UN envoy tackles anti-semitism as ‘another form of racism’

Anti-Semitism is indistinguishable from any other form of prejudice, be it racism, homophobia, Islamophobia but it is also unique and must be fought wherever it is found, says US Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt.

Lipstadt, who was appointed by US President Joe Biden as the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism six months ago, was the guest speaker at the biennial 2022 South African Jewish Board of Deputies Gauteng conference in Sandton.

“In my first day in office I set out my objectives, which were to explain what anti-Semitism is because there is a great deal of confusion about it; when is it inappropriate? When is it just ignorance? Does it even matter?”

‘I can hate you, but if I do it only because you are a Jew’

Quoting the late US Supreme Court Justice Potter Ste-wart who described his threshold test for obscenity as “I know it when I see it”, she said the same test held for anti-Semitism, for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia or any other prejudice.

“I can hate you, but if I do it only because you are a Jew, that’s anti-Semitism, just like if I only hate you because you’re black, that’s racism.”

But anti-Semitism was unique, she said because it was more than a prejudice, it was a conspiracy theory premised on the fact the Jews would harm all others and because of that belief anti-Semitism could be found on all points of the political spectrum, rather than just on the right which was the traditional home of racists, homophobes and Islamophobes.

Most prejudice involved the victims being seen as lesser than the haters, but in terms of the conspiracy theory underpinning anti-Semitism, Jews were seen as all-powerful, “using their smarts for nefarious and deleterious ends”, she said.

Fear is a driver

There are two implications to this, Lipstadt said. The first is that because the Jew is someone the hater has to fear, the hater has to protect themselves and their community to actively fight against them and remove the threat.

The second is that by definition the Jew is no longer the victim in this scenario but the aggressor, which has major consequences in terms of mobilising people to stamp it out.

Part of the reason for this could be the legendary Jewish resilience after centuries of discrimination and pogroms culminating in the Holocaust, with Jews picking themselves up each time.

“That’s the innocent explanation, sometimes though it is result of conscious or unconscious bias, especially for the left.

“In their eyes Jews are white, rich and all-powerful, therefore ipso facto incapable of being victims – even though half of the population of Israel are not Ashkenazi Jews.”

Jews were not seen as white

On the far-right, Jews were not seen as white and part of the master race, but rather as puppeteers manipulating all non-white people as part of the Great Replacement Theory to unseat white hegemony in European and North American societies. The net result was an incredible rise in anti-Semitism across the northern hemisphere – and mass shootings in the US.

“As a historian, I can tell you that Jews are the canary in the coal mine,” she said. “It’s the hatred that an authoritarian regime will begin with but not the hatred they will end with.

“’Othering’ one group as lesser than you, could easily morph into the ‘othering’ of other vulnerable minorities.

“Anti-Semitism is a profound threat to democracies. Hatred and genocide begin with words.”

Her job, she said was to travel the world, not to tell countries what to do, but rather to share with them that the US saw anti-Semitism and prejudice as a profound problem.

“We recognise how fragile democracy can be and urge you to recognise its threat. We must fight this.”

-news@citizen.co.za