Our article for The Political Quarterly (@po_qu) on antisemitism has just been published. Co-written by Ben Gidley (@bengidley), me and David Feldman (@PearsInstitute), we argue that Labour’s antisemitism crisis has been misunderstood. A thread (1/13).
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
In an otherwise bitter dispute, there is one unnoticed area of consensus: Labour’s friends and enemies agree the problem is about the number of antisemites in the party's ranks. But the number of antisemites is not the same thing as the spread of antisemitic attitudes in society.
By drawing on existing attitudinal data towards British Jews from @jprinstitute and @CST_UK, our article points to the need to rethink a contentious debate.
We conceive of antisemitism as a reservoir: a deep reservoir of stereotypes and narratives, replenished over time, from which people draw with ease, intentionally or otherwise.
Supporters of all parties draw from this reservoir. So the question we need to ask is not whether there is a problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party, but why the antisemitism that exists within Labour rises to the surface.
This does not happen because Labour members are committed antisemites, but because Jews intersect, or are perceived to intersect, with some of the key issues they care about: Israel and Palestine, and the operation of power within capitalist society.
We need to rethink antisemitism as well as the political response to it. We argue the focus should be on antisemitism, not antisemites. Expulsions will never get to the heart of Labour’s problem. You can expel antisemites, but you cannot expel antisemitism.
The reservoir idea alerts us to the multiple sources of antisemitism. A single-minded focus on the left leaves us unprepared to address the antisemitism that comes from the political right, which is surging globally, and could do so in Britain given the right circumstances.
Labour’s antisemitism controversy also reflects a deepening divide among anti-racists. Half a century ago, opposition to antisemitism and other racisms were closely aligned, intellectually and politically. Today these connections are slender; there has been a parting of ways.
Part of Labour’s problem is a continued difficulty in recognising antisemitism as a form of racism. This reflects the changing place of ‘anti-antisemitism’ within the politics of anti-racism.
The obstacles that stand in the way of a more integrated understanding of antisemitism are as conceptual as they are political, and these difficulties are not Labour’s own; they reflect important features in the way racism is understood today.
In Labour and contemporary British politics more generally, definitions of antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia abound, yet rarely are they joined up.
But a more rigorous understanding of antisemitism—as one specific form of racism and as a reservoir of myths and images that circulate in our broader political culture—may yet help us. This is a matter of political will and vision. Will the opportunity be seized? (13/13).
ps this article builds on our short piece published in the Guardian last month. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
