert). They deliberately ignore it so they can deflect the subject matter; cancel someone who isn’t conforming with “the narrative” and send a clear warning to anyone else who might be considering speaking out.
They did exactly the same thing when Enoch Powell used a quote and historical reference, to challenge Establishment Policy and issue a warning.
It is the case that governments in many western European states, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have for decades been pursuing immigration and other policies that will have the effect of turning their white indigenous or founding populations into minorities.
Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan in action.
I’ve read the Guardian article about Carlson being a fascist and it’s amazing that people are willing to take this almost randomly seeming word salad as argument for or against anything. Pulling a prominent point out of that. The Guardian claims that Carlson said that
the real enemies of America are internal – racial minorities, doctors and politicians, professors and educators, and large corporations who shift jobs to other countries.
The text prior to that reports Carlson’s actual statements as
the real enemies of America are those who call white Americans racist, those who teach so-called critical race theory in schools, business elites who ship jobs abroad, and those who imposed Covid lockdowns on the United States.
Carlson obviously didn’t mention racial minorities at all. The Gnaudiar just constructed that: Everybody except people who believe in CRT are evil racists seeking to come after racial minorities (as CRT teaches). Hence, Carlson being anti-CRT means he’s an evil racist seeking to oppress racial minorities. And – as we all know – black people who disagree with CRT are just so-called white negroes, ie, race traitors unworthy of the colour of the skin they were born with.
More should really be written on this but for the moment, my ability to endure this aggressive unreason convinced that any obstacle can be overcome by motormouths babbling faster has come to an end.
“…Black people who disagree with CRT are just so-called white negroes, ie, race traitors unworthy of the colour of the skin they were born with.”
Choc ices, old chap, choc ices – which, along with gammon and anti-semitic tropes, are as I understand it forms of racism acceptable to the Guardian.
How can anyone read any msm in this day and age? Full of blatant lies, negligible reporting and dangerous reporting. The guardian really is not worth the paper it is written on. Dig deeper find other sources of information.
“at the other are those who argue that use of the term ‘antisemitism’ should be restricted to the verbal or physical abuse of Jewish people for being Jewish.”
That’s the only definition of racism that makes much sense to me.
As I’ve argued previously in these pages, given the history of the Jews anti-Zionism (not to be confused with legitimate criticism of the Israeli government of the day) is effectively antisemitism, and I make no apologies for repeating this. Yes, “Palestinians” have legitimate grievances too, but a two state solution is perfectly possible. Same with Ireland.
The history of the Jews is a history of pissing-off all those they’ve lived amongst.
Same with the Gypsies/Roma.
The Palestinians are entitled to the whole of what really is their ancestral homeland and is only the ancestral homeland of a tiny minority of Jews, those descended from the 10% of the population at the time of the 1921 census.
I look forward to Iran getting nukes.
When Iran and, by extension, Saudi Arabia, get nukes, we could be in for real trouble if things progress as seems likely.
People keep on about this “the Jews pissing people off” thing, though I’m still not clear exactly what they mean by it. I know that Jews got involved in banking because Christians at the time had ethical objections to doing so – yet still used the services of Jewish bankers. I know that some of the anti-Jewish sentiment that arose in the 20th century was effectively a case of “bash a banker”, occurring at times when there was severe financial crisis as a result of some Jews being involved in finance. I know the Jews have clung fiercely to their traditions and culture – one reason that culture survives today when others have disappeared. I have however never known any Jew personally who severely pisses me off.
Benjamin Netanyahu, I think it was, in a speech to the U.N., pointed out an ancient memorial or some such in Israel that was directly connected to his family. Yes, some Jews have no ancestry in Israel in recent times, but going back to the times when the Jews of Israel were scattered around the world during the Roman occupation they surely will have. They also have strong cultural connections to Israel and should be allowed the right of return to their homeland. If they are not entitled to their homeland, it rather begs the question of what they are entitled to – take their chances in places like Lithuania and Iashi – Iashi, where over half the population used to be Jewish and now is just a few humdred in a large city! – and yes, Odessa where they faced massacre, and other places where they faced severe persecutiion? From their point of view this is a nonsense. They will of course say they need a homeland and there’s only one they want.
And for the record, I feel you have made an anti-semitic post, even under the narrower definition of verbal or physical abuse, and as such is something I cannot condone.
