Antisemitism as Anti-Europeanism by Proxy
By Nicolas von Kraemer, European Conservative.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas following the latter’s 7 October 2023 terror attack has caused uproar and reaction in Europe. Antisemitism is clearly on the rise particularly among left-wing progressives, while a strong pro-Israel force is defending the Jewish state and fighting the recent surge of antisemitism.
The conflict between Jews and Muslims is indeed steeped in antisemitism; however, in Europe, this term is now used to hide a deeper culture war. On the one hand, it simply conceals a more fundamental anti-Western cultural revolution, and on the other it allows for a newfound national and European courage to mask itself as a progressive crusade against a new Holocaust.
Thus, Israel, for each side, embodies either the confident West or the colonial oppressor. Europe is simply dealing with its own cultural issues by projecting them on the current conflict in the Middle East. This makes for an unsustainable situation as it highlights the mental acrobatics still needed to simply stand up for European values.
Antisemitism as Anti-Western Sentiment
The main reason for the politcization of the conflict between Israel and Hamas is therefore relatively straight forward: it reflects the culture war taking place in Europe and the West overall. The left-wing progressives’ embracing of Palestine and by extension Hamas coupled with an equally keen rejection of Israel should not primarily be seen as an outburst of antisemitism, but of anti-Western sentiment. That is, Israel is not being opposed because it is a Jewish state, but rather because it is a Western one. In a recent talk titled “The Left’s Long War on Israel,” social scientist Nikos Sotirakopoulos stated that the Left would probably be just as hostile to Israel if it were a Christian state. Even if one disagrees with his assessment, this thought experiment highlights a certain truth, namely that left-wing antisemitism is anti-Western at its core.
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