The following article has been published by ABC Religion & Ethics and is also on The Times of Israel (Blogs). 

Antisemitism: The Racism of the Right and Left

Julie Nathan
ABC Religion & Ethics
August 28, 2018

Antisemitism is a form of racism that is directed against Jews. However, antisemitism has its own anomalous and con­tra­dict­ory aspect.
While racists commonly con­cep­tu­al­ise the groups against whom they are pre­ju­diced to be inferior forms of humanity, Jews are depicted as both “inferior” and “superior.”
On the one hand, racists liken Jews to rats, cock­roaches, vermin and parasites. On the other hand, racists also portray Jews as highly adaptable, chameleon-like, manip­u­lat­ive and smart enough (the loaded word “cunning” is often used) to control the mech­an­isms of power in the world.
No other “race” of people is accused of having such power.
For anti­semites, Jews are seen as both innately evil and abso­lutely powerful. These attrib­utes have been part of both Christian and Islamic theo­lo­gies – Jews have been col­lect­ively portrayed as Christ-killers and prophet-killers, respect­ively. The result has been centuries of false accus­a­tions, including deicide, “Blood Libels” (the myth that Jews kill gentile children in order to drink their blood), host desec­ra­tion (“torturing” the Eucharist wafer), poisoning wells, falsi­fy­ing sacred scrip­tures and more.
These crusty old legends have seeped into the sub­con­scious minds of many Chris­ti­ans and Muslims. Bizarre con­spir­acy theories about Jewish power and evil have been pop­ular­ised and spread by “evidence” such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a proven forgery that was entirely fab­ric­ated by the Czarist secret police in the early 1900s.
While most targets of racism are portrayed as dirty or lazy, barbaric or uncul­tured, backward, lacking intel­li­gence or animal-like, Jews are portrayed as a malevol­ent force, often with super­nat­ur­al “mystical powers,” as con­trolling inter­na­tion­al finance, media and politics, aiming to subjugate the non-Jewish pop­u­la­tion of the world in a quest for world dom­in­a­tion, and therefore as rep­res­ent­ing an exist­en­tial threat to non-Jews. Other forms of racism have escalated into mass murder in order to serve a more basic purpose, such as the conquest of territory or the acquis­i­tion of resources. With antisemitism, genocide is an end in itself.
Far-right racists still propagate con­spir­acy myth­o­lo­gies about Jews being inor­din­ately powerful and manip­u­lat­ing and con­trolling insti­tu­tions and events. Nazi ideology goes further, and considers Jews to be at the bottom of the human racial hierarchy (and, indeed, as sub-human) – less than all other races, eth­ni­cit­ies and nation­al­it­ies. Nazi racial theory posits an eternal battle between “the Aryan race” and “the Jewish race” as the prot­ag­on­ists in a cosmic battle between good and evil. In general, far-right antisemitism is overt, and hence easier to recognise and identify.
Those on the far left claim to oppose all forms of racism, including antisemitism. They therefore have a problem in recog­nising and identi­fy­ing antisemitism when it does not come from the right, or when it comes from those they perceive to be allies of the left, or from within their own ranks. Many of them cannot conceive of any racism on the left at all.
The modern far left has been blinded to antisemitism by two factors. First, it sees racism through a par­tic­u­lar ideo­lo­gic­al lens of a binary world composed of mutually exclusive opposites – rich and poor, powerful and powerless, racist and anti-racist, oppressor and oppressed. There is nothing in between and no overlap; it is an either/or worldview.
Second, far-left ideology views racism as a function of the power structure within the cap­it­al­ist system. This means that racism can only be per­pet­rated by those with power against those without power. It is a one-way street: racism is downward; and the reverse, upward racism, is excluded from being cat­egor­ised as racism. Only those with power, or deemed so, can commit racism; while those without power, or so deemed, cannot.
Racism, from a far-left per­spect­ive, is seen as “punching down” the power ladder, not “punching up.” Therefore, only “whites” can be racist, whereas non-whites, or people of colour, cannot be racist. In this ideo­lo­gic­al far-left lens, racism is not based on the number or type of incidents or dis­crim­in­a­tion against a targeted group, but is based on a highly contrived con­cep­tu­al­isa­tion of who the per­pet­rat­ors are.
In the same vein, because those on the far left place Jews col­lect­ively in the category of a powerful class, this precludes them from cat­egor­ising Jews as targets of racism. Not only are more subtle forms of antisemitism often denied, ignored or minimised, but antisemitism by so-called “powerless” non-Jews is often excused, or in some cases encour­aged as “punching up” against the “powerful.” The far left thus becomes an enabler of antisemitism.
In summary, antisemitism is often seen and treated dif­fer­ently to other forms of racism. Those on both the far right and far left view Jews as a powerful force. For the far right, this view feeds into its con­spir­acy theories that Jews are an evil and exist­en­tial danger to gentiles. For the far left, this view feeds into its racism theories and often leads it to deny that antisemitism exists (unless per­pet­rated by the far right), and in many cases to excuse it when it comes from others on the left or its allies. In both cases, this occurs because the images that the far right and far left have of Jews is false and myth­o­lo­gic­al. Jews are placed in the uncom­fort­able and dangerous position of being targeted by the far right and betrayed by the far left.
Racism is racism, regard­less of the identity of the per­pet­rat­or or the identity of the victim. All racism and bigotry is wrong, not just some forms. If racism is allowed to occur and fester against even one targeted group, then the whole of society is dimin­ished.
Julie Nathan is the Research Officer for the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry.
Image Source: Tzahiv/Getty Images/ABC Religion & Ethics