As Israel just commemorated Yom Hashoa, today’s Jews are facing another danger, beyond the role of universal scapegoats, that has been used by different political regimes at different times and in different continents during most of their history
This role of scapegoat has not disappeared and is still very much active today. When the CRIF, the organization representing French Jews, is accused of controlling the French government by the far-left party La France Insoumise, when the customers of a Jewish restaurant in Philadelphia are harassed by so called pro-Palestinian demonstrators, when Jews are accused of disseminating the COVID, or when Israel is presented (not its government) as the ultimate evil country, this famous antisemitic trope is definitely all too alive today.
Jews have been facing another, “complementary” danger in the last 20 years, their weaponization by an illiberal right in Europe and in the United States. In France, Jews have been instrumental for Marine Le Pen’s party to show that she had purged the party of its antisemitic roots, helping it getting normalized in the French political arena. When a highly respected figure like nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld declares that this party is now acceptable, it does not necessarily help Le Pen get many Jewish votes, which are not that important numerically speaking, but show the broader electorate her party is now acceptable or should we say “kosher’…
In the USA, the actual antisemitism displayed on some US campuses, minimized and ignored at first by the universities’ management and downplayed by the Democratic Party, has helped the Republican Party get the excuse to go after these universities, which has been a major objective for them in the past few decades. Trump’s aggressive crackdown on academic freedom, free speech on campuses is being implemented under the false pretext of fighting antisemitism, putting many Jews in a very uncomfortable position.
If antisemitism is real, so is its weaponization, which has been instrumental for the Republicans and Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Like for Le Pen in France, the goal was not really to go after the Jewish vote (that stayed firmly Democratic), but to use this topic to sound like the party of “common sense” versus the “antisemitic woke left”.
Le Pen’s National Rally and Trump’s Republican Party are also both positioning themselves as firmly “Pro-Israel”, which helps them reinforce these normalization efforts through the Jews, and other far-right governments like Hungary or Argentina (and yesterday Bolsonaro’s Brazil) are also staunch supporters of Israel, that is today part of an illiberal alliance throughout the world.
This weaponization of antisemitism through support for the Jews and Israel is made all the more possible as it is strongly supported by the Israeli government itself, fully aligned with the illiberal right-wing parties in the West, as shown by the Conference on antisemitism organized by Amichai Chikli and Gideon Saar’s decision to reinforce the ties with the far-right parties in Europe.
The paradox is that weaponization and scapegoating can sometimes go hand in hand, as exemplified by George Soros being the enemy of all these parties that display their support for the Jewish people and Israel. Their demonization of Soros goes well beyond regular and fair accusations, Soros being depicted as a angel of destruction with evil powers leading to the invasion of Europe by foreign migrants bringing Islamization and terrorism, and this campaign against him is fully embraced and supported by the Israeli government.
For Israel’s actual enemies, like the French Far-Left party La France Insoumise, this alignment is a gift that keeps on giving, because they can conflate their criticism of far-right parties, the rise of illiberalism everywhere, with the State of Israel itself and the very definition of Zionism.
By fully embracing these far-right illiberal parties and this movement, the Israeli government is putting Israel into a corner from which it will be extremely difficult to get out.
For many antisemites in the world, the lack of pushback by some legacy Jewish organizations against these parties is also a major gift, “proving” that the Jews are complicit in the attacks on Democracy in the world, with the support of the State of Israel, giving them cover for their antisemitism or radical anti-Zionism.
The real issue today is that Jews throughout the world and their national expression in the State of Israel are weaponized today by parties that have renounced antisemitism but whose world vision would ultimately endanger them. When checks and balances are destroyed like in Hungary or tested like never before like in the United States, the Jews’ safety is weakened, as History as taught them throughout their history in autocratic regimes.
Jews are therefore, unwittingly, the far-right’s useful idiots, being used for political gain by parties that will ultimately weaken their own safety if they implement their worldview, with, in an ironic and infuriating twist, the support of the State of Israel itself. As they remain the universal scapegoats, the battle for their safety has become even more complex today, 80 years after Auschwitz.
Sebastien Levi