The Jewish population of Israel overwhelmingly consists of people who had no ancestors living there a hundred years ago.
In contrast, the Palestinians are overwhelmingly descended from the people who were living there at the time of the Arab conquests in the 7th century.
The idea that is is the Jewish homeland and the Palestinians should just accept their cleansing is morally imbecilic as well as involving a complete distortion of history.
2,000 years ago I had ancestors in what are now Germany and Denmark. That doesn’t give the the right to ethnically cleanse the current inhabitants.
The Palestinians are entitled to the whole of what really is their ancestral homeland and is only the ancestral homeland of a tiny minority of Jews, those descended from the 10% of the population at the time of the 1921 census.
History really didn’t start in 1492, let alone in the early 20th century. The present location of the state of Israel is roughly the same its location was by the time the Roman abolished it and created the Jewish diaspora (a process running from 6AD – 132AD). Insofar the old testaments is trustworthy, the Jews originally entered the area as invaders and forcibly conquered it. They repeated this feat in series of wars starting in 1948 and running roughly until 1973.
That’s how states come into being, BTW, someone with sufficient military power creates them by applied violence. The Palestinians are entitled to absolutely nothing in this respect, or rather, they’re entitled to exactly the same as the German population of the region formerly known as Siebenbürgen is (example). That you happen to like one group and happen to dislike the other is of no concern here. Either, it is accepted that such disputes are ultimatively settled by violence. Then, Jews, Palestinians and Germans are entitled to make their homes everywhere they can or lose them were they cannot. Or there’s some hereditary right of a home transcending a period of 3/4 of a century. And then, the Germans from eastern (really eastern middle) Europe are as entited to their former homes as the Palestinians. And telling the Jews something like Well, the Romans decided you’ve lost, so, suck it up![*] obviously doesn’t cut it, either.
It’s a complicated world and simple attempts at solutions are bound to
flounder.
[*] An aquaintance of mine is Greek. He’s not convinced the first large-scale ethnic cleansing the so-called western colonial powers conducted in Europe, the so-called Greco-Turkish population swap which ended a period of millenia during which Greek people had settled in Anatolia is legitmate and believes this question still needs to be settled.
Before the Romans it was either Seleucid or Ptolomeic (I admit to not being very sure about the borders between those two Successor kingdoms).
Before Alexander it was part of the Persian Empire.
There was never a Jewish state. Solomon and David are fictional characters.
And I don’t like either group of barbaric cock-choppers.It’s just that the Jewish claim that it is their’s by right, either because the God their ancestors invented gave it to them or because some of their ancestors lived there long ago, is laughably absurd.
But you’re right: if Tel Aviv gets nuked thats just history going on.
See also myself: Why it’s always imprudent to try to argue against (politically-driven) BS.
There was a kingdom of Judah (and Israel, for that matter) in 734BC which was turned into a Assyrian vassal state by Tiglath-Pileser III. That was 19 years after the somewhat mythical foundation of the city of Rome and by that time, the Romans were busily engaged in petty warfare with their immediate neighbours in the Italian peninsula.
What has Roman behaviour in the 8th century BC got to do with the issue of Jewish entitlement to the area between the Jordan and the Med?
And how would the existence of a tiny Jewish kingdom there nearly 2,800 years ago justify ethnic cleansing today?
If the Jews said “This land is ours by right of conquest” that would of course entitle the Palestinians to try to reconquer it. Which is why most of them don’t say that.
And how would the existence of a tiny Jewish kingdom there nearly 2,800 years ago justify ethnic cleansing today?
That was a counter-argument to your claim that there was never a Jewish state, Mr Blather-On. As to ethnic cleansing, please reply something intelligent to my original text.
“Eastern Middle Europe”.
Places like Lemburg?
Makes me giddy looking at a map of Europe from 1906 (date of my Harmsworth Encyclopaedia) – large areas are completely altered politically!
It seems to me that there is no answer that will satisfy everyone. However, many Jews will always say they are entitled to Israel, they have in fact established the state of Israel and will defend it. It seems necessary to take that as our starting point.
