Anti-Semitism, the evil that doesn't go away

Anti-Semitism, understood as hatred and hostility towards Jews, whether expressed openly or implicitly, has been present throughout human history, particularly in Europe and the Arab world. Anti-Semitism has taken various forms, but is ultimately characterised by the phobia, marginalisation and even persecution of the Jewish population, which today represents less than 0.3% of the world's population. 

Over the past few years, several NGOs and agencies have warned of an upsurge in hostile attitudes towards this community by members of this community, exhibited both in countries with a significant Jewish population and those where they form a tiny minority. Anti-Semitism, however, is not new, but is a long-standing attitude.

There are several recurring themes (known as tropes) in anti-Semitic discourses throughout history: for example, the caricaturing of the Jewish community as a huge octopus spreading its tentacles over the world to control its designs, a constant image in the early 20th century European press.

Anti-Semitism often associates the Jewish communities living in Western countries with an invisible elite that manages the fate of the planet: the Franco regime popularised the infamous expression "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy" in the Spanish lexicon, in clear reference to an alleged global conspiracy orchestrated by the Jews. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion pamphlet, published in Russia in 1902, sought to point to the Jews as the promoters of a great global conspiracy to control the world, and which was crucial to inflaming anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe.  

Another recurring theme in anti-Semitism is to accuse Jews of a dual loyalty. Throughout history, anti-Semites have accused Jews of renouncing the loyalty of the nation where they live, accusing them of being a separate community, ignoring the fact that traditionally most of the Jewish population has been assimilated into Western countries. The highest exponent of this frequent stereotype was the Dreyfus scandal in France. Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer, was unjustly convicted of treason, accused of leaking military secrets to Germany in 1894. The fierce political and legal debate that followed over the next decade exposed the anti-Semitism that had taken hold in France. Dreyfus was finally acquitted in 1906 as it became clear that his accusation was unfounded and motivated by anti-Semitism.

Anti-Jewish attitudes are still present today, and some of their recurrent themes are solidly implanted in the collective imagination. For example, according to a global study by the Anti-Defamation League, one of the leading organisations dedicated to raising awareness of anti-Semitism, it found that 44% of Spaniards consider that Jews "have too much power in the business world" and 27% thought that "Jews don't care what happens to people outside their community". Also 22% of the French support the second statement, as well as 13% of the Germans. These statements point out that many of the negative stereotypes related to Jews throughout history remain, more or less implicitly, in the West, even after the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

France, the European country with the largest Jewish population, is witnessing the rise of anti-Semitism. In 2015, more than 8,000 people left France to settle in Israel, a record number in the country's history. Recent events of a markedly anti-Semitic nature had occurred, such as the neo-Nazi graffiti on a hundred graves in a Strasbourg cemetery in 2019. In his book "Hate: The Tide of Anti-Semitism in France", Parisian journalist and writer Marc Weizmann states that it is increasingly common for French Jews to hide or conceal their membership of the community, recalling that, at a demonstration in 2018, several yellow vests hurled anti-Semitic insults at him. It is not by chance that, in periods of instability and social discontent, Jews are one of the groups to be used as scapegoats, something they in fact share with the Muslim population in Europe.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned in December 2019 of the 'new wave' of anti-Semitism. Earlier that year, the commissioner charged with investigating antisemitism in the country advised German Jews not to wear identifying marks of their religion, such as a yarmulke, in public. A Europe-wide survey conducted in 2018 concluded that 89 percent of European Jews believe that anti-Semitism has increased in recent years.

A characteristic of anti-Semitism is that it is not restricted to the radical right, as is the case with Islamophobia.  

For example, the Labour Party, the main left-wing force in Britain, has been accused on several occasions of holding anti-Semitic positions, especially during the period when Jeremy Corbyn led the party from 2015 to 2020. In recent years, party members close to Corbyn have been suspended for spreading anti-Semitic messages. Eighty-six percent of British Jews responded to a survey in 2019 that there was a high level of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

This does not exclude that the radical right, which is undoubtedly on the rise in Europe and the United States, has also made some historic anti-Semitic messages its own. If anti-Semitism was previously reserved for the most extreme movements, it has now entered into the everyday life of politics. The coronavirus pandemic has awakened in Internet forums frequented by white supremacists not a few conspiracy theories that point to Jews as the creators of the virus. ​​​​​​​

As mentioned above, anti-Semitism is often hidden under phrases or attitudes that, perhaps unintentionally, contribute to the caricaturing of the Jewish community as a segregated and alienated society. For example, Donald Trump stated in August 2019 that American Jews who voted for the Democratic Party "had an absence of knowledge or a great disloyalty:" Again, the accusation of disloyalty to the Jewish community appeared, and on the mouth of the president of the United States no less.

In short, anti-Semitism sadly remains part of the political landscape, and not exclusively among radical groupings on the margins of society. Anti-Semitism, like other forms of racism, is sometimes expressed in subtle and even invisible ways, but that is precisely why it must be taken seriously. Only an unreserved and forthright opposition to anti-Jewish ideas and the recurring themes in them can prevent anti-Semitism from once again intoxicating political thought in Western democracies.