Antisemitism Report 2009 - World Jewish Congress

4.6 The Left
During the period in review, in Australia and internationally, there has been considerable
discussion on the presence and significance of antisemitism in the political left. For a
number of years, extreme anti-Israel propaganda, including many pieces disputing Israel‘s
right to exist and blaming ―Zionists‖ for many world problems, have been produced by leftwing
groups, who have sometimes aligned themselves with anti-progressive, racist groups to
further anti-Israel agendas. A number of commentators have begun to note the reality of
antisemitism in left-wing circles, a reality denied by many self-described left-wingers for
many years.
The centrality of anti-American and anti-Israeli grand theories for a number of different leftwing
groups has resulted in an unseemly tolerance of anti-Jewish activity. This manifests
itself in a number of ways, including promotion of discriminatory academic and cultural
boycotts, promoting material by antisemites who adopt anti-Zionist language, singling out
Jews for harassment, justifying anti-Jewish terrorism, actively collaborating with individuals
and groups which have demonstrated themselves to be antisemitic and failing to seriously
address manifestations of anti-Jewish prejudice.
It has become commonplace for some in the political left to claim that charges of
antisemitism are used to restrict debate on Israel. In most cases, the complained of charge
had not been levelled, as supporters of Israel are perfectly capable of arguing on the basis of
facts. On the rare occasions when the charge is levelled, it is done so cautiously and only
when it appears the only or a significant contributing cause and/or result of the behaviour in
question.
It is also significant that playwrights, authors and other cultural personalities who would be
censured by the left for racism in most circumstances are very often excused from racism
when Israelis and/or Jews are the subject of the offence.
Phillip Mendes, a Melbourne academic, has written a number of papers on the Left and
Antisemitism in recent years. Mendes noted the following in his presentation to the
conference ―Antisemitism in the Contemporary world‖, held at Monash University in
Melbourne in February 2005:
―Many Left critics of Israel [have…] their own fallacy: that Israeli actions are directly
creating anti-Semitism. This analysis has two fundamental flaws: it makes no distinctions
between particular Israeli government actions and the Israeli people, and hence appears to
legitimize the ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis or all Jews whatever their political
perspectives; and it has the potential to blame the Jewish victims of racism, rather than
targeting the perpetrators. In contrast, I would argue that Jewish solidarity with Israel as a
nation state does not make Jews everywhere responsible for all Israeli actions anymore than
all Americans should be held responsible for the Iraq War, or all Australians should be held
responsible for John Howard‘s policies towards asylum seekers. And we need to remember
that only anti-Semites are responsible for anti-Semitism.‖
In addition, Mendes has identified a phenomenon which he calls ―anti-Zionist
fundamentalism‖ and which some other writers have labelled a form of ―eliminationist anti-
Semitism‖, arguing that in this ideology ―anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism undoubtedly
converge‖. He argues
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