Unfashionable victims: Why identity politics is a barrier to recognising antisemitism in progressive spaces

What is identity politics and why is it a problem for Jews and Israel? JASMINE BEINART explains.

Racism and bigotry are increasingly seen as beyond the pale, particularly in progressive environments such as universities.

But at the same time Jews are experiencing increasing antisemitism on social media and on university campuses.

How do we account for this seeming paradox? Why is it that Jews are so often not believed, and even portrayed as victimisers, when they speak out about antisemitism?

Identity politics is at the root of this clash of worldviews. “Identity politics” is a loaded term, but generally refers to understanding power through issues that pertain to one’s identity, rather than organising around belief systems or shared values.

Identity politics are not new. The term has been used since the 1970s and during the 1980s politics of identity became more prominent and was connected to a new wave of political activism.

But in the 21st century, progressive politics has become dominated by essentialisation, the attribution of specific characteristics to everyone within a group and the presumed hegemony of certain people based on their belonging to certain groups.  

Identity politics posits a “hierarchy of oppressions”, which categorises people based on their status of victimhood, a simplified worldview where people are either oppressed or oppressors. Blacks, women, LGBTQ+ and disabled people are victims; Whites, Men, cisgendered, heterosexual and able-bodied people are oppressors.

There are serious practical and theoretical problems here.  The idea of hierarchy of oppressions imagines that we each only have one coherent social identity.

What is known as “intersectionality” was supposed to address these problems. Intersectionality acknowledges that everyone has unique experiences of discrimination and oppression. It takes into account various parts of someone’s identity, including gender, race, class, and age.

Within intersectionality, it is understood that there are aspects of a person’s identity that combine and overlap, creating different modes of oppression and privilege.

Kathryn Harriss, a UK feminist scholar, warned that this paradigm allows for people to “self-label” and “label others to a fixed position “somewhere along a predetermined hierarchy of oppressions in order to justify or contest a political opinion by reference to the speaker’s identity.”

Jews have fallen victim to this essentialist categorisation. Jews do not neatly fit into any single category of identity. Even Jews don’t always agree on what we are:  a religious group? an ethnic group? a nation? We can be all those things, or none of those things at the same time. So where do we fit in the picture of identity politics?

In shorthand identity politics, racism is often reduced to a dichotomy of White and Black.

Despite the fact Jews have been racially and religiously persecuted for millennia, we are usually categorised as “White”. 

The classification is not based merely on skin colour – although there is rarely an acknowledgement that Jews come in a range of complexions. It is the placement of Jews as part of a social group perceived as privileged and of Zionism as an oppressive, colonial system imposed on an indigenous Palestinian people.

Global antisemitism is largely excluded from intersectionality. In fact, when applied to a Jewish minority, White privilege—which includes power, influence, and money— often functions as the recycling of antisemitic stereotypes.

Similarly, Jewish indigeneity to Israel and long experience of exile, is excluded from the discourse of oppression which classifies Israelis as colonists.

While I identify as a politically progressive Jew, as a Zionist I am categorised by many believers in identity politics as a supporter of an oppressive, racist, Western imperialist, colonial power.

Under the simplified narratives of identity politics, it is seemingly inconceivable to many progressives that Jews could be victims. Any abuse or hatred we suffer is seen to be deserved on account of our being “Zionists”.

Seen through this analysis, the exclusion of Jews from the possibility of being victims is a self-serving narrative which prioritises the struggles of Palestinians over the experiences of Jews – and which sees the two narratives as mutually exclusive.

Ironically, it is the expression of Jewish identity through identification with Israel that makes Jews unacceptable in identity politics.

On university campuses around the world, Jewish students are often viewed merely as proxies for “the Zionist entity” or “the Israel lobby”. This sort of rhetorical device dehumanises us.

It makes it possible for Jews to be explicitly discriminated against in a form that would be entirely unacceptable towards other minorities.  Jewish students at SUNY New Platz
 were kicked out of a sexual abuse survivor group when they expressed support for Israel. At UC Berkley Law several student groups passed bylaws promising to never host someone who supports Zionism or Israel.

In the real world, you can be privileged in some ways while simultaneously disadvantaged in others. It is possible to be oppressed while oppressing others.

As a group, Jews are privileged in some ways such as access to education and, for many, the ability to “pass” in a White-dominated world. But we are also victims of historical and contemporary antisemitism. Identity politics in its essentialist form has no place for this complexity.

Identity and having a sense of belonging are important. However, identity politics, as it functions within progressive political discourse at universities, is a barrier to the recognition and defeat of antisemitism.

The pessimist in me says antisemitism is so pervasive that it is an accepted, latent, but easily activated, feature of society. 

The optimist says this is a learning opportunity. For those who aren’t ardent adherents of identity politics, there seems to be a knowledge gap around issues that impact the Jewish community. 

We need to expose and explain antisemitism so that we do not become victims of another ideology determined to exclude us.