August 8, 2024 • 48 mins
Gare is joined by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber to discuss how to identify antisemitism and the attacks against Palestine solidarity protests. Their new book is titled "Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis,
and today I'm joined with the authors Shane Burley and
Ben Lorber, who have a new book out called A
Safety Through Solidarity, A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti Semitism.
Shane reached out to me to talk about both the
(00:22):
book and a variety of issues revolving around this topic.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you for coming on, both of you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for having us So.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
A few months ago I put out an episode looking
at a genuine uptick in anti Semitic incidents that have
happened in the United States and Europe, and sometimes it
feels kind of like a tricky thing to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
In some ways, it's.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Like you're threading a very difficult needle. It's like you're
caught between a rock and a hard place when discussing
this topic, because if you point to an actual trend
that you're seeing showing a genuine spike in anti Semitic incidents,
there's like a subset of people who are very focused
on the genocide in Gaza, very rightly so, but they
might push back since claims of anti Semitism have been
so conflated with any display of anti Zionist politics, or
(01:07):
even worse, they might even question, why are you talking
about this when there's this other horrible thing going on
right the actual genocide in Gaza. Now, I think, meanwhile,
if you avoid this as a lesser or a non issue,
if if you don't talk about these things, I would
argue that actually strengthens the Zionist political project of tying
Jewish safety solely to the state of Israel. And in
(01:27):
some ways, I think ignoring this entire issue legitimizes a
degree of criticisms that are being leveled against these massive
protests and calls for a ceasefire and justice in Palestine.
So I guess, how long have you been putting together
this book and how much did the war in Gaza
this past year kind of change the scope of it
as you were writing this?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I mean we started, I think Ben and I
started talking about this and in the twenty nineteen beginning
of twenty twenty, so it's a totally it was a
totally different context when we started working on the book,
and what we had been wanting was actually the sort
of like drive a wedge into what you're talking about here.
Which is like that there isn't really good discourse on
what anti semitism actually is that takes it seriously, that
(02:08):
doesn't just kind of deflect and project onto anti Zionism.
Since Ben and I both come from like a history
of organizing a Palestine solidarity movement, me with Students for
Justice Palestine on campus, then the Jewish Voice for Peace,
so we had seems to basically firsthand how accusations of
anti Semitism basically leveled just constantly at Palastine solidarity protesters,
(02:31):
and then also in research and covering the far right,
seeing obviously the growth of anti Semitism in white nationalism
both in the US and internationally, and that only increased
increase over time. So we wanted to work on something
that took that seriously and also sort of revive different
traditions from the left that talk about anti semitism, whether
it's anti fascism, are different kind of Marxist trends or
(02:53):
the Jewish left kind of bring it to one place,
talk to other folks who are also taking it seriously,
and weave that together. All of that is different. And
before October seventh, because we were turning in the draft
or a book like a matter of days after October
seventh happened.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Oh wow, we went and talked.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
To the publisher. We're like, well, the whole world has changed.
I mean, we have to we have to make changes
about it. And so we've made some and basically, like
I address some questions there, and I think you can
kind of see the in the conclusion of like the
very end of the book kind of where we cut
it off in November December area and sort of have
acknowledge that things are different here. But I think that
there's also bigger questions that we're talking about now that
(03:31):
like we're doing interviews and the writing articles and stuff
afterwards about how that's changed. But a lot of this really,
I think one thing that's important is that because we
make very clear, like very incredibly clear, the anti Zionism
not the same as anti Semitism in a way, that
conversation is the same as before, because we're actually talking
about where real anti Semitism lives. And if you look
at the way that this course is now, particularly from
(03:53):
groups like in the Defamation League, is it's basically built
entirely around you know, attacking college protests, right, attacking these
mass anti genocide demonstrations, right, And since that's so foundationally
different than how we understand anti semitism, there's a way
in which, like the conversation that has the book is
sort of the same. And what do you think about this, Ben?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, No, I mean I agree that it really hasn't
changed that much, even though it's just a lot bigger
and more prominent. And the forces that are trying to
attack the Movement for Justice and pasts that are stronger.
They're trying to pass legislation taking away our free speech rights,
they're trying to restrict academic freedom, they're trying to go
after the irs status of justice organizations.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
So the stakes are really high.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
I think the intervention that we've always been wanting to
make is to really put the conversation backward alongs like
on the rise of the far right, on the rise
of white Christian nationalism. Right, anti Semitism is part of
the right wing worldview. It's just like the other systems
of oppression like anti blackness, anti LGBTQ, biggest true Islamophobia,
(05:01):
anti integrant xenophobia, anti Semitism.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Is deeply connected.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Right, These George Soros conspiracies are being used by authoritarian.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Leaders like Donald Trump and JB.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Vance and the rest of them to build up the
MAGA base and to attack the foundations of our multi
racial democracy. And we've seen it have deadly results for
Jews and for other groups. You know, white nationalists, you know,
mass shooters who are motivated by anti Semitic conspiracy theories,
have attacked synagogues, have attacked Latin X communities, have a
(05:34):
Black communities, and so yeah, anti Semitism is part of
that machinery of oppression. And so our book tries to
reframe the conversation and give Justice Organizer a way to
take back the conversation away from the right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Would one of you be willing to give like a
workable definition of anti Semitism because this is a word
that's certainly been used a lot, but I think it's
a word that signifies possibly a lot of different things.
