Declaiming antisemitism: tribal solipsism or linguistic imperialism?
By Richard Llewellyn
Jul 26, 2024
Claims of antisemitism are currently the pejorative de jour, an all-purpose prosecution intended to condemn any who engage in criticism of rampaging genocidal Zionist activity to instant and unchallengeable perdition.
Any who dare question this state of affairs are often flamed by the trump-card of a further charge of Holocaust denial, a nuclear option branding that instantly turns the debating ground to a plain of glass. There is a plethora of organisations around the world all sucking off the Holocaust Memory teat ready to spring into squealing and ferocious activity at anything which might even remotely be labelled ‘antisemitic’. It has become a self-perpetuating industry.
Akin to a global league of ambulance-chaser or defamation lawyers, this coterie of wailers will spring into action at the mere possibility of offensive. (It is possible that I have failed to register that the sun rising in the east is another cause for their declamations).
I grew up around people of Jewish ethnicity – wonderful people who graced civilisation and totally the antithesis of the hyenas who circle in packs to rip flesh from the bodies of any who question the legitimacy of Zionist actions. I understood and was then (and remain) utterly repulsed by the atrocity of the Holocaust and contemptuous of genuine antisemitics – not that that phrase was often heard in the ‘50s’ and early ‘60s’..
However, let us get a grip on what antisemitism truly means. This is important: there is a greater depth to the campaign of lobbying and litigation being waged by the Zionist coterie than is superficially apparent.
Language and its interpretation is the base fabric of litigation concerning the perception of defamatory or slanderous material. Litigation is expensive and it is likely that the big dogs in that game are recompensed handsomely; some names appear with great regularity. Win, lose or draw, the big dogs in any litigation arena will usually present a serious invoice to somebody… reason enough to participate.
‘Semitic’ means a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs. So, different Semitic ethnic/religious groups are ‘tribal’ rather than ‘racial’ or ‘religious’. The large and growing cohort of decent, socially progressive Jews understand this and believe in a shared future with Palestinians -yet we see condemnation of them as ‘antisemitic’ being megaphoned by those with Zionist / Zionist-adjacent utility motives.
One cannot, logically or linguistically, be antisemitic by supporting Palestine. Supporting either Palestine or Israel is at worst placing one tribal group in higher esteem than the other: acceptable as a point for rational debate – certainly. In no way acceptable as a justification for conducting an unspeakably foul campaign of genocide.
So: where does the weaponisation of the claim of ‘antisemitism’ fit into the Zionist ambition?
For a start, the appropriation of a term emotionally linked to the most horrible of crimes against humanity – genocide – raises the stakes of discussion exponentially. It is the trump-card in any debate, the ‘mic-drop’ moment. The shame attached to being the perpetrator of genocide is monumental; we see it starkly in the unqualified (and unjustified) support by Germany of the Israeli government. The USA, France, the UK and to date Australia are amongst a dwindling minority of nations for which the shame of de facto appeasement of Nazi genocidal activity remains too deeply ingrained to defeat decency and upholding of the (fabled) ‘International Rule of Law’.
For the USA, of course, the preeminence of Israel in the geopolitical arena of the Middle East is existential to the USA hegemony over international affairs – but that is another layer of perfidy to be factored in.
The consistent and vociferous appropriation of ‘antisemitism’ by Zionist groups so as to apply only to Eretz Israeli interests harnesses this group shame of appeasement to effectively smother the fact that the ‘other’ people of the contested land – Palestine – share Semitic ancestry. It rather resembles the ‘Terra Nullius’ concept familiar to Australians – and indeed one of the most basic of tenets for Zionists for since the C19 is: ‘a Land without a People for a People without a Land.’
Thus, the appropriation, quite illegitimately, of ‘antisemitism’ to deflect criticism of the rapacious imperialism by genocide being undertaken by the current Israeli government (and let us not forget the continuing history of Nakba, complete with ‘Nakba Denial’ echoing Holocaust Denial) leverages the international shame of Holocaust Appeasement.
A large and rapidly growing contingent of (mainly younger, but also embraced by highly-respected older scholars and others) Jews is taking up the call ‘not in our name’. This movement repudiates the genocide, the Settler violence, and the Zionist imperialism attached to it. They recognise the necessity, the humanity and the decency of a just co-existence of the Semite tribes in Semite land.
That the charge of antisemitism is hurled at them demonstrates the ruthless ambition of the Zionist imperialist coterie. For them, Jewish ancestry is only available to Zionists and those who repudiate Zionism are traitors.
Which leaves the rest of us in the ironical position of watching the current Israeli government channelling, to a frightening degree, the very same characteristics, motives and actions as the Nazi government that inflicted the Holocaust upon its people.
In the name of humanity, this must be stopped and remediated.
Richard Llewellyn was Registrar at the Australian War Memorial from 1986 to 1995.
https://johnmenadue.com/declaiming-antisemitism-tribal-solipsism-or-linguistic-imperialism/