Fighting antisemitism

A new rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism in France

We have the impression that xenophobia is on the rise in France, and that this xenophobia targets particularly the Muslims. What does that mean in practice? Verbal or physical attacks on the street? Bullying of Muslim colleagues at work? Muslim pupils in schools? Who is mobilising for this xenophobia - who are its agents? Like the majority of French Arab-Muslims, I use the term Islamophobia because what we are experiencing is much more complex than just racism. For example, people who have converted to Islam are subject to an extreme violence that cannot simply be attributed to the fact that...

The Holocaust as moral instruction?

Reposted, with thanks, from JewThink. Parts of the article are adapted from the posts by the author on Twitter/X . “My grandpa didn’t survive Auschwitz to bomb Gaza”, reads a placard held by a Jewish woman at a protest in Mexico against a previous Israel assault on Gaza . A photo of the placard went viral on social media in 2021. More recently, the American group Jewish Voice for Peace has shared a photo of a protestor at a demonstration against the current war with a banner reading “My grandparents didn’t survive the Holocaust for Israel to commit genocide in Gaza.” In both current and prior...

Letter: Antisemitism a factor in Russia

Michael Baker’s discontent ( Solidarity 689 ) with the sentence added in sub-editing to Solidarity 688 to signal how there come to be so many people of Russian background in Israel must be partly down to us being too elliptical. The sentence said that Russians came to Israel in the 1990s “fleeing antisemitism”, not that they were fleeing antisemitic violence . It did not seek to deny that better economic prospects in Israel, and the fact that Israel would let them in, were factors. I had in mind the book Love and Math , by Edward Frenkel. Frenkel describes how as a talented young mathematician...

At last! Morning Star takes antisemitism seriously

In an editorial on 3 November, the Morning Star has warned of a “horrifying increase in anti-semitic incidents across Britain since the start of the present Gaza crisis” and stated that socialists “cannot ignore this” even “as we fight for peace in Gaza”. This is a significant development. The sharp rise in antisemitic incidents that began immediately following Hamas’s pogrom on 7 October (i.e. well before Israel’s attack on Gaza) had previously scarcely been mentioned in the Morning Star. In fact, between 7 October and 3 November, while the paper frequently, prominently and correctly...

Turkey responds with antisemitism

The Israeli-Gaza War has prompted a significant rise in antisemitic incidents in Turkey. A second-hand bookshop in Istanbul went viral for displaying a sign saying “Jews Not Allowed”, and the Etz Hayim Synagogue in Izmir was spray-painted with the slogan “Murderer Israel”. Süleyman Sezen, an AKP (Erdoğan’s party) councillor in Samsun, said in a council meeting: “Historically, everyone gets angry with Hitler because he was racist. Hitler had a saying: ‘You will curse me for every Jew I did not kill.’ This is true. Once again I honour Hitler’s memory.” Şahzade Demir, an MP for Hüda-Par (a...

A tale of two SWPs

The massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 caused genuine shock and horror around the world. There was considerable sympathy for Israel in the wake of the tragedy. But not so for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United States. Their response to the terrorist attack was to claim that the “real victims” were Palestinians. For supporters of the Socialist Party, the SWP had crossed a red line. A national campaign was launched to spread the word that the SWP was now openly taking an antisemitic position. The SWP’s reaction was an interesting one. In their weekly...

Antisemitic outburst in Dagestan

Russia has now seen what may be the starkest outburst of antisemitism worldwide since the beginning of the war in Israel-Gaza. Ten people (largely police and protestors) were taken to hospital, with two left in a critical condition, on Sunday 29 October, after a crowd stormed Makhachkala International Airport in Dagestan, looking for passengers from an inbound Israeli flight. Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the airport after rumours spread through local Telegram channels that a Tel Aviv-Makhachkala flight would be bringing refugees to be relocated in Dagestan. Some in the crowd carried...

Hamas: a “black hole” for the French and international “left”?

Published on Ni patrie ni frontières by Yves Coleman on 26th October 2023 . Pic: Logo of Hamas. As far as Hamas is concerned, it seems to me that there are, roughly speaking, 5 competing interpretations: 1) Those who think that Hamas is an original national liberation movement, with a secondary religious component, and which must be an interlocutor in the negotiations with Israël. The former Trotskyist leader Edwy Plenel (now the director of “ Mediapart ”, an online left-wing “independent newspaper,” with 200,000 subscribers) explains, at the same time 1 , that Hamas is generously financed by...

US leftist responses to the Simchat Torah Massacre

This report was written by Viktor Medem, an unaffiliated socialist activist, writing in a personal capacity. We are publishing the report as a contribution to debate and discussion around left perspectives on the issues. For Workers' Liberty's own response, click here . In the United States, the response of left-wing Palestine activists to Hamas’s 7 October massacre of 1,400 Israelis has created fault lines whose full implications are only beginning to become clear. What is clear, however, is how news of the massacre was greeted. When it broke, the response of almost all the major Palestine...

Israeli activists call for a "return to a politics based on humanistic and universal principles"

Picture shows a protest organised by Standing Together, many of whose leaders have signed the statement. In the photo, Uri Weltmann, one of Standing Together's Jewish leaders, holds the megaphone for Ghadir Hani, one of Standing Together's Palestinian leaders. Both have signed the statement. This statement was co-signed by dozens of Israeli peace activists, mostly Israeli Jews but including some Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is reposted from the website of Yachad, here . We, Israel-based academics, thought leaders and progressive activists committed to peace, equality, justice, and human...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.