If there’s a topic I keep coming back to, it’s left-wing antisemitism. Because we should know better, but we don’t, not always.
It seems likely there will be Gaza protests at the Democratic Convention, and that the media will play them up as catastrophically disruptive, even if they aren’t.
And the Republicans will play them up as signs of not merely Democratic disarray but Democratic antisemitism.
What can we do to prepare?
Now is the time to talk about it, and get our heads on straight. Because next week there’s gonna be a test.
We could shrug and say, “there is no antisemitism on the left.” But we’d be wrong.
One of the things we can do ahead of time is get a grip on how antisemitism actually works on the hard left, and among some progressives as well.
And to really understand it, we have to step outside democracy and look at the left-wing autocrat who gave the hard left their talking points.
STALIN, SOVIET PROPAGANDA, AND THE TEMPLATE
The USSR was IIRC the first country to recognize Israel. Why? Because Stalin thought they'd ally with the Eastern bloc. When Israel instead allied with the West, Stalin took it personally, with a wave of brutal internal Jewish persecution but also a wave of international propaganda designed to make people hate Israel. Not disagree with it, not differ with it, but loathe it in their guts.
The obvious tool for that: exploiting already deeply embedded antisemitism. But Stalin couldn't directly appeal to raw antisemitism on the international stage, because at this point Hitler was still recent history.
Instead the Soviets came up with a three-step template for how to leverage antisemitism against Israel but with a layer of plausible deniability.
- Make the most of the hate-filled imagery and ideology of classic "Protocols"-style antisemitism. They're the most evil thing in the world, nothing else compares with their evil, they run the (western) governments, they run the (western) banks, they run the (western) press, they’ve greased every palm worth greasing, they’re a global conspiracy to enslave and impoverish mankind, and so on.
- Add the plausible deniability footnote. "Of course, I'm talking about ZIONISTS, not Jews, and therefore this isn't antisemitism, nosiree bob! This is all exemplary and morally pure political commentary." You'll be lying your ass off, but hey, you're a Soviet propagandist.
- Then have this response ready to deploy the moment your antisemitism gets called out for what it is. "ABSURD! Antisemitism is a feature of the right, not the left. Left-wing antisemitism doesn't exist. Nothing the left says could *possibly* be antisemitism." Followed by flipping the script: "You are obviously a right-wing Zionist propagandist, controlled by Tel-Aviv, crying what you know are crocodile tears about faux antisemitism as a way to silence our entirely legitimate criticism of Israel. Our entirely proper response is not to address your concerns but to mock them with all the bile and venom we can generate." Again, you'll be lying your ass off, but that's your job.
- (optional) For bonus points, find someone, anyone, Jewish you can cite as agreeing with you. “See, Shmuel Shmulovich agrees, and he’s a JEW!” Stalin cultivated a whole camp, so to speak, of such citable Jews. Actually reflective of the larger Jewish community, no, but citable.
The net effect of this horrendously dishonest propaganda template is that Stalin and his camp could pour all the antisemitism they wanted onto Israel while simultaneously asserting these axioms:
- “We are unassailably pure of heart.”
- "There is no antisemitism on the left. Ever."
- "Criticism of Israel isn't antisemitism. Ever."
- "Anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism. Ever."
- "Anyone treating left-wing antisemitism as if it actually exists is a right-wing propaganda agent getting his pearl-clutching orders from a boiler room in Tel-Aviv, and he should be waved away with nothing more than 'there they go again.'”
Rhetorically, it’s cake-and-eat-ism. Use antisemitism while denying you’re using antisemitism.
This was the root and branch of the Soviet rhetoric about Jews, Israel, and antisemitism to the very end of the USSR.
And yes, Virginia, the Communist Party was as antisemitic as the day is long, and yes, Virginia, they shaped socialist rhetoric on the topic everywhere socialists took their guidance from them.
The Template lives on
The long-term problem is that these axioms worked their way not only into the tankie worldview, but also -- to a lesser degree -- that of the progressive left. And they outlived not just Stalin but even the Soviet Union.
Not one of those axioms I put as bullet points above is actually true. But decades of experience shows me that the farther left someone is, the more likely they are to agree. And if you're a tankie, these points are taken as self-evidently golden, and tankies thus consider themselves free to viciously abuse anyone who doesn't find them so self-evidently golden.
We saw this play out in Technicolor in the Labour Party antisemitism scandal in the UK, starting in 2015 , leading to legal findings that the party organization was operationally antisemitic, and ending a couple months ago with Jeremy Corbyn’s expulsion from the party he used to lead. The Soviet template on antisemitism was the tankie milk on the tankie cornflakes of Corbyn's youth, and he absorbed it into his tankie bones reading the Morning Star back in the days the USSR kept it afloat by buying half its daily print run. And his leadership of Labour made the template Labour’s de facto policy on antisemitism, which is how 87.1% of the Jews in the UK ended up considering him an antisemite.
But Corbyn is an extreme case. Among progressives I’ve often encountered a watered-down version, where any Jew — i.e. me — who complains about left-wing antisemitism is automatically pilloried as a right-wing spy and instantly put through an inquisition by self-appointed purity police. There is a branch of progressivism in which accusations of racism are presumed true except if it’s antisemitism, in which case they’re presumed false.
I’m tired of that.
Upshot
So when you say “criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitism,” well, we’ve heard that one before. From antisemites criticizing Israel in antisemitic ways. If you wonder why the line lands with a wet plop, you can stop wondering.
When you say “I’m not an antisemite, I’m a progressive,” well, we’ve heard that one before. From progressive antisemites, like the Corbyn circle.
And when you say “Sam Samson agrees, and he’s a JEW!” well, we’ve heard that one before too. From antisemites. If you wonder why tokenism has no impact, you can stop wondering. (Ask me about Jewish deniers of the Holocaust. I can name half a dozen.)
Is it possible to criticize Israel without falling into the tankie template? Absolutely. Feel free to do it. I do. Netanyahu is what Trump would be if Trump had succeeded in stealing 2020 and then stayed on another decade or two.
Is it possible to support Palestine and Palestinians without falling into the tankie template? Absolutely. Feel free to do it. I do. As I’ve said many times, I don’t think any group in history has been more catastrophically maltreated by its own so-called leadership than the Palestinians.
Does it matter? Only if you hope to persuade anyone Jewish rather than instead convincing them that you’re the enemy.
And
And the reason I’ve been on DailyKos for almost twenty years now trying to get my fellow lefties to raise their game on this topic is because I believe that too many opportunities for good-faith discussions about Israel’s problems get shot down on the spot by people who don’t know they’ve absorbed the tankie template, don’t appreciate how abusive it is to Jews, and therefore don’t know they’re being assholes.
And
And you can outgrow tankie-ism.