The Denial Of Antisemitism

Following the appalling events of October 7th 2023, I wrote about the christian chauvinism that I saw in the response from Micheál Martin. I viewed his comments as denigrating the victims of the murderous attack, by falsely claiming that his faith is superior to theirs. Since then there has been a lot of discussion about Irish attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. Unfortunately, I have seen much of this discussions include both antisemitism and also a highly defensive denial of antisemitism in Ireland.

One of the better understood forms of antisemitism is Holocaust Denial. This short Holocaust Memorial Museum video, discusses the difference between hardcore Holocaust Denial and softer examples of the same bigotry. Trivialisations of mass murders are described as a kind of antisemitism that has difficulty with accepting the idea of Jews as victims. For example, consider the tweet below about the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad.

Firstly, what are described here as mere “riots”, in fact involved the vicious mass murder of 180 Jews, the gang-rape of many more Jewish women and girls, along with the destruction of 900 Jewish homes. Secondly, it is simply not true to state that the only reason Jews were targeted was because the perpetrators thought they were communists. This pogrom was motivated by explicitly Nazi propaganda. Examples of these Nazi antisemitic incitements were the translation of Mein Kampf into Arabic for publication in local newspapers, and Arabic-language radio broadcasts from the Nazi regime in Berlin. Portraying the Farhud as mere “riots” where the Jewish faith of the victims was almost incidental, is consistent with the Holocaust Memorial Museum description of difficulty in accepting the idea of Jews as victims.

Such denial of antisemitic motives of course also relates to more contemporary events. For example, after arguing that the 1941 Farhud was not antisemitic, the tweet below goes on to argue that Hamas is not antisemitic.

Again, we can see the insistence that it is not the Jews who are the victims of Hamas terrorists. Instead, we’re told that those who are brutally murdered by the religious fanatics in Hamas are people who believe in Zionism as political project. Zion is the name of a hill in Jerusalem, where there has been a Jewish majority for more than 3,000 years. It is also often used as a more generic term for the surrounding land, and Zionists believe that there should be a Jewish homeland in this area. Whether any particular person believes in this political goal or not, it is absolutely abhorrent to advocate for hatred towards people for their political beliefs. Certainly, it can be just as valid to oppose Zionism as it is to oppose any other political policy or idea, but the hate of a people is an appalling thing to promote that often leads to violence.

Moreover, the idea that Hamas does not hate Jews is another denial of antisemitic motives that seems to overlook quite a lot. The ADL has a gathered some direct quotes from those speaking on behalf of Hamas, which are explicitly antisemitic. It is not a short list. One example is the speech that described the Jews as “brothers of apes and pigs” before adding “Oh Allah, enable us to get to the necks of the Jews”. Perhaps if this Hamas Official had just replaced “Jews” with “Zionists”, then we could be told that these statements are not antisemitic either, and that they should be supported by “all people of good conscience”?

The specifically Irish flavour of antisemitism denial proposes that hardly anyone in Ireland harbours any prejudice against the Jews, such that those attitudes are only prevalent in other countries.

Not only is it painfully obvious that the study referred to in the tweet above does not support the contention that “Ireland is one of the least antisemitic countries in Europe”; it is also painfully obvious that stating “every study says the same thing” is clearly false. One example survey on antisemitism that was widely reported in the Irish media, ranked Ireland “roughly in the middle in comparison with other countries in Western Europe”. Within that survey, a majority of the Irish people participating agreed with the explicitly antisemitic statement that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country”. More than a quarter of Irish people said that “Jews have too much power in the business world”. Almost a third of Irish people surveyed agreed that “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust”; and it seems that still today there are Irish people who have difficulty in recognising Jewish people as victims.

Denying antisemitism allows such bigotries to persist. Given the frequency with which these attitudes have led to violence, all forms of prejudice against Jews should be opposed.

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