New Antisemitism

In this bibliography I have compiled fifty essays on MuralGaga published between mid-July and mid-January. They detail my efforts of investigative journalism into the "info-wars" conducted by pro-Israel groups against the UK Labour Party immediately prior to the massacres in Gaza.

"Was the antisemitism crisis in the UK Labour Party designed as a distraction from Gaza? Very early on some complained that Jeremy Corbyn was a victim of a smear campaign, but might it be more accurate to say that UK politics witnessed a deliberate smokescreen? As controversial as this narrative is, I think that all the evidence points in that direction."

In this paper I raise the question of whether the antisemitism crisis in the UK LP was an exercise in purposely timed hysteria to distract from Gaza, and by investigating open sources draw attention to the pro-Israeli activists orchestrating the smokescreen. I identify the real reasons for Jewish concern regarding Corbyn as Israeli legitimacy and the fear of BDS, especially should violence flare up - a concern that became more acute in 2018 - and indicate the strategy implemented as a result of this challenge. I note the extreme reluctance of the media in spelling out facts of the smokescreen, and locate this reluctance within a broader unwillingness meriting truth and reconciliation.

Extract:

I approach the issue of faith communities and racism from the perspective of having done historical and sociological research on British Jews. Jews are one of the oldest ‘minority ethnic’ populations in Britain, although their presence in the country was interrupted for a few centuries when they were expelled in 1290. The modern Anglo-Jewish community dates from the period of ‘resettlement’under Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s. Its long history has meant that it is both a useful lens for examining faith communities in Britain, and that it has been treated, in different ways, as a model minority by both sociologists and in public discourse. And because of the long history of racism against Jews in Britain,it provides a useful optic for understanding British racism and its changing nature.

My complaint to the Jewish Chronicle now with IPSO. It gives a simplified version of my long argument in MuralGaga, namely, that MuralGate was not a "last straw" to which exasperated Jews said "enough is enough" but a calculated plan to fabricate outrage.

Understanding the Conspiracy of MuralGate
“MuralGate” refers to the allegations of antisemitism that dogged Labour and especially Jeremy Corbyn when it was revealed in March that he seemed to approve of an antisemitic mural in 2012. Early on it was countered that this fabrication of outrage was a conspiracy (rather than a “Last Straw” to which exasperated Jews said “enough is enough”). This new analysis substantially vindicates the conspiracy theory.
1. By closely examining the number of “comments” on the screenshots of the incriminating images taken from the Facebook page I show that the shots were taken in 2012 – though only published for the first time in 2015, and that the 2018 image used was a composite.
2. By closely examining the tweets of the person concerned who re-released the data, and who accidentally published himself playing guitar at his wedding to @absoluteradio, I identify @CQuilty52 (his name, address, alter-egos, and so on).
3. By collecting and sequencing @CQuilty52’s relations with: (a) other antisemitism activists (and Douglas K Murray), (b) significant journalists (Nick Cohen, Isabel Hardman, Dan Hodges, Melanie Philips, and Guido Fawkes), (c) the Jewish establishment (BDBJs and JLC), (d) politicians especially Luciana Berger, I provide an account of @CQuilty52’s role in what was a carefully planned plot.
4. I show that @CQuilty52 is a “friend” of David Baddiel and David Schneider and look at their role in this story.
5. I provide highly probable reasons for thinking that @CQuilty52 was behind Guido Fawkes’ revelations regarding Naz Shah (2016), the coordination of the two inquiries into social media, the pressurising of the Jewish establishment, and liaison with politicians in the plot.
6. By examining at deliberate silences and feigned ignorance, I construct an argument that shows how an artificial calm was created before an artificial storm, one which implicates Luciana Berger, Sajid Javid and others (in setting up the antisemitism debate in April) but which was probably planned in February.
7. I decisively undermine the “authorised version,” the myth of the last straw, for example, by showing how the “enough is enough” narrative was already being constructed two weeks before enough officially became enough.
8. I probe the relations between others such as Alex Rubner and Victoria Freeman, Sarah (daughter of Baroness) Deech and others who appear in this story giving reasons why one but not the others was involved.
9. I give a brief but telling analysis of the comparable figure, Shai Masot, whose tweets show a similar concern to undermine critics of Israel by infiltrating UK politics.
10. On the balance of probabilities I argue that such also were the motives of the plotters.
The essay has six parts. In the first I examine the visual images that permit me to “carbon date” the time of capture. In the second I identify the alter egos of the chief protagonist and give an ideal type for his role (“The Production Manager”). In the third I look at the strategy and tactics of the Production Manager including the feigned ignorance of Corbyn’s comment and, as well, I undermine the opposing narrative. This permits a fourth part in which I present an informed sequence of events. The fifth and concluding part considers motive. Part six is an appendix taking the form of a time line which, with some repetition, assembles key events (with endnotes now as opposed to footnotes).

