Weaponization of antisemitism

The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism for political purposes, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, Illustrative examples:
 * : "The weaponizing of antisemitism against US critics of Israel was evidenced in 2019 when Florida's upper legislative chamber unanimously passed a bill that classifies certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic"
 * may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Such bad faith accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.
 * may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Such bad faith accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.
 * may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Such bad faith accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.
 * may be described variously as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Such bad faith accusations have been criticized as a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared this to playing the race card.

Suggestions of such exploitation have been raised during phases of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in various organizations' adoptions of the controversial working definitions of antisemitism,   during the 2014–20 allegations of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, at the 2023 US Congress hearing on antisemitism, during the 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses and in discussions of Israel and apartheid.

Critics have argued that the charge of weaponization amounts to an antisemitic ad hominem attack whose use fails to address antisemitism as the issue at hand. Sources include:
 * The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.
 * The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.
 * The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.
 * The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.
 * The charge has also been criticized as a "testimonial injustice", rooted in presumption rather than evidence.

History
In The Fateful Triangle (1983), Noam Chomsky wrote of counter-charges of antisemitism in response to criticism of Israel that: "The tactic is standard". Citing Christopher Sykes, he wrote that the phenomenon could be traced to 1943.: "The Perlmutters deride those who voice “criticism of Israel while fantasizing countercharges of anti-Semitism,” but their comment is surely disingenuous. The tactic is standard. Christopher Sykes, in his excellent study of the pre-state period, traces the origins of this device (“a new phase in Zionist propaganda”) to a “violent counterattack” by David Ben-Gurion against a British court that had implicated Zionist leaders in arms-trafficking in 1943: “henceforth to be anti-Zionist was to be anti-Semitic.” It is, however, primarily in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible."

The events of 1943 mentioned by Chomsky were reported at the time as follows:

Christopher Sykes described this as follows in 1965: He adds that it is "in the post-1967 period that the tactic has been honed to a high art, increasingly so, as the policies defended became less and less defensible".

In the early 1950s, American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who had been a strong critic of Adolf Hitler, was called antisemitic after she began to write against Zionism, having witnessed Jewish terrorism against the British and the Nakba against the Palestinian Arabs. Israeli historian Benny Morris said John Bagot Glubb was subject to a "tendency among Israelis and Jews abroad to identify strong criticism of Israel as tantamount to, or as at least stemming from, anti-Semitism" (though Morris also said Glubb's anti-Zionism was "tinged by a degree of anti-Semitism"). Glubb wrote in his 1956 memoirs: "It does not seem to me to be either just or expedient that similar criticisms directed against the Israeli government should brand the speaker with the moral stigma generally associated with anti-Semitism".

According to Cheryl Rubenberg, in the 1980s, journalists Anthony Lewis, Nicholas von Hoffman, Joseph C. Harsch, Richard Cohen, Alfred Friendly, authors Gore Vidal, Joseph Sobran, and John le Carré, and American politicians Charles Mathias and Pete McCloskey were among those whom pro-Israeli groups called antisemites. In 1989, Rubenberg wrote of Mathias and McCloskey, "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as 'anti-Semitic' is a common practice among Israel's advocates.": "The labeling of individuals who disagree with the lobby's positions as "anti-Semitic" is a common practice among Israel's advocates. For example, when Senator Charles Mathias [R., Maryland] voted in favor of the AWACs sale to Saudi Arabia, a Jewish newspaper in New York commented: "Mr. Mathias values the importance of oil over the well-being of Jews and the State of Israel. The Jewish people cannot be fooled by such a person, no matter what he said, because his act proved who he was." Former Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey [R., California] also has had the charge of anti-Semitism leveled at him: "When I ran for reelection in 1980, I was asked a question about peace in the Middle East, and I said if we were going to have peace in the Middle East we members of Congress were going to have to stand up to our Jewish constituents and respectfully disagree with them on Israel. Well, the next day the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith accused me of fomenting anti-Semitism, saying that my remarks were patently anti-Semitic." Indeed, it may be that the weapon of greatest power possessed by the pro-Israeli lobby is its accusation of anti-Semitism. George Ball comments: "They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out." In Ball's view, many Americans feel a "sense of guilt" over the Holocaust, and the result of their guilt is that the fear of being called anti-Semitic is "much more effective in silencing candidates and public officials than threats about campaign money or votes."" In 1987, journalist Allan Brownfeld wrote in the Journal of Palestine Studies, "One cannot be critical of the Israeli prime minister, concerned about the question of the Palestinians, or dubious about the virtue of massive infusions of U.S. aid to Israel without subjecting oneself to the possibility of being called 'anti-Semitic'".

