The devil that does not die

Anti-Semitism has become such a problem within Britain’s Labour Party that the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission — a body established by a former Labour government — has launched an investigation of the party. The crisis enveloping the Labour Party, which provoked the resignations of a number of sitting MPs earlier in the year, poses a serious threat to Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of ever moving into 10 Downing Street.

However, anti-Semitism is also a resurgent problem in other European countries, such as France, where Jewish cemeteries have been vandalised, businesses daubed with graffiti, and people assaulted in the streets. The age-old hatred has deep roots in France, going back beyond Vichy France to the scandal of the Dreyfus affair. But now Jews throughout Europe report a growing sense of unease and anxiety about the emergence of what many commentators have described as “the New Anti-Semitism”.

What is new about today’s form of an ancient odium? Associated in the past with right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism today is equally likely to come from the left, as well as from with some branches of Islam. Some Muslims elected to western legislatures have made openly anti-Semitic remarks that have attracted criticism and censure. Although anti-Semitism is still directed at individual Jews and Jewish communities, increasingly it is also directed at the existence of the state of Israel, itself.

This new anti-Semitism is expressed in terms of moral imperatives opposing what it perceives as the supremacist claims of Zionism and the questionable legitimacy of Jewish national consciousness. It also cloaks itself in the garb of human rights as it campaigns for the liberation of the Palestinian people, considered by opponents of Israel to be oppressed and discriminated against.

Often dubbed ‘the devil that does not die’, anti-Semitism’s resurgence presents pressing challenges for western democracies that have to strike a balance between upholding the right to freedom of speech and enforcing protections against vilification and hatred. Corbyn has been evasive in his handling of Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis by making bland pronouncements about racism.

However, anti-Semitism is more complex than racism: it singles out a discrete community for attack and deliberately foments suspicion by confecting blame and attributing guilt. Failure to address openly the anti-Semitism besetting his party could well cost Corbyn his leadership. Western political leaders who are confronted by the new anti-Semitism in their own countries will do well to learn from Corbyn’s negligence and indifference.