Antisemitism focus lets France ignore its own anti-Arab racism

Evidence

Thus, while antisemitism and Islamophobia have both been realities in modern France, so have struggles against them. Moreover, those struggles do not have to be considered as zero-sum games. Rather, at their best, they have gone together. Broadly this study supports Hargreaves’ contention that, recent narrow factionalism notwithstanding, ethnic separatism is weak in France. A strong universalist thread runs through the histories of many of the movements considered here. In particular, there is a strong emphasis within many of these histories on altruism, rather than self-­interested identity politics. While it is easy to criticise this universalist approach as paternalistic and, as we have seen, often open to political manipulation, we might also ask: Is there not something admirable in its refusal to see the world in ethnic categories? What, in short, is wrong with altruism? — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1400 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Yet the contributions of Gilroy, Rothberg and Silverman remain at a broad-brush level of cultural analysis; arguably an empirical historical approach can add something further. Equally, recent historical works by Maud Mandel and Ethan Katz have pertinently questioned the popular notions that Muslim–Jewish relations in France either have always been characterised by enmity, or can be understood solely as a function of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or indeed only involved people whose primary self-identification was either Muslim or Jewish. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1334 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fixing on antisemitism as the sole admissible racism blinds France to other institutional bias — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 960; French anti-racist groups dispute whether Islamophobia deserves recognition as racism; French anti-racist activism linked antisemitism to Islamophobia beneath surface divisions (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• French anti-racist activism linked antisemitism to Islamophobia beneath surface divisions #complicates (0.82)
• French antiracist struggles against antisemitism and Islamophobia have often advanced together, not as rivals. #complicates (0.80) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1400
• Muslim-Jewish relations in France were not always enmity or solely about Israel-Palestine #complicates (0.76) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1334