Why does the left have such a hard time addressing its own anti-Semitism?

It happens with depressing frequency. A scandal will hit the left, the Labour party or some other progressive institution, and somewhere among the Facebook fire and fury someone will imply that the whole thing has been confected by the shadowy conspiracy: the bankers, the Rothschilds, you-know-who. Many otherwise progressive minded people will show a willingness to dismiss concerns raised as confected outrage, a distraction.

The last two years have provided plenty of examples: A momentum holocaust day fringe event in September 2016, the Skripol Case, the bad weather in Washingto, the wall mural, and now #PredictTheNextCorbynSmear; where discussions have drifted or leapt into antisemitism, and people who would normally denounce racism in the strongest terms have minimised its impact on Jews or openly make use of antisemitic tropes. Otherwise critical and well-meaning friends have referred to the writings of antisemitic writers like Craig Murray, and the rubric of “anti-zionism” somehow seems to get applied to a people rather than a political ideology.

One reason is that the economic penalty paid by many ethnic minorities in the UK does not apply in the same way to the Jewish community. Racism often replicates itself through a systematic process of enforced social, economic and political barriers that afflict an ethnic group or community. But the Jewish community as an ethnic group, no longer appears to be afflicted by the socio-economic penalties still faced by members of for instance, the African-Caribbean, South Asian and Roma communities. This is not to argue that no Jewish people suffer socio-economic disadvantage, only that it is no longer as easy to trace that disadvantage to structures of racial discrimination in the way that we can for other groups.

This presents the left with a bit of a paradox. The socio-economic dimensions to racism are really our wheelhouse. We have a well-developed critique of it, and a good understanding of how it fits in to wider structures of racial oppression. A group who suffer discrimination but not necessarily tied to socio-economic deprivation do not fit as easily into the structures of understanding we tend to deploy, and it can lead people to believe that there is little at stake in anti-semitism.

This feeling is often reinforced by global politics. In particular, because of the nature of a conflict that has become totemic for many on the left: Palestine. Despite being an obvious non-sequitur to anyone who has thought about it, and repeated reminders from members of the community, there remains a tendency among some to allow discussion of Israel to slip into a discussion of Jews, and vice versa. To people of this tendency, the fact that Israel is clearly the more powerful actor renders it very difficult to view the Jewish community as victims of aggression. Meanwhile, there has been a deeply concerning uptick in abuse towards Jews but there is no state currently engaged systemic in anti-Semitism. In fact, it is often the state that (rightly) steps in to protect Jewish communities.

This can mean that those who are otherwise opposed to racism view anti-Semitism as a minor form of discrimination, in principle wrong but with pretty low-impact all things considered.

There are a fair number of reasons why this is not just misguided morally, but counter-productive politically.

The principle is obviously bad enough. If we are serious about opposing racial discrimination, then we are serious about it. Antisemitism has a number of traits that are not shared by discrimination against other ethnic groups but it remains racist. It’s wrong and we should oppose it on that principle.

But we also have to realise that once one type becomes popularly acceptable it reduces the taboo around others. Even those racist groups that have attempted to distance themselves from antisemitism have tended to slip back on old favourites as soon as they feel empowered to do so. If we allow antisemitism to pass unchallenged, those who display it will not stop there.

And then there’s the danger of ceding the territory of opposing anti-semitism to those who would deploy it for cynical grounds. Just as Nigel Farage is prone to displaying previously undiscovered concern for women’s rights when it provides a vehicle for Islamophobia, so the modern far-right has discovered the rhetorical value in opposing antisemitism.

The left struggles to address it’s own antisemitism because it has invested so much of its efforts opposing abuse and bigotry elsewhere. But that has sometimes left it blind to the existence and effect of racism that does not fit the standard model. Until our rejection of antisemitism is as clear and unequivocal as it should be, we will fail all victims of racism, regardless of their race.

Kam Gill blogs on race at raceisaprocess.wordpress.com