Amid Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of Gaza, accusations of anti-Semitism at demonstrations for Palestine are mounting. But some instances were later revealed to have been distorted or exaggerated. The increasingly accepted official “working definition of anti-Semitism” dangerously muddies the water by explicitly conflating anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred. Media questioning of the claims of the Israeli military has even been compared to Holocaust denial. Yet actual, unambiguous Jew-hatred is meanwhile much in evidence, in America and Europe alike. This raises the imperative on activists to genuinely grapple with the distinction, rather than merely dismissing anti-Semitism as Zionist propaganda—which is, ironically, itself an anti-Semitic response. In Episode 201 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the dilemma. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
Production by Chris Rywalt
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Correction re. coverage of Cooper Union protest
Contrary to the implication of our podcast, The Village Sun coverage of the Oct. 25 protest at Cooper Union did mention the NYPD assessment that Jewish students had not been in danger. We regret the oversight.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that this fact was buried fairly deep in the story, which was headlined “Call for Cooper Union president to be fired for not protecting Jewish students.” In contrast, Gothamist, who we cited as reporting the NYPD response, made it the lede, under the headline “NYPD: No danger to students during Cooper Union protest.”