Antisemitism on the left

Submitted by AWL on 1 June, 2021 - 3:01
Antisemitic sign - Star of David = Swastika

I find it interesting that Colin Foster in his piece about the rise of antisemitism (Solidarity 594) looks just at the aspect of far right antisemitism, concluding: “Antisemitic attacks have been increasing in Europe and the USA for some years. This increase is correlated with upsurges of the far right and in the USA especially of Trumpism.” Whilst I agree it is important to recognise this aspect and talk about it, as the rise and threat of the far right is very real, it’s not looking at the full picture.

Historically it is the far right who are antisemitic and they’ve expressed this antisemitism via violent means, but in modern times it’s found very much so on the left and I would argue more so.

As reported by The Jewish News on Friday 28 May: “The CST confirmed this morning there has been 325 incidents of antisemitism since the start of the recent conflict. This surpasses the 317 recorded in July 2014 at the height of Operation Cast Lead, the last war between Israel and Hamas.” And later in the article a spokesperson for CST says: “Every time Israel is at war antisemitism hits record levels in the UK”.

The recent surge of antisemitism as reported by CST and others isn’t down to the far right, and the same with recent antisemitic attacks across Europe and America. It’s aspects of the left uniting itself with Islamism, which I guess itself could be argued to be far right.

It’s important not to lump in all antisemitism as far right, as it’s failing to recognise and deal with the problems on the left.

Mo Starke Hannon, London

Editor’s note: The Solidarity 594 article was on a page with an article about antisemitism on Gaza protests. Whether antisemitism is “more” around the left than the right is another matter, but that there is a significant amount is bad enough.

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