In 1992, American diplomat George Ball wrote in his book The Passionate Attachment: America's involvement with Israel that AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups "employ the charge of 'anti-Semitism' so carelessly as to trivialize it", and that "Any Jewish American who equates that term with critical comments on transient Israeli policy implicitly acknowledges that he cannot defend Israel's practices by rational argument."

International Israeli advocacy groups have charged prominent individuals expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment with antisemitism, including the Nobel Peace Prize winners Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu.

Chomsky and the academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Norman Finkelstein have said accusations of antisemitism rise after Israel acts aggressively: following the Six-Day War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifadas, and the bombardments of Gaza. Chomsky argued in 2002: "With regard to anti-Semitism, the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called 'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State of Israel."

Matthew Abraham, professor of rhetoric at the University of Arizona, wrote that accusations of antisemitism against those criticizing Israel's violation of Palestinian human rights have increased since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. Abraham wrote: "Israel's supporters have sought to make the argumentative leap that criticism of Israel as the Jewish state is anti-Semitic precisely because Israel is the home of all Jews for all time. However, this argument does not work since there are many anti-Zionist Jews who reject Israel’s attempts to speak in the name of Judaism. The traditional response to this problem has been to label anti-Zionist Jews as 'self-hating Jews,' which requires a suspension of rationality and sound judgement."

Nick Riemer of the University of Sydney wrote in 2022 that anti-Semitism "provides the excuse for a heavy-handed and highly irrational assault on fundamental democratic liberties". During the Israel–Hamas war, Bernie Steinberg, a former executive director of Harvard Hillel, wrote in a 2023 opinion essay in The Harvard Crimson that pro-Israeli activists should stop the "weaponization" of charges of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian activists: "It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands." Marshall Ganz, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, criticized the "weaponization" of antisemitism, writing in The Nation that the "tactics are remarkably similar to those used by Senator Joseph McCarthy". Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said at the Palestine Expo conference that "the accusation of antisemitism is being weaponised and abused".

A 2023 report analyzed 40 cases where UK university staff and/or students were accused of antisemitism on the basis of the IHRA definition between 2017 and 2022, and found that in 38 cases, the accusations were dismissed, with two yet to be resolved. According to the report, false accusations of antisemitism have caused staff and students severe stress.

In December 2023, antisemitism expert David Feldman said that, while "some anti-Zionism takes an antisemitic form", the context must be considered when differentiating antisemitism and legitimate discourse and that there is "a long history of Israel and its supporters portraying anti-Zionism and other criticisms of Israel as antisemitic" in order to delegitimize them.

In February 2024, Israeli officials accused the International court of Justice of antisemitism following South Africa's genocide case against Israel. Anthony Lerman wrote in Declassified UK that these officials' "deployment of weaponised antisemitism to deflect criticism of Israel's responses to the Hamas 7/10 attacks on Jewish settlements and Israeli army units beyond the security fence on the eastern side of the Gaza strip was evident even as news of the atrocities was still emerging."

The Associated Press reported that the April 2024 Israel–Hamas war protests on university campuses have been "branded" as antisemitic, "while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition". Ahead of the appearance of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 20 Jewish Columbia and Barnard professors wrote Shafik an open letter stating their objection to what they called the weaponization of antisemitism.

Description
Various writers have argued that charges of antisemitism raised in discussions of Israel can have a chilling effect, deterring criticism of Israel due to fear of being associated with beliefs linked to antisemitic crimes against humanity such as the Holocaust. In 2019, Joshua Leifer, an editor of Dissent magazine, wrote that campaigns that consider anti-Zionism antisemitic aim to shift criticisms of the Israeli government "beyond the pale of mainstream acceptability". In his 2005 book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Finkelstein wrote that use of "the anti-Semitism card" attempts to displace "fundamental responsibility for causing the conflict from Israel to the Arabs, the issue no longer being Jewish dispossession of Palestinians but Arab 'opposition' to Jews".

Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2008 that the charge can discourage others from defending in public those against whom the charge of antisemitism has been made. Rhetorical accusations of antisemitism put a burden of proof on the person against whom the charge is raised, putting them in the "difficult" position of having to prove a negative, according to Mearsheimer and Walt. They wrote that accusations of antisemitism resonate with many Jewish communities, "many of whom still believe that anti-Semitism is rife". While allowing that "we should all be disturbed by the presence of genuine anti-Semitism in parts of the Arab and Islamic world (and in other societies—e.g., Russia) as well as its lingering presence in some segments of European and American societies", they argued that "playing the anti-Semitism card stifles discussion" and "allows myths about Israel to survive unchallenged". Reviewing Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby in 2007, Jeffrey Goldberg responded to its claim that "[w]hile the charge of anti-Semitism can be an effective smear tactic, it is usually groundless", writing: "[n]o, not all criticism of Israel or AIPAC is anti-Semitic. But the idea that no criticism of Israel or AIPAC is anti-Semitic is just as ridiculous". In 2010, Kenneth L. Marcus wrote that although Mearsheimer and Walt called such accusations "the Great Silencer", they had not themselves been silenced, having received a wide audience for their book and appearances. Marcus also wrote that many pro-Israel commentators who had condemned what they viewed as antisemitism in anti-Zionist rhetoric had also taken pains to say that many criticisms of Israel are not antisemitic.

