Erasure of Antisemitism - Denialism and Minimisation

Example 50: Erasure of antisemitism – ‘denialism' & 'minimisation’:

This could include claiming that antisemitism is not a significant problem, or doesn’t exist at all, in society or in a section of it. In recent years, especially since 2015, it has become particularly common with regard to antisemitism in the British Labour Party. This type of antisemitism is often called denialism, and in a sense it too, like the other instances above, is a form of erasure, especially if done maliciously. Related to denialism is minimisation which downplays antisemitism even if not completely denying its existence.

The statement “I think that antisemitism in the Labour Party isn’t as great a problem as people make out” is perhaps not necessarily antisemitic, although it is not at all uncommon for a person who minimises Labour antisemitism to demonstrate other antisemitic beliefs on their social media timeline.

It can however be antisemitic if the person decides to take into account the views of only certain Jewish organisations – those with a point of view that chimes with what he/she believes. It is particularly offensive if a non-Jew contradicts a Jew who is concerned about left antisemitism; members of ethnic minorities must be listened to with respect and understanding when they complain about incidences of racism.

This issue is complicated because some prominent Jewish people (e.g. Michael Rosen) and organisations (e.g. Jewish Voice for Labour) do frequently state that antisemitism on the left is both exaggerated, and much less serious than it is on the far right. In terms of actual physical threat to Jews, far-right antisemitism is certainly more dangerous: but in terms of verbal and online antisemitism, the vast majority of British Jews contend that left antisemitism is not exaggerated at all, and is a serious problem. In other words, Rosen and JVL's views on this subject, while genuinely held, are not representative of the majority views of the UK Jewish community.

It is frequently said by the left that antisemitism is ‘weaponised’ by the right of the Labour Party (as well as by the Tories, and by Israel and ‘Zionists’), i.e. used spuriously to damn the left as a whole; and it would be foolish to deny this sometimes happens. For example, some of the high-profile people resigning from the Parliamentary Labour Party during 2019 and citing antisemitism as a reason had, in our opinion, a strong alternative reason for leaving the Party and could well have used antisemitism, if you like, as a smokescreen. One example is Ivan Lewis, the then MP for Bury South, who had already been suspended for the party on suspicion of sexual harassment: another is Frank Field, the then MP for Birkenhead, who had shown rather little interest in the issue of antisemitism on a long-term basis before suddenly resigning the Labour whip.

While such cases do in our opinion certainly exist, we contend that the great majority of accusations of antisemitism are absolutely legitimate and that talk of them being exaggerated for purposes of weaponisation is offensive and wrong. It is offensive that antisemitism has thus become a factional issue within the Labour Party and on the wider left, rather than being dealt with as both a significant problem in Labour, and as completely unacceptable in any case in a socialist and antiracist party. We have purposely not given examples here, although there are countless ones available to view; this is not totally without controversy, with some people not entirely accepting that denialism or minimisation is an actual form of antisemitism. We contend that it can often amount to antisemitism, and have therefore included it in our Examples.