This file is essentially the same as my long essay MuralGaga renamed “MuralGate and Gaza.” It seems from the searches I have performed that MuralGaga has been deprioritised by Academia’s search engines so that it actually appears lower in searches than many other essays of mine on the same topic – despite the fact that with over 3,000 views MuralGaga is by far my most “popular” essay. I suspect that the pro-Israel activists have been complaining about my essay, something that Academia have not denied. I should point out that in this essay I was too Quilty-centric. Now I tend to think of Ben as more of a messenger boy. My later thought puts more emphasis on those behind the Twitter handle @GnasherJew.

MuralGaga refers to the essay I published on my academic page “Chris S Friel” at Academia.edu and tweeted @ChrisFriel7 from July 2018. GagaPhooey refers to the reception of MuralGaga. The overt reception may be considered prior to publication and after, both positive and negative. However, the CSV data file for the visits to the academic site permits an analysis of the covert reaction, one that can shine a light on the overt reaction, one that can tell us “what’s going on.”

Muslims in Europe face discrimination on social, ethnic and religious grounds. They have also been accused of harboring stronger antisemitic attitudes than the general population. This paper is based on interviews with young male Muslims from Paris, Berlin, and London and relates the results to representative surveys. It explores: a) experiences and perceptions of discrimination and exclusion, b) antisemitic views, and c) the relation between them. While young Muslims experience discrimination in all three countries, the perceptions of inclusion and exclusion differ from country to country, shaped by concepts of nationality. Patterns of antisemitism, however, are similar across the three countries. They indicate that sources of antisemitism are multi-faceted and cannot be reduced either to religious influences or to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Anti-Muslim discrimination does not seem to be a relevant factor influencing antisemitic attitudes. Other sources are also explored.

Current data show that antisemitism is on the rise in the United States, yet there are few studies that show how antisemitism effects the personal and professional lives of Jewish university professors. This article discusses the concept of antisemitism and how it can be perceived by American Jews who teach in the academe. This mixed-method study investigates Jewish university professors’ (n = 93) experiences with antisemitism in both their past and present-day lives. The data shows that the majority of study participants have had personal experiences with anti-Jewish harassment and discrimination at some point. In addition, a large number of the study participants have also faced antisemitism on their own university campuses. This study reinforces the notion that antisemitism not only exists but continues to have negative consequences for Jewish members of U.S. society.

This short report commissioned by the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism examines the 2014 protests over Israel's war in Gaza, exploring the extent and degree of antisemitism in the anti-Israel protests, as well as the reporting of this antisemitism and its impact on the Jewish community. It focuses in particular on the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge.

The research questions which this report attempts to address are:
• What were the predominant discourses in the UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge?
• Were antisemitic discourses present? If so, how prevalent were they?
• Are UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge comparable in scale and in discourse to protests relating to other conflicts?
• How do these issues relate to mainstream and Jewish media reporting on the conflict and on the demonstrations?
• How do these issues and their media representation affect Jewish feelings about antisemitism?

This short case study looks at a particular pro-Israeli hawk on Twitter, @GillianLazarus. Lazarus, of course, is a very human person whose twitter feed reveals a humane and intelligent personality. Nevertheless, I show how her involvement with the so-called “Gnasher Jews” leads to a polarising and monochrome mind-set, indeed, participation in a conspiracy. I identify the political philosophy behind the hawks as no less than that of Carl Schmitt, defender of Hitler’s political murders, and show how his Concept of the Political informs the meanings and values of the hawks’ way of life.

