A Persistent Prejudice

Anti-Semitic Tropes and Double Standards in the Anti-Israel Movement

Jeremy Havardi

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781680537819
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Antisemitism in the twenty-first century remains a major threat to Jewish communities around the world, and a potent challenge to the liberal international order. But it can so often be a more hidden form of racism, relying on codes, images, cues, and ciphers embedded in the cultural mythology of prejudice against Jews. It is about the invocation of the blood libel, attacks on so-called “cosmopolitans, ” accusations of “dual loyalty, ” the conspiratorial notions of a malign “Jewish lobby.” It is also a highly protean prejudice, ever adaptable to a multitude of changes in political and social circumstances, always ready to mutate and shape-shift to fit a new environment. That is why it has so easily become a feature of the modern anti-Israel movement. This short volume will explore how anti-Israelism has reproduced many of the canards, tropes, and ciphers of historic Jew-hatred and regurgitated them as attacks on Zionism and Israel. The adverse treatment of Jews within Gentile societies has also been replicated in an endless array of double standards against Israel in the international community. Today, the “Jewish question” has been replaced by the “Israel question, ” with a similarly obsessive and ritualistic form of demonization and delegitimization. Anyone concerned about the future of liberal democracy should take note.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Antisemitism in the world today
• Chapter One: Defining antisemitism – and antisemitism denial
• Chapter Two: Antisemitism: the tropes of the world’s oldest hatred
• Chapter Three: Antisemitism as outcome: inequality and adverse treatment
• Chapter Four: Turning Israel into the devil among nations
• Chapter Five: Double standards in treatment of Israel and/or Israel supporters
• Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index