Finkelstein wrote in 2008 that some of what is claimed by "the Israel lobby" to be antisemitism is in fact "exaggeration and fabrication" and "mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy".

A presumption that all Muslims are antisemitic has been "increasingly deployed by Zionist groups to eliminate critical debate inclusive of Palestinian experiences", according to Mitchell Plitnick and Sahar Aziz. In 2020, Ronnie Kasrils compared claims of antisemitism in Britain to rhetorical strategies employed against the anti-apartheid movement by supporters of the South African government. Finkelstein noted the parallels to Communist parties' denunciations of principled criticism during the Cold War as "anti-Soviet".

In 2021, Atalia Omer of the University of Notre Dame wrote that weaponization of antisemitism is bad for all involved, including Israel and the broader Jewish community.

In 2004, Joel Beinin wrote that the "well-established ploy" of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism exposes Jews to attack by suggesting they are responsible for the Israeli government's actions.

Kenneth L. Marcus, while warning in 2010 against denying or minimizing antisemitism, also cautioned against overuse of the "anti-Semitism card", paralleling concerns raised by Richard Thompson Ford with the broader misuse of "the race card": that it can be dishonest and mean-spirited, risks weakening legitimate accusations of bigotry, risks distracting socially concerned organizations from other social injustices, and hurts outreach efforts between Jewish and Arab or Muslim groups.

Some scholars have said that the charge of antisemitism is becoming less effective as more people become aware of its political usage.

In 2019, Raz Segal wrote of "the weaponization of the discourse of antisemitism, used often to silence and attack those who speak about Israeli state violence, especially Palestinians. It is a crude and cruel distortion: abusing the historical struggle of a vulnerable people, Jews, under attack by powerful states to blur the attack of a state, Israel, against a vulnerable people, Palestinians." In May 2024, in reference to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, he wrote, "the blanket assertion by pro-Israel advocates is intended as a political cudgel: weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism of its attack on Gaza".

Referring to rumours that the ICC was preparing arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Aryeh Neier said that Netanyahu's assertion "that ICC indictments would be antisemitic is indicative of his promiscuous use of antisemitism allegations". Shortly afterwards, on 20 May 2024, the ICC announced that it was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and Netanyahu called chief prosecutor Karim Khan one of the "great antisemites in modern times", saying that Khan was "callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world". Kenneth Roth described what Netanyahu said as a "common last resort for defenders of Israel" and said that it endangers Jews: "if people see the charge of antisemitism as a thin cover for Israeli war crimes, it will cheapen the concept at a time when a strong defense is needed."

Conceptual disputes
Philosopher Bernard Harrison argues that, in debates about anti-Zionism and antisemitism, an ad hominem rebuttal consisting "of accusing one's Jewish accuser of making his putatively absurd accusation merely in hopes of 'silencing criticism of Israel' and of doing so because he is a Jew" is a "stock" anti-Zionist retort. Derek Spitz calls this a "denial of antisemitism" and "a form of victim blaming" that calls into question the complainant's good faith and forces them into the "defensive posture of having to justify the very making of the allegation of antisemitism".

Dov Waxman, Adam Hosein, and David Schraub write that people—generally Jews—who raise charges of antisemitism are frequently accused of being disingenuous, and that charges of antisemitism are bound to be contested because "antisemitism today is not always easy to identify or even define". They add that charges of bad faith may be dissipated by clarifying which of the potential understandings of antisemitism is being invoked, and that "it is reasonable to insist that persons who encounter a Jewish claim of antisemitism at least adopt a presumptive disposition towards taking that claim seriously and considering it with an open mind."

In 2011, the University and College Union Congress debated a motion to formally reject the working definition of antisemitism. According to David Hirsh, the IHRA-approved definition was "denounced as a bad faith attempt to say that criticism of Israel was antisemitic". During the debate, a new definition of antisemitism was proposed and later adopted by which, according to Hirsh, "nobody except a crazed Nazi could be said to be antisemitic."

