‘Israelophobia’ considers a new form of the old hatred

BOOK REVIEW
Israelophobia, by Jake Wallis Simons (Constable)
Reviewed by Professor Philip Mendes (Monash University)

Is there an increasing convergence between older racial forms of antisemitism and contemporary forms of political antisemitism associated with attacks on Israel and Zionism? That challenging question is answered in the affirmative in this new book (published just prior to the October 7 Hamas massacre) by British journalist Jake Simons, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, who also writes for the conservative Spectator magazine.

According to Simons, this newer form of antisemitism should be termed Israelophobia, reflecting its hate-based targeting of the Jewish state rather than Jews as an ethnic or religious group. He argues that Israelophobia has three principal dimensions comprising: 1) Demonisation of Israel as a uniquely evil state; 2) Weaponisation of progressive political movements to mobilise hatred against both Jews and Israel in that western-based protests against Israel often generate hate directed at members of local Jewish communities; and 3) Falsification based on historical manifestations of Nazi and Soviet propaganda.

Simons presents three factors that allegedly underpin this new anti-Jewish bigotry. One is that it emanates from what he loosely labels “progressives” or the “Left”. He asserts that hostility to Israel has become a new orthodoxy amongst academics and students within universities who align their anti-Zionism with a broader critique of racism and colonisation.

That critique is often informed by “Critical Race Theory”, which tends to marginalise antisemitism because adherents (for example Whoopi Goldberg) assume that only black people can be victims of racism. Consequently, some progressives make common ground with Islamic groups such as Hamas despite the fact that the latter’s far right perspective on social issues such as gender and sexual equality should render them beyond the pale to anybody with Left views.