Over the past year, Europe has seen a significant increase in anti-Semitic acts and remarks. But a form of confusion is sometimes maintained between anti-Semitism and defense of the Palestinian cause. Critics denounce political exploitation which harms the fight against real anti-Semitism.
After the attack of October 7, 2023 carried out by Palestinian armed groups, Israeli communication and its relays spoke of an attack targeted specifically against Jewish people, and therefore fundamentally anti-Semitic.
Subsequently, movements calling for pressure on Israel to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, such as student blockades at universities, have often been accused of anti-Semitism. An accusation crystallized by the famous slogan “From the sea to the Jordan”, accused according to its detractors of calling for the total destruction of Israel. The accusation of anti-Semitism has also been used to target public figures critical of Zionism. (read box).
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Definition too broad?
On the other hand, activists and specialists in the Palestinian cause do not share this analytical framework. They believe that the October 7 attack primarily targeted citizens of Israel as the occupying power, and not because of their religion. And emphasize that “liberating Palestine” does not necessarily mean the destruction of Israel, but the reestablishment of an egalitarian situation between Jews and Arabs in the region.
Assimilating criticism of Israel, and by extension support for the Palestinian cause, to anti-Semitism has long been criticized by detractors of Hasbara, Israeli external communications. As such, they cite, for example, the widespread adoption of definition of anti-Semitism decreed by the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association), which includes the rejection of Zionism as well as the boycott of Israel.
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This harmful propaganda obviously puts Jewish people in danger: whether Zionist or anti-Zionist, every Jewish person finds themselves associated with Israel.
“These anti-Semitism trials have the double characteristic of creating a diversion and preventing any debate, by making the fight against anti-Semitism meaningless, by reducing Jewishness to a nationalist project and by shattering humanist hopes,” comments the Geneva collective Marad.
For this anti-Zionist Jewish group, the amalgamation between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism must therefore be combatted: “These accusations prevent any truly anti-racist struggle, and therefore against anti-Semitism. This harmful Israeli propaganda obviously puts Jewish people in danger: that Whether Zionist or anti-Zionist, every Jewish person finds himself associated with Israel.”
Elsewhere in the world, this position is shared by decolonial Jewish associations, notably by the collective Tsedek and the French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP)
CICAD in the eye of the storm
The criticism sometimes even directly targets organizations responsible for combating anti-Semitism. In June, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia classified the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the oldest and largest organizations fighting anti-Semitism in the world, as a “generally unreliable” source. (read box).
In Switzerland, several people contacted by RTS speak, on condition of anonymity, of the Intercommunity Coordination against Anti-Semitism and Defamation (CICAD) as a “relay for Israeli propaganda”, particularly in that it regularly sends out criticism of the Jewish state to anti-Semitism. In 2007, it was convicted by a Geneva court for defamation after the publication of a newsletter in which one of its members accused a professor at the University of Geneva of anti-Semitism. A judgment confirmed by the ECHR in 2016.
The regularly heard slogans calling for the eradication of the State of Israel cannot be equated with political criticism
Its secretary general Johanne Gurkinkiel was also the subject of several complaints in early 2024 for having assimilated a Geneva campaign to boycott Israel, called “Apartheid-Free Zone”, with the practices of Nazi Germany. However, he claimed in early October in the newspaper 24 Heures that he had not yet received anything. “Pure announcement effect,” he accuses.
>> Read about it: A complaint filed in Geneva against the secretary general of CICAD
Co-president of the association of progressive lawyers and activist for the BDS boycott campaignClémence Jung, however, confirms the filing of complaints from several associations and individuals, including one in her own name. “I couldn’t allow myself to be publicly called a Nazi,” she explains. “Our complaint has been received by the Public Prosecutor's Office. But it is not urgent, so it is not surprising that it has not yet been processed.”
A controversial “little manual”
A document entitled “Middle East: a short manual to understand“, issued in 2010 by CICAD, is also accused of repeating certain aspects of Israeli propaganda.
In particular, it calls into question the historical legitimacy of a Palestinian nation and people. Palestine “remained[e] outside of History both economically and politically. Even on a cultural and scientific level, its contribution to civilization is zero,” we can read.
The manual also relays the assertion that “Arab citizens of Israel (…) have the same rights as their Jewish fellow citizens,” which is often denounced as false by the main stakeholders and by critics of the Jewish state. Finally, he equates any form of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
However, if the term is indeed sometimes used to disguise anti-Semitic statements, as with the comedian Dieudonné or the far-right polemicist Alain Soral, the historian Dominique Vidal estimated at the end of July in 24Heures that “anti-Zionism is simply opposition to Zionism, which evolved with the movement it opposed.” “Today’s anti-Zionists are Israelis who advocate equal rights for all citizens,” he observes.
Accusation of “double membership”
Asked to react to these criticisms, Johanne Gurfinkiel criticizes the fact of being “suspected of being a propaganda organization acting for foreign interests on the pretext of a document dating from 14 years ago and responding to a request from young people eager to better understand the history of the Middle East.
“This is the illustration of an additional attempt, fueled by certain circles, to essentialize every Jew to Israel by using remarks which leave a feeling of double belonging and lack of loyalty to the country,” he believes. He also emphasizes that CICAD only maintains ties with Israel that are “neither secret nor surprising” on global issues of anti-Semitism.
He further recalls that “since October 7, many Jews of all ages have been the targets of anti-Semitic remarks and acts of violence under the pretext of the situation in the Middle East and in support of the Palestinian cause.”
“Trivialize anti-Semitism”?
Regarding the confusion between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, “the slogans heard regularly calling for the eradication of the State of Israel cannot be assimilated to political criticism”, still defends Johanne Gurfinkiel.
Visiting professor at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Lausanne, Joseph Daher believes, however, that CICAD is today “an actor who contributes to amalgamating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism by making legitimate criticism of the apartheid state of 'Israel […] the equivalent of anti-Semitism. Through this policy, it weakens the necessary fight against real anti-Semitism in Switzerland,” he believes.
But for this defender of the Palestinian cause, “the amalgamation between Jew and Israel is also the consequence of the policy of the State of Israel, which bears significant responsibility for the rise in anti-Semitic acts by claiming to represent the world Jewish community “, he continues. “That’s not the case and it needs to be fought.”
Joseph Daher goes even further: “All the institutions which are part of political Zionism, whether on the left or the right, have never historically made the fight against anti-Semitism a priority,” he accuses. -he. As an example, he recalls that Benjamin Netanyahu had affirmed in 2015 that it was the mufti of Jerusalem Al-Husseini who had persuaded Hitler to exterminate the Jews in 1941, when the latter would have simply wanted to expel them. An accusation that many historians and Germany itself were quick to deny.
Johanne Gurfinkiel, however, brushes aside this criticism: “Suggesting that associations working against anti-Semitism would hide another agenda, that of dedicating their real function in favor of foreign interests, opens the way to the idea of an active and naturally a despicable stigma,” he replies.
Pierre Jordan
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