Data by police agencies, Jewish community organ­isa­tions, and others through­out the western world show that antisemitism is on the rise, and is thriving. It takes many forms, including verbal abuse and physical assault on the streets, attacks upon syn­agogues, the promotion of genocidal anti-Jewish ideo­lo­gies, hostage-taking and murder.

Yet, there are those who are in denial about the per­sist­ence and impact of antisemitism, effect­ively erasing or min­im­ising its existence. Their narrative is usually along the lines that if ever antisemitism did exist, it ended in 1945 with the defeat of Nazi Germany.

The erasure of antisemitism occurs, con­sciously or uncon­sciously, in parts of the main­stream media, party politics, uni­ver­sit­ies, and the discourse of certain public figures. This is not a fringe phe­nomen­on per­pet­rated by extrem­ists of the Nazi jackboot variety, the kind who happily acknow­ledge and publicise their antisemitism. Air­brush­ing antisemitism out of the picture occurs in more subtle ways.

Six examples from media, politics, uni­ver­sity, and elsewhere, all in Australia, will suffice as illus­tra­tions.

1. Main­stream Media: Erasure of Nazi antisemitism

A Channel 9 News segment in Queens­land focused on the neo-Nazi group, National Socialist Network (NSN). The program was advert­ised on 23 March 2021, and aired the next night. In advert­ising the program, on both dates, the pro­mo­tions on Twitter stated that NSN “Want to see the downfall of women, immig­ra­tion, Islam, and the LGBTQ+ community” and that NSN are “anti-women, anti-immig­ra­tion, anti-gay and anti-Islam”.

There was no mention of Jews or antisemitism. As if by magic, the Channel 9 blurb erased Jews as the most fun­da­ment­al target of Nazism. Any basic reading of the history and ideology of National Socialism (Nazism), and of neo-Nazi groups, such as NSN, shows that Jews are the main object of Nazi hatred. At the core of Nazi ideology is the belief in an eternal race struggle between ‘the Aryan’ and ‘the Jew’, and that the Jews must be exterm­in­ated so the Aryans can take their ‘rightful place’ in the world. In enacting this ideology, Nazi Germany hunted down, rounded up, and killed 6 million European Jews including 1.5 million Jewish children. The Nazis also per­se­cuted and incar­cer­ated homo­sexu­als and Roma; whereas there was no per­se­cu­tion of women or Muslims – in fact, the Nazis allied them­selves with certain Muslims, including the notorious Palestini­an Arab leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

National Socialist Network seeks to replicate the basics of Nazi Germany in Australia, including the elim­in­a­tion of all Jews. By omitting, and erasing, any mention of NSN’s hatred of Jews, Channel 9 effect­ively treated NSN’s gross antisemitism as incon­sequen­tial, and thus became complicit in it.

2. Main­stream Media: Erasure of Jews from the attack in Mumbai

Another example was a piece by the ABC in 2015 which listed the names of the targets of the terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008. ABC cor­res­pond­ent Stephanie March said that the attack occurred “… when militants from Pakistan crossed the border and attacked hotels, a café, and a railway station in Mumbai in 2008, killing 164 people.”

One venue that was omitted from that list of targets was the Jewish centre in Mumbai, Nariman House, which was taken over by the ter­ror­ists and endured a three-day siege. Seven Jews were mutilated and murdered by the Pakistani “militants”, simply because they were Jews, including the rabbi and his pregnant wife. These horrors did not rate a mention by the ABC presenter. The fact that Jews were targeted and murdered was erased from the story.

3. At Uni­ver­sity: Erasure of antisemitism from anti-Nazi motion

At the National Union of Students (NUS) National Con­fer­ence held in December 2017, two Socialist Altern­at­ive members moved and seconded a motion titled “ETHNO 11.7: We stand against the Anti­podean Res­ist­ance” con­demning the neo-Nazi group Anti­podean Res­ist­ance.

The lengthy motion named the targets of Anti­podean Res­ist­ance as being LGBTI, Muslim, and Chinese. It stated that Anti­podean Res­ist­ance had engaged in: “demon­ising LGBTI people through­out the equal marriage postal vote”, “put up posters demon­ising Muslims”, “plastered posters which told Chinese inter­na­tion­al students that they would be deported” and “put up posters linking homo­sexu­al­ity to pedo­phil­ia”.

