Anti‐Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections

Tools

Hirsh, David. 2015. Anti‐Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections. In: Charles Asher Small, ed. The Yale Papers: Antisemitism in comparative perspetive. New York: ISGAP, pp. 57-174. ISBN 9781515057796 [Book Section]

Preview

Text
Yale Papers_Hirsh_Final.pdf
Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract or Description

This paper aims to disentangle the difficult relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. On one side, antisemitism appears as a pressing contemporary problem, intimately connected to an intensification of hostility to Israel. Opposing accounts downplay the fact of antisemitism and tend to treat the charge as an instrumental attempt to de-legitimize criticism of Israel. I address the central relationship both conceptually and through a number of empirical case studies which lie in the disputed territory between criticism and demonization. The paper focuses on current debates in the British public sphere and in particular on the campaign to boycott Israeli academia. Sociologically the paper seeks to develop a cosmopolitan framework to confront the methodological nationalism of both Zionism and anti-Zionism. It does not assume that exaggerated hostility to Israel is caused by underlying antisemitism but it explores the possibility that antisemitism may be an effect even of some antiracist forms of anti-Zionism.

Item Type:

Book Section

Keywords:

anti-Zionism antisemitism anti-Semitism

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Sociology

Dates: