Criticizing Israeli state policy need not constitute antisemitism

Evidence

There is a sharp distinction, often lost, between the notion of selfhating Jew and that of self-critical Jew. To criticize Israel as a state formation, and the Israeli state and governmental policies as enacting, enabling, or turning a blind eye to particularly vicious expressions of humiliation, dehumanization, and degradation, as Judith Butler has pointed out, emphatically counts as the latter without amounting to the former. To criticize the government of Israel and its policies, even to criticize the partial grounds on which that state was founded, is not to criticize Jews as such, nor is it to place Jews anywhere and everywhere at risk, notwithstanding the reported spike in recent antisemitic attacks in the likes of France. It is not even to place Jews in Israel at risk. Quite the contrary; it is to point out the way in which such policies and governmentality manifest the very insecurity they claim to undo. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 577 (#expands, via linked claim)

It would be palpably unjust to assert that all critics or opponents of Israel are moved by anti-Semitism; it would be equally mistaken to deny that anti-Zionism can on occasion pro­ vide a cloak of respectability for a prejudice which, at the present time, is not normally admitted in public by anyone with political ambitions or cultural pretensions. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1240 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Criticizing Israeli state policy is not antisemitic and does not endanger Jews. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 577; Criticizing Israel’s methods need not question its right to exist.; Arguing for a binational single state does not entail antisemitism. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 578 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Criticizing Israeli state policy is not antisemitic and does not endanger Jews. #expands (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 577
• Anti-Zionism can cloak anti-Semitism unacceptable in public discourse #complicates (0.82) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1240