However, the motion made no mention of Jews as targets of Anti­podean Res­ist­ance, indeed one of their principal targets, along with homo­sexu­als. Anti­podean Res­ist­ance posters have called to “Legalise the execution of Jews”, accused Jews of poisoning Aus­trali­an society, and of being the hidden hand behind non-white immig­ra­tion into Australia. These posters have been produced since December 2016 and were often placed at uni­ver­sit­ies. Anti­podean Res­ist­ance pro­pa­ganda primarily and over­whelm­ingly targeted Jews and LGBT people; some posters also targeted people of east Asian (Chinese) and Indi­gen­ous back­ground, but not Muslims.

The motion pledged to oppose racism, the far-right and Anti­podean Res­ist­ance. Yet, if Socialist Altern­at­ive cannot or will not name Jews as targets of neo-Nazis, then any Socialist Altern­at­ive claim to oppose racism is hollow and shows Socialist Alternative’s own racist bias against Jews. By erasing antisemitism, they are not only being dishonest and biased but also betraying the same mindset as Nazis – that Jews can never be worthy of sympathy or solid­ar­ity.

4. In Politics: Erasure of all forms of antisemitism, except one

A variant of the erasure of Jews and antisemitism is the attempt to redefine them both in a way that is sub­ser­vi­ent to a pre­con­ceived political or ideo­lo­gic­al agenda, but bears no rela­tion­ship to reality. This occurs most commonly when those who wish to attack right-wing extrem­ists do so by naming and con­demning right-wing antisemitism, while omitting all reference to antisemitism from other sources, such as left-wing, anti-Zionist, or Muslim extrem­ists.

A case in point is the “Greens Statement on Fighting Antisemitism” published in November 2021. According to the Greens, there is only one source of antisemitism, that of “far-right extremist politics and neo-Nazi activity”. All other sources of antisemitism are erased from their statement, as antisemitism from these other sources does not fit, and indeed falsifies, the Greens simplist­ic ‘goodies and baddies’ worldview.

Despite its title, ‘Fighting Antisemitism’ does not suggest a plan of action tailored to combat antisemitism as a phe­nomen­on in its own right. Instead, it is grouped together with “all forms of racism”, a subtle way of min­im­ising and down­play­ing its sig­ni­fic­ance.

Worse still, the Greens’ Statement attacks one of the most effective tools against antisemitism that has been developed in recent years, namely the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism. This defin­i­tion has been over­whelm­ingly accepted and promoted by Jewish community organ­isa­tions around the world, including those engaged in coun­ter­ing antisemitism, and has been adopted by the UN, gov­ern­ments, uni­ver­sit­ies and many others.

In summary, the Greens’ Statement under­mines the fight against antisemitism in three ways: by naming only one form of antisemitism and erasing the other forms, by opposing the IHRA working defin­i­tion of antisemitism, and by subsuming the problem of antisemitism into a general anti-racism package.

If the Greens had not erased all forms of antisemitism, except the far-right variant, in their ‘Statement on Fighting Antisemitism’, they would have been able to acknow­ledge the immense value of the IHRA working defin­i­tion, and embrace the reality that antisemitism, while a form of racism, is also a unique hatred with a long, intense, and genocidal history.

5. By prominent people: Erasure of antisemitism by replacing it with something else

Others have erased antisemitism by claiming, falsely, that it has been super­seded by other, worse forms of bigotry, thus implying that antisemitism no longer matters.

A case in point are comments made by Julian Burnside, QC, a former Greens election candidate. In 2014 and 2015, Burnside repeatedly stated that: “Islamo­pho­bia is the new antisemitism”. At that time, Jews were subject to a much higher rate of attack than were Muslims; for example, in the USA, a Jew is six times more likely to be attacked than a Muslim, and in Britain, four times more likely.

More recently, in an interview on The Big Smoke, published on 29 August 2021, in reference to Aus­trali­an gov­ern­ment policy on human rights and asylum seekers (many of whom are Muslim) over the last 20 years, Burnside stated:

• “Consider how the public at large have been induced to fear and hate Muslims. Consider the parallels with antisemitism in Germany in the 1920s to the 1940s.”

Burnside’s analogy is fal­la­cious. While Muslims have undoubtedly faced dis­crim­in­a­tion and hostility since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, they have not been stripped col­lect­ively of their rights as citizens, their jobs and their busi­nesses. Nor have they been forced to wear humi­li­at­ing identi­fy­ing insignia, imprisoned in ghettoes, subjected to mass shootings, or trans­por­ted in packed cattle cars to purpose-built exterm­in­a­tion camps.