The present state of Israel was founded in a series of wars of conquest. That’s how states are usually founded and questions of rights or entitlements are really moot in this context. Especially when they’re so selectively applied as they were here. If some people have a right to their ancestral home, then, all people have that. Otherwise, none of them. The Palestinians have inalienable rights because I hate Jews but the Germans don’t, because I hate them as well is not an ethical standpoint. It’s a thin justification for violence one wants to support vs violence one desires to oppose.
I’ve got no axe to grind one way or the other here. Can you define “anti-Zionism”?
Zionism was the campaign to return the Jewish people to the area of the ancient kingdom of Israel centred on Jerusalem, which is central to their culture and identity. At first small, it grew greatly in popularity, particularly after the Odessa massacre of 1905, among other persecutions. As the twentieth century progressed, a large number of the Jewish people became convinced of the need for a Jewish homeland, which in 1948 was duly established (as prophesied to the day within Jewish scripture which we call the Old Testament -see Phillip Day – Origins .Origins: The Greatest Scientific Discovery: Amazon.co.uk: Day, Phillip: 9781904015246: Books ). So I define anti-Zionism as the idea that the Jewish people do not have the right to a homeland, and specifically this homeland. Given the widespread persecution of Jews – or “Jews pissing people off” if you prefer – it is to my mind reasonable to consider the idea that Jews should live in fear of persecution from “pissed off” people in someone else’s country rather than such a homeland as anti-semitic. At any rate, many Jews consider a homeland essential to guarantee the survival of their culture and people. How many generations of “woke” Marxist indoctrination do you suppose they could survive, for example?
I sometimes wish I could establish a homeland myself.
Perhaps I should add, it was of course ridiculous to accuse Andrew Bridgen of anti-semitism.
“I sometimes wish I could establish a homeland myself.”
Indeed.
Thanks for that. I suppose you could argue that Jews had many homelands – being all the countries they lived in. Obviously that didn’t work out very well in a number of cases.
If I might quibble, of course a two state solution is “possible” (in the sense that one can lie down and imagine such a thing.)
But it is scarcely “feasible”, when the Palestinian arabs repeatedly and vehemently say that Israel must be wiped from the map and that “Palestine” MUST stretch “from the River to the Sea.”
The unvarying and unquestioning acceptance of Palestinian Arab propaganda, for many years, by the BBC and the Grauniad and others, shows precisely where the antisemites are to be found.
Another favourite trope is to accuse Viktor Orbán of Antisemitism because he absolutely correctly criticises that tûrð George Soros.
Can anyone nsme a campaigning organisation, charity or quango which has not been take over by the left and used for globalist purposes. It seems to have been propelled by Blair, encouraged by Cameron-Clegg and followed through by Obama.
it is almost certainly organised on an international basis.
Yes, the FSSP – absolute heroes. They are international, but none the worse for that, and supportive of the concept of monarchy and patria.
Patriotism ~ Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP – YouTube
Carlson was cancelled as he was the only voice daring to talk truth to power in the MSM
Nowt to do with antisemitism
Basement Joe won’t take part in the Primaries
Carlson would have caused him and his handlers SO MUCH trouble
Interestingly tho the Democrats are dumb – Biden will be caught out he is walking dead – RFKjnr will come thru on the rail
RFK v DeSantis would be a very interesting election…
I have absolutely no wish to offend anyone at all but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to use the written or spoken word without offending someone.
In an increasingly polarised and political climate it seems to me almost anyone can be accused of contact guilt, dog whistling, guilt by association or any of the other thought crimes that are bandied about. This causes massive offence and harm to the many innocent people who cross an invisible line in the sand of which they were totally unaware.
Free speech and honest and open communication and discussion is dying on the altar of groupthink and doublethink.
1984 was written by George Orwell as a warning, not an instruction manual!
I don’t believe tucker’s departure from Fox News had anything to do with antisemitism. Tucker has been an outspoken critic of the covid vaxxes, all the dangerous mitigation methods used during the pandemic, school closures, closure of businesses ruining the economy. He also has been a huge critic of mr. Joe Biden and co. Fox News will never return to any normalcy, now that Tucker is gone. He was the only one worth watching. I wish him luck and I hope he lands a great job. We miss him.
A great documentary on anti-Semitism. Includes the head of the ADL highlighting how they benefit from the belief in a Global Jewish Conspiracy.
https://watchdocumentaries.com/defamation/