The Dreyfus affair was a conservative-liberal clash, not a pro-anti-Jewish one

Evidence

It was, before 1914, French rather than German society that was riven by the question of antisemitism through the Dreyfus affair, an episode that divided France not between those who were proand anti-Jewish, but between broadly conservative and liberal camps. Both sides harbored negative views about the Jews, although it was of course the anti-Dreyfusards who launched the violent and murderous attacks on the Jews across the country and into Algiers. Context is again crucial, and the Dreyfus affair was not just about whether the Jews could be loyal French citizens or not, but about the future direction of the nation. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 510 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The Dreyfus Affair brings into the open all other elements of nineteenth-century antisemitism in its mere ideological and political aspects; it is the culmination of the antisemitism which grew out of the special conditions of the nation-state. Yet its violent form foreshadowed future developments, so that the main actors of the Affair sometimes seem to be staging a huge dress rehearsal for a performance that had to be put off for more than three decades. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 166 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Dreyfus affair divided France by political camps, not pro-Jewish sentiment — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 510; The socialist left shared the bourgeois anti-Jewish skepticism about Dreyfus — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 304; Dreyfus Affair prefigured 20th-century antisemitism within stable politics. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 83 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The Dreyfus affair divided France by political camps, not pro-Jewish sentiment #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 510
• The Dreyfus Affair was the nation-state’s antisemitism reaching its culmination #complicates (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 166
• The Dreyfus Affair prefigured later twentieth-century antisemitism as a dress rehearsal. #complicates (0.85)
• Antisemitism functioned as a structuring political concept, not a private prejudice #complicates (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2136
• The Dreyfus acquittal enhanced rather than weakened social antisemitism #complicates (0.74)
• Placing both conflict parties outside the law silenced the Jewish question politically #complicates (0.73)