In addition, Burnside’s analogy erases con­tem­por­ary antisemitism. If he sought only to highlight anti-Muslim sentiment, he had no need to mention antisemitism a century ago. Burnside’s erroneous claims do justice to neither antisemitism nor to Islamo­pho­bia. There are many ways to protest against anti-Muslim prejudice without making spurious com­par­is­ons with Nazi antisemitism, which in effect minimise the Holocaust and antisemitism in general.

6. By political activists: Erasure of antisemitism by false analogy

Antisemitism has also been erased through the use of false analogies. One example is found in the writings of Jeff Sparrow, a political activist, and founder of Socialist Altern­at­ive. In his book, Fascists Among Us: Online Hate and the Christ­ch­urch Massacre, published in 2019, Sparrow, in seeking to describe the ser­i­ous­ness of anti-Muslim bigotry does so by erro­neously comparing it to antisemitism. Sparrow writes (on pages 31 – 32):

• “Prior to 9/11, Islamo­pho­bia remained a rel­at­ively minor current in the West. The War on Terror changed that, nor­m­al­ising a discourse that rep­lic­ated, almost exactly, the key tropes of pre-war anti-Semitism. Islamo­phobic bigots linked all Muslims to jihad, precisely as anti-Semites had held all Jews account­able for Bolshev­ism. … Almost every aspect of early-twentieth-century anti-Semitism repeated itself in twenty-first-century Islamo­pho­bia, often with sub­stan­tial insti­tu­tion­al support.”

This claim is demon­strably false and erases the realities of early twentieth-century antisemitism. During the first two decades of the 20^th century, in Europe and other western countries, Jews were still often denied civil rights, were legally dis­crim­in­ated against, and at times murdered with impunity. In pogroms in Russia and Ukraine between 50,000 and 200,000 Jews were massacred. In contrast, Muslims in the first two decades of the 21^st century, in Europe and other western countries, retained civil rights and have not been massacred, except for one horrific incident in Christ­ch­urch per­pet­rated by a single indi­vidu­al who has been imprisoned for life without parole.

In addition, the claim that anti-Muslim bigotry today is com­par­able to anti-Jewish bigotry a century ago has the unstated implic­a­tion that anti-Jewish bigotry no longer exists in the 21^st century but has been super­seded by anti-Muslim bigotry. Again, if one wishes to focus on anti-Muslim bigotry, one does not need to belittle or erase con­tem­por­ary or past antisemitism, as a polemical tool.

Sparrow’s analogy also lacks his­tor­ic­al context. While he acknow­ledges that Islamo­pho­bia was “a rel­at­ively minor current” prior to 9/11, he provides no back­ground to early twentieth-century antisemitism, treating it as though it came out of nowhere. It ignores the fact that Jews had been dis­crim­in­ated against, demonised, ostra­cised, segreg­ated, per­se­cuted and massacred over the previous 1800 years, with hatred of Jews becoming ingrained into western culture. There is no parallel with regard to Muslims.

Con­clu­sion

When antisemitism is erased from the narrative in the main­stream media, in party politics, in uni­ver­sit­ies, and elsewhere, and by public figures and com­ment­at­ors, the net effect is the desens­it­isa­tion of society to antisemitism.

This leads to a fantasy under­stand­ing of our society and world through which laws, social con­ven­tions and inform­a­tion can cease to be grounded in reality. These are the con­di­tions in which Jews can be per­se­cuted and attacked with impunity. The same is true for any other group similarly erased from the public narrative. This under­mines our demo­crat­ic way of life, our rights and respons­ib­il­it­ies as citizens, our social cohes­ive­ness as a nation, and our fight against all hatreds and bigotries.

Antisemitism did not end in 1945, instead, it went under­ground, only to re-emerge when the oppor­tun­it­ies arose and the political and ideo­lo­gic­al atmo­sphere was conducive. Its con­tinu­ing spread is aided and abetted by those who refuse to condemn it or to act against it, and also by those who erase antisemitism from their narrative or minimise or relativ­ise it. As history has shown time and again, societies in which antisemitism is not acknow­ledged, and not opposed, set them­selves on a path to dev­ast­a­tion. 

Julie Nathan is the Research Director at the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, and author of the annual ECAJ Report on Antisemitism in Australia and is the author of the annual ECAJ Report on Antisemitism in Australia.