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NRUPR2YK9JIM4PCCDNYU/full?target=10.1080/13501674.2020.1877497

While Michael Checinski's anonymously-published piece “USSR and the Politics of Polish Antisemitism, 1956-1968” from the first issue of Soviet Jewish Affairs in 1971 can be read as both an analysis of antisemitism in Communist Poland and as a scholarly artifact that illustrates the manner in which the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Jewish communities in the region were studied and understood at the height of the Cold War, it also tells us much about the study of East European Jewry and other, related fields over the past fifty years. Indeed, key parts of Checinski's analysis including its focus on the Soviet Union's anti-Jewish policies, its emphasis on the corrosive if not inherently evil nature of the Soviet Union, and its examination of antisemitism in Poland remain central topics in the study of Soviet and East European Jewry. Moreover, while the Soviet Union has long passed into the annals of history, many of the same historical themes, narrative tropes and scholarly frameworks that once helped researchers frame the study of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are now critical parts of scholarly efforts to construct and explicate another important sub-field in the realm of Jewish studies, the study of antisemitism, including debates regarding the “New Antisemitism.” In this and other ways, Checinski's essay exemplifies not only the manner in which Cold War tensions, ideologies and anxieties shaped the study of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for generations but also how they continue to influence the study of Soviet and East European Jewry and other, related fields to this day.

Antisemitism from Muslims has become a serious issue in Western Europe, although not often acknowledged as such. Looking for insights into the views and rationales of young Muslims toward Jews, Günther Jikeli and his colleagues interviewed 117 ordinary Muslim men in London (chiefly of South Asian background), Paris (chiefly North African), and Berlin (chiefly Turkish). The researchers sought information about stereotypes of Jews, arguments used to support hostility toward Jews, the role played by the Middle East conflict and Islamist ideology in perceptions of Jews, the possible sources of antisemitic views, and, by contrast, what would motivate Muslims to actively oppose antisemitism. They also learned how the men perceive discrimination and exclusion as well as their own national identification. This study is rich in qualitative data that will mark a significant step along the path toward a better understanding of contemporary antisemitism in Europe.

"A valuable work of sociological research in a highly topical area of great relevance. By embracing a de-essentializing perspective, Jikeli helps the reader to understand the phenomenon in its full scope and makes it a useful tool for policy makers, educators, religious scholars, social workers, and sociologists." —Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota


Studies in Antisemitism
360 pp., 7 b&w illus.
cloth 978-0-253-01518-1 $35.00 / £24.99
ebook 978-0-253-01525-9 $34.99 / £24.99


Book presentations scheduled:
March 31, New York, ISGAP Center, 6pm
April 1, New Haven, Yale University, 5pm
April 3, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University, noon
April 13, Paris, EPHE, 6pm
(Please contact the author for more information: g.jikeli@gmail.com)



More information at:
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/807416

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https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/123/4/1151/5114739?login=true

This article examines the different ways that anti-Semitism and Zionism have confronted and influenced one another through a tension-filled dialectic that is simultaneously self-evident and counterintuitive. The essay begins with a discussion of the central place of anti-Semitism in canonical Zionist texts such as Leon Pinsker’s Auto-Emancipation and Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State. Both Pinsker and Herzl believed that anti-Semitism was a permanent or immovable force, and this interpretation of anti-Semitism led them to embrace, if not create, political Zionism. The following section analyzes the works of two émigré scholars, Salo W. Baron and Hannah Arendt, who wrote fervently about the need to avoid “the lachrymose conception of Jewish history” and the school of “eternal antisemitism,” and to focus instead on the actions that Jews undertook as historical actors in specific contexts. Despite their influence, the study of anti-Semitism over the past two generations has returned to a perspective that is strikingly similar to traditional Zionist interpretations. The penultimate section of this piece delineates how two historians in Israel, Shmuel Ettinger and Robert S. Wistrich, reinforced and reaffirmed key aspects in this interpretive paradigm, including anti-Semitism’s unique nature as “the longest hatred,” the recurrent abandonment of the Jews by their neighbors, and the strange, befuddling, and problematic relationship between anti-Semitism and Zionism. The essay ends with a discussion of the different ways that anti-Semitism and Zionism continue to interact with and influence one another, in particular through current debates in and between the public and the scholarly realms regarding “the new anti-Semitism.” The article concludes by suggesting that scholars return to the contextual-comparative approach to the study of anti-Semitism as part of larger efforts to separate and insulate academic research on the topic from contemporary political considerations.

