Dirty Politics
The farcical attack on the UCU For voting against use of the EUMC ‘Working Definition’ of Antisemitism
There’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth from those sickened by the Universities and Colleges Union’s decision to ban use of the European Union Monitoring Centre’s ‘working definition’ of antisemitism.
This piece is cross-posted with Antony Lerman’s blog, Context is everything
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Antisemitism and delegitimisation
Critics of Israel are increasingly accused of delegitimising Israel and encouraging antisemitism. This creates a climate of suspicion in which the onus is on critics to somehow demonstrate they are not antisemitic.
The strong fight-back by Israel and its supporters against the country’s deteriorating public image has been sometimes crude, sometimes carefully pitched.
Richard Kuper is a former chair of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, an organisation of more than 1,600 Jews in Britain. He grew up in apartheid South Africa and has been a political and social activist, publisher, trade-unionist and university lecturer.
This article may be reproduced on condition that JNews is cited as its source
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
When Jews speak about Israel in London
As an Israeli recently arrived in London, I decided to attend an event arranged by members of the London Jewish commun
The event referred to by the author was an ‘Opinion Soup’ held on 25 October 2010 at the JCC for London. Speakers included novelist Howard Jacobson; philosopher at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, Brian Klug; former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Antony Lerman; and journalist Melanie Phillips, with author and journalist David Aaronovitch as Chair.
Eyal Clyne is an Israeli researcher of society(ies) in Israel-Palestine. He focuses on the conflict and other Israeli political issues. Some of the posts on his Hebrew blog appear also in English and elsewhere, and some of his pieces for JNews are also cross-posted with other sites.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
The Real EUMC Definition of Antisemitism
In 2004 the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) published a report called Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002 – 2003. All page references below are to this report.
2 Helen Fein: Dimensions of Antisemitism: Attitudes, Collective Accusations and Actions. In: Helen Fein (ed.): The Persisting Question. Sociological Perspectives and Social Contexts of Modern Antisemitism. (Current Research on antisemitism, vol. 1, ed. by Herbert A. Strauss and Werner Bergmann). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1987, p. 67.
3 Martin Luther King Jr.: “Letter to an anti-Zionist friend”. Saturday Review, 47, August 1967, p. 76. Reprinted in M. L. King Jr., This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (New York, 1971), pp. 234-235.
4 See UK RAXEN 4 Racial Violence Report, 2003 (unpublished - forthcoming).
5 See Alexander Pollak and Nina Eger: Antisemitismus mit Anspielungscharakter. In: Anton Pelinka, Ruth Wodak (ed.): Politik der Ausgrenzung. Vienna: Czernin, 2002, pp. 187-210.
6 The myth of “the Jew” as “(bloodthirsty) Christ Killer” has been perpetuated to the present through the myth of Jewish ritual murder. See Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer: Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 2ff.
7 Brian Klug: The collective Jew: Israel and the new antisemitism. In: Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 37, No. 2, June 2003, Routledge, pp. 122ff.
8 The antisemitic view of Israel as being representative for the (stereotypical) “Jew” is not to be confused with the view of Israel as a Jewish state, which is, in fact, the way, Israel defines itself.
The report referenced in this piece is available in full here: fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/AS-Main-report.pdf
Richard Kuper is a former chair of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, an organisation of more than 1,600 Jews in Britain. He grew up in apartheid South Africa and has been a political and social activist, publisher, trade-unionist and university lecturer.
This article may be reproduced on condition that JNews is cited as its source