Werner Bonefeld writes that antisemitism is often rejected "as an expression of bad faith—a camouflage for insulating Israel from criticism" by those who view antisemitism as "a phenomenon of the past that merely casts its shadow on the present but has itself no longer any real existence in it."

In his 2016 review of Kenneth L. Marcus's The Definition of Anti-Semitism, Robert Fine referred to an "extensive literature on the allegedly illicit uses of the word 'antisemitism' in political argument... This political culture... casts doubt on the motives of those who claim to experience or witness it in the here and now."

Writing in 2016 about charges of "bad faith" responding to allegations of "bias, harassment, and discrimination", including those relating to antisemitism, Schraub called the charge of weaponization "a first-cut response that presents marginalized persons as inherently untrustworthy, unbelievable, or lacking in the basic understandings regarding the true meaning of discrimination." In 2016, Lesley Klaff called the charge of bad faith a "denial of contemporary antisemitism commonplace in Britain."

Writing in 2019, Lars Rensmann identified "the trope that criticism of Israel is 'suppressed' or 'taboo' in society" as characteristic of "modernized antisemitism". Rensmann writes that anti-Jewish myths are applied to Israel and their antisemitic character is denied when called out, often entailing "charges of bad faith against Jews who allegedly exploit the problem of antisemitism... and even use the Holocaust for their own collective interests". He writes that, although laments about "illegitimate racism charges" are today rarely heard outside of far-right groups and fringe movements, the charge of bad faith is "almost ubiquitous" when Jews raise the issue of antisemitism, and "virtually without empirical evidence", constituting a "profound ethical problem". He writes, "Today, more often than not, those who address the problem [of antisemitism] are targeted by portraying them as allegedly swinging 'the antisemitism bat' against innocuous 'Israel critics or 'upset Muslim youth' in bad faith." In his review of Antisemitism and the Left, Rensmann writes, "Judith Butler and some (post-)Marxist fellow travelers do not recognize current antisemitism... but only detect 'the charge of antisemitism' with its allegedly 'chilling effects' on debates, as they charge those who raise it with bad faith and argue that they ought to be combatted politically."

Robert Fine and Philip Spencer write in 2018's Antisemitism and the Left that "We hear on the left... that the charge of antisemitism is mainly put forward for dishonest and self-seeking reasons; that people cry 'antisemitism' in order to deflect criticism of Israel; that the stigmatising of individuals and groups as antisemitic is more damaging than antisemitism itself; that the Jewish state and its supporters are the main source of racism in the modern world. It is said, for instance, that those who 'cry antisemitism' do so in order to shut down debate on Israel. This may be true in particular cases but the reverse is more plausible: that there are many who cry 'Israel' in order to shut down debate on antisemitism. When the critique of antisemitism is viewed as a problem, the problem may lie with the viewer."

Sociologist David Hirsh coined the term Livingstone Formulation to refer to the initial leveling of an accusation of bad faith in response to an accusation of antisemitism, rather than engaging with the accusation on its merits. Kenneth L. Marcus wrote in 2015 of the Livingstone Formulation: "Jewish victims of anti-Semitism are so often smeared for bringing allegations in 'bad faith' that the gambit now has a name".

In 2020, the EHRC investigated antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and found that agents of the party had committed "unlawful harassment" by "suggesting that complaints of antisemitism are fake or smears", asserting in their report that "this conduct may target Jewish members as deliberately making up antisemitism complaints to undermine the Labour Party, and ignores legitimate and genuine complaints of antisemitism in the Party." Hirsh wrote that the EHRC's investigation found that the accusation of bad faith was "a significant antisemitic phenomenon in the real world." Klaff found that supporters of Jeremy Corbyn "perceived Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger as deliberately manufacturing a crisis within the Labour Party by making false accusations about antisemitism", which led to online antisemitic and misogynistic abuse targeting Berger.

In 2021, Holocaust historian Kenneth Waltzer wrote: "When anti-Zionists accuse Jews who call out antisemitism of raising the issue in bad faith in order to silence anti-Zionism, this too is antisemitic anti-Zionism. They accuse those who cry antisemitism of engaging in a swindle or a lie and acting in bad faith." Mark Goldfeder, writing for the Penn State Law Review in 2023, expands on Waltzer, writing, "it is ironic and idiosyncratically true of antisemitism—as opposed to other forms of discrimination—that even attempts to describe or define the phenomenon are often themselves rejected by antisemites using classic antisemitic tropes about Jewish power. Instead of believing or acknowledging the experiences of Jewish people who have been targeted and subject to abuse, and dispensing with any notion of good faith, the antisemitic rejectionists instead blame and smear the victims themselves, accusing the Jews/Zionists of once again organizing their secret cabal to act maliciously and manipulate others into doing their bidding and silencing others."