I spent the summer investigating the Labour antisemitism scandals which I argued were deliberately designed to distract us from Gaza. By analysing the dynamics of public utterances (tweets especially) I showed how a network of pro-Israel hawks had gingered up the Press, Politicians, and representatives of the mainstream Jewry such as Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, their purpose being to manufacture outrage. Some methodological remarks may help explain this controversial narrative. The scandals kicked off with MuralGate just a week before Land Day. The official position of the Jewish Chronicle was that Corbyn's comment in defence of Mear One's mural had pushed exasperated Jews onto the streets. Spontaneous outrage was quickly followed a debate in the Commons and saturation coverage in the Press-to suggest that this was contrived, for example, by Luciana Berger who had complained to the Leader's Office was just a " conspiracy theory. " However, when the BDBJ and JLC stressed in six out of ten paragraphs the time dimension I began to suspect the myth of the last straw. It's been said that truth is the daughter of time but I would add the daughter of time consciousness. So, far from discovering Corbyn's comment independently in 2015 when it was unsuccessfully aired (when Corbyn was meeting with Berger in her Liverpool constituency!) Marcus Dysch, political editor of the Chronicle, and " Clare Quilty, " the blogger who re-released the comment in 2018, had in fact not only worked together but had used images with metrics both revealing an early capture date. This is complicated but can be shown beyond reasonable doubt. As with the identity of Clare Quilty (who I could name) my discovery was down to good luck but other techniques were due to method. Perhaps the simplest device is the time line which helps discern cause from effect, collusion from coincidence, unfeigned ignorance from choreographed knowledge. The essence is to attend explicitly to the timing of tweets. An example here that quite passed me by at first was a carefully designed thread that emerged just 8 minutes after Berger had tweeted on MuralGate day. James Bickerton @JBickertonUK bashed out 6 tweets in 11 minutes and then with no notice given that the thread is ended, Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 supplied the coda on the fascist nature of the art a minute later. Relevant also is the chronological sequence of Cohen's tweets about Corbyn who he had always hated but had not considered an antisemite – though he had long known of the mural and Corbyn's comment. Indeed, as the production line in the silly season delivered scandal after scandal it seemed that all roads led to Cohen – but on this question there is more work to do. A key moment for the hawks was when I published my study. I posted MuralGaga on my academic site mid-July and thereafter tweeted it over two weeks. Within two hours I was noticed and abused (I had never tweeted before). Calumnies included the utterly baseless insinuation that I was making death threats against Jews and harassing their families. @GnasherJew reported me to the CST. One week later when thanks to Skwawkbox the essay gained traction gas lighting threads appeared. @TwllDun had been the first to blog on Corbyn's mural comment but I had originally downplayed his significance. When he intervened, however, I became suspicious and as the recent study GagaPhooey on the reception of MuralGaga explains this led to further discoveries.

Betty Basan
Reflections on Last Newsletter

Jerusalem

Bloody Friday – March 30, 2018
Bloody Friday2 – April 6, 2018
Yasser Murtaja
Bloody Friday3 – April, 13, 2018
Bloody Friday4 – April 20, 2018

Israel Reaches Landmark Deal with UN to Resettle African Migrants. But then Retracts. 

David Grossman: Voice of moderation, of sanity, of wisdom
 
Spin Doctoring

British Labour and Antisemitism
Israeli Labour Party Suspends Relations with UK Labour Party

Millicent Fawcett

Zuckerberg’s Testimony in Congress

My New Article - Raphael Cohen-Almagor and E. Wesley Ely, “Euthanasia and Palliative Sedation in Belgium”, BMJ Supportive and Palliative Care (2018).

Wes Ely’s CNN Article

New Books – Amos N. Guiora, Earl Warren, Ernesto Miranda and Terrorism

Gem of the Month – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Playing Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

Spring Please
Guess
Monthly Poems
Light Side