How did anti-semitism move from the right to the left?

Question

For most of this country's history anti-semites were most numerous in the upper-crust of society 'No Jews Allowed' was the policy in the clountry clubs and 'good' private schools. No self-respecting debutante would date a Jewish boy, etc, as the majority of Jewsh people made their living as small merchants, brokers, and regular working people, dealing with lower classes of society. They even supported civil rights for 'the negroes', for goodness sake, how awful! They had one advantage that other minorities didn't however. They could 'pass'; a simple change of name and many were indistinquishable from the anglo population. Also over time they got money, which allowed them to build their own infrastructure and buy their way into the blue blood ranks. Now a strange thing has occured, when the charge of 'anti-semite' is hurled, it's usually at people on the left, mostly for criticism of Israel. What caused the falling out between these traditional allies?

1. I'm not making any assumptions, simply going by what i see.

2. Funny how all the anti-liberal comments ignore the 1st part of the post i.e. how antisemitism was traditionally a conservative, right wing domain.

Answer 1

Actually somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of American Jews are liberals. Just because liberals can be critical of Israel doesn't mean we're anti-Semites. That's a huge difference. Most liberals except a few radicals still support Israel, in fact. We question some of its policies, of course, but that doesn't mean we're against it or its people or any or all Jews worldwide. That's kind of an odd assumption to make.

Answer 2

Anti-Semitism has always had a comfy place within the Left, going back to one the biggest anti-Semites of modern times, Karl Marx.

Consider: the full name of the Nazi Party was the "National Socialist German Workers' Party." Politically, they were akin to today's social democrats in Europe - but with the radical fascist element of being only for "pure Germans". Nazis were fascist leftists.. despite historians who call it a "Rightest" party.

You have to take the 3 decades after the Holocaust as a vacuum in history. While the stench of Auschwitz was still in the air, the world gave Jews a respite. Left/Right doesn't apply during this time.

That was until the mid 1970s when the invention of the "Palestinians" gave Jew-haters of all stripes a new excuse. They could finally exhale and hate Jews openly again - especially Western "leftists".

Answer 3

Being critical of Israel is not being anti semitic.

However, ONLY being critical of Israel while ignoring the practises and problems in her Arab neighbouring countries, and other nations, is bloody unfair. Often Israel is held to a much higher moral standard than any other place on earth.

An example: in the UK, there is a big boycott of Israel; the British academics have refused to deal with their peers in Israel because they dislike Israeli policies.

OK, that's their right to do this. BUT at the same time, they don't comdemn or boycott any other country - even those like Iran where women are still stoned to death on a regular basis; Iran, which funds Hezbollah and supports terrorism. Nor do they boycott Syria, which also funds terrorism. Nor do they boycott any other nation, even though lots of countries have far worse records than Israel.

A few people have given really foolish answers to this question; they clearly don't know anything about Israel and should therefore stop making silly assertions: Israel didn't 'steal' anyone's land and anyone who knows their Middle Eastern history will know this!

I have often heard people being 'anti Zionist' and strangely, they sound extremely anti semitic. The two DO overlap - I know because I've heard it happening!

Answer 4

dead markist, you are no doubt Zionist so you would destroy America to further the Zionist agenda even tho this country has gave you your all, no different from any other Zionist, and anyone who will say Israelis our Ally , is a traitor, and hates this country, or just plain ignorant, we have several good answers from people who want to be fair and call a spade a spade, but we don't expect this from the Zionist, even the Jew's in America and Israel know what their game plan is and are trying to stop it ,most Zionist are not really Jewish but are Russian Kazars, and if any of you who are Jewish think you will be included into their ranks should they succeed in gaining control of the world. you might want to think again, and listen to your elders who are fighting this,
and where did you come up with the B,S, Jew's were ever poor or down trodden they have been the money changers for at least 2000 years and were kicked out of England in the 16th century for usury, don't talk thru your butt read history, and visit Israel no Zionist work even now they have the poor Arabs to do their manual labor while they sit on their butts and smoke their fat cigars and drive their expensive cars with maids and servants to do their every desire and all on American tax payers back,

Answer 5

First of all, you are confusing antisemitism with being opposed to the policies of the Israeli government regarding the Palestinian territories. They are not the same. A growing number of Israelis are opposed to their government's policies and I don't think you would call them anti-semetic.

Secondly, I have been wondering if the allignment of the neocon's with Israel isn't an intentional plow to pry American Jews away from the Democratic party and into the Republican party. Republican ideals should not include intervention in domestic problems of other countries nor should they include interventionist wars in areas that are not a threat to our national security. Yet, the neocons have adopted these policies and as a result have attracted more Jews then in the past.

Cons have also done a similar thing regarding abortion. Republicans logically should be opposed to having the government intrude into personal lives as much as anti-abortion laws do. Yet, the anti-abortion stance has become a Republican stalwart and the result is that they have pried a lot of Catholics away from their traditional Democratic positions.

Answer 6

Most anti-semites are on the right - always have been. The only thing that has changed is that now arch-Zionists throw the term "anti-Semite" around very loosely, at anyone who criticizes Israel for any reason.

So anti-Semitism hasn't moved from the right to the left. The label "anti-Semite" has moved from the left to the right.

Answer 7

Overall, Liberals are more inclined to "look at both sides" of an issue and to look at root causes of terrorism (i.e., oppression, occupier/occupied territories, politics, etc.) to determine solutions. This perspective has caused many to take a critical look at the Israeli Palestinian Conflict and to criticize many of the policies of Israel.

I think those who are 'hyper-sensitive' do not make the distinction between government and religion, and quickly label these criticisms as "anti-Semitic". Much like those who criticize US policies are labeled as "godless" and "Un-American".

Answer 8

Are you sure you are talking hatred of jews or hatred of zionists?? I believe being a jew is just being in a religion which we all have a right to do.
Being a zionist is a bit more than that....its believing in your jewish religion, but also believing that you have more rights than other people and that you can steal things from them cause God ordered you to. Its also a practice which is easily the root cause of most of the problems of the world today. As such its easily understandable where good people of a fair and equitable disposition would embrace jews, but have a dislike for zionism.

On the other hand, I can easily understand the propaganda benefits of painting hatred of zionism as hatred of jews....to villify the messenger, and an old trick of debate called a "Red Herring".

Answer 9

Anti-semitism and being critical of Israel are not the same thing. For some people the concepts may converge but for the most part they are very separate sentiments. Most left-wing critics of Israel are not anti-semites and, in some cases, include Jews.

Answer 10

I think it started when the Israeli government swung so far right they began to look like the oppressors of the Palestinian people. Then American Jews began parroting the militant stance of the Israeli leaders, abandoning their traditional stance as defenders of the oppressed here in the U.S. Now they're just another selfish special interest group, bleeding the U.S. taxpayers dry.

Oh yeah - there's also the religious angle - hearing fundamentalists going off about the Judeo-Christian tradition, characterizing it as the sworn enemy of Islam, takes it over the edge for those of us secular Democrats who don't want the U.S. involved in a religious war. Leave us out of your Apocalypse, please.