Column: Charges of antisemitism are a convenient way to shut down criticism of Israel

The Bloomington CAPS Commission devoted much of its April meeting to addressing an accusation of antisemitism and to exploring the meaning of antisemitism itself.

The CAPS, or the Community Advisory on Public Safety, was established by the Bloomington Common Council to “to increase the safety of all Bloomington community members, especially those often marginalized due to race, disability, gender, sexual identity, or sexual orientation,” in the words listed on its official website. A Bloomington resident leveled the antisemitism accusation in early March in response to the CAPS Commission's endorsement in February of a cease-fire resolution regarding Israel's war in Gaza.

Is it antisemitic to criticize the Israeli government's policies and the U.S. government's economic and military aid to it?

To address this question, the CAPS Commission invited eminent academic experts to speak at its meeting: Professor Aziza Khazzoom, of Indiana University Jewish Studies; Professor Abdulkader Sinno, an Indiana University political scientist; and Daniel Segal, professor emeritus at Pitzer College and a leader in Jewish Voice for Peace.

Antisemitism, as well as white supremacy and other forms of hate, is an ugly reality in today's America, and hateful Zoom comments marred the Common Council's April 3 meeting. But these far right comments, known as “Zoom bombing,” may well have come from outside Bloomington, and were categorically denounced by the antiwar activists advocating a cease-fire.

In recent years, the charge of antisemitism has become a convenient way to silence criticism of the Israeli state. As Professor Khazzoom explained, there are two rival definitions of antisemitism, only one of which lends itself to such tendentious use. The IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition says that criticism of Israel is potentially antisemitic if it is different from criticism of “any other country.” But this is where it gets tricky.

Israel isn't just “any other country.” Its settlers, fleeing largely European Christian persecution, and whom the United States had failed to welcome in adequate numbers, often displaced Arab Palestinians. As Daniel Segal said, European Americans were also colonial settlers, displacing and often slaughtering Native Americans.

Worried by the confusion and bias in the IHRA definition of antisemitism, another international group of scholars produced the Jerusalem Declaration. Crucially, the Jerusalem group emphasize “the fight against [antisemitism] is inseparable from the overall fight against all forms of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and gender discrimination,” a view very much akin to the outlook of the CAPS Commission. The Jerusalem group writes: “Our aim is twofold: (1) to strengthen the fight against antisemitism by clarifying what it is and how it is manifested, (2) to protect a space for an open debate about the vexed question of the future of Israel/Palestine. We do not all share the same political views and we are not seeking to promote a partisan political agenda.”

Today some of the most incisive criticism of U.S.-backed Israeli militarism comes from American Jews, whose response to the horrors of the Holocaust is not a blank check to Israel but the motto, “Never Again – to Anyone.” This is the spirit of Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, and other largely Jewish antiwar groups calling for peace and equality.

In the 1950s, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy accused leftists and even liberals of being pro-communist. He persecuted State Department-area specialists. Today the technique is being used to discredit critics of the U.S. military support of the current Israeli government.

That is an infringement on our rights and responsibilities as American citizens, for it is our federal government that is funding this brutal war. Irresponsible charges of antisemitism must not be allowed to become a new McCarthyism.

David Keppel is spokesperson of Bloomington Peace Action Coalition.