And I guess what is the definition of antisemitism that
you are using in your book.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Yes, Sott, we really see anti Semitism as a form
of conspiracy theory thinking that developed out of Christianity in
Christian Europe and that essentially sees Jews as the root
cause of evil or the root cause of the world's
problems kind of behind the scenes. It trades in images
(06:25):
of a cabal lurking behind either government or the media
or the economy. And these conspiracy theories are core to
an authoritarian and nationalists worldview that mobilize, you know, millions
really away from examining and confronting the root causes of
(06:45):
oppression and convinces them to chase, you know, kind of
illusory shadows instead.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Why do we have like a harder time kind of
pinning down this term? You know, I think people have
a general idea and a pretty easy way to like see, like,
you know, what's like islamophobic?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, what's racist?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
There's a few points in your book that you talk about,
you know, instances of people maybe unintentionally spreading anti Semitism
that if they were instead talking about like Muslims or
like trans people or like black people, they would like
easily identify as like, Oh, this is very clearly a
form of like xenophobia. This is very clearly like based
on some kind of like conspiratorial discrimination.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few reasons for this,
and we talk about this in the book. I Mean
one of them is that the way the anti Semitism
has operated is generally a narrative about punching up against power,
versus a lot of narratives of oppression, which are basically
about how various groups are subhuman or lesser than dominant population.
That's slightly different with Jews, though that has been a
(07:45):
component of some pieces of it historically. Is basically a
narrative that people who feel disempowered then use to sort
of like reclaim a sort of kind of populous energy,
and a lot of ways it ends up being a
place where folks are directed by people in power to
put their class aang or away from the actual ruling class.
So I think in a way, when people see anti Semitism,
(08:06):
they also recognize that there's legitimate class anchor legitimate like disenfranchisement,
and I think that's actually troubling to sort of people
don't want to undermine that feeling always necessarily. I think
there's also just the complexity of Jewish identity that's shifted
over time, different populations, different communities, different politics, sometimes religious,
sometimes more cultural, sometimes more ethnic. That can make it confusing.
(08:27):
So it's hard to use one model for understanding impression
than projected onto this and so in a lot of ways,
you kind of have to come at this question distinctly
from kind of other forms of oppression. That's actually true
of most forms of opression. They have a lot of distinctiveness,
but I think you have to kind of learn about
those contours. And again, I think part of it is
also that this hasn't been a big part of the
(08:49):
left conversation in the last twenty or thirty years. It
is to be more frequent that this would be like
you know, maybe trainings and left spaces where people would
talk about that. It just simply hasn't been the case
that much recently, and so I think there's actually a
big lack of just understanding of how to notice those
things and talk about them. And then I think weaponization
has become such it's not just such an overwhelming part
(09:11):
of it. It's actually the dominating conversation on anti semitism,
particularly in the US. So when you hear about anti semitism,
it's overwhelmingly going to be directed by the center or
the right, or for institutions directed at Palestine solidarity movements.
And again, people get heartened skin to that that they
don't want to give an inch on those sorts of things,
and I totally understand why, and so I think that
also has created that boundary of where examination would normally
(09:34):
take place.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is interesting looking at like how much the right
wing has been able to weaponize claims of anti semitism
against the left. I think the term that you use
in the book is selective outrage on anti semitism, because
I mean, I was just at the RNC and you're
hearing Marjorie Taylor Green talk about how there's like antisemitic
protests happening around the country, and you're like, wait a minute,
(09:56):
you're the Jewish space laser person, what are you talking about?
And I think it was Dysantis who just called all
university protesters hamas, right, not saying that they're like amas,
but just literally saying like these people are like are Hamas,
Like hamas took over university protests. And meanwhile, you would
be hard pressed to find anybody on this camp talking about,
(10:19):
you know, this strong degree, especially considering DeSantis, the strong
degree of anti Semitic people either involved in their own
campaigns or like their actual supporters. It was just a
year ago where DeSantis's campaign staff released a video of
him with the sonnet rat it's like Kamad buddy. So
it is interesting how how they've been able to try
(10:40):
to weaponize those claims while completely ignoring like the structural
anti semitism like baked into this new wave of nationalist
politics that we're seeing in the United States.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Yeah, no, it's totally. The example of Marjorie Taylor Green
is so striking. I mean, she, I believe, in the
same day once she called the protesters on a college
campus of anti Semitic and then she said that they
were funded by George Soros, right, and she's using them
both through the same purpose. And it's not only the Santists,
and they're right, I mean in Jonathan green Black, that
(11:10):
head of the d L, I remember, like a few
months ago, said that students of college campuses were Iranian proxies.
And when you use that language, you're basically authorizing military
counterinsurgency against protesters. It's just it really puts Jews in danger,
you know, not to mention Palestinians, the Muslims, you know,
(11:31):
basically all groups, right, because sure there's occasionally a stray
anti Semitic comment that shows up at protests, because anti
Semitism is part of our world. There's anti blackness injustice movements,
antiolgo guts pistory, and anti Semitism. I'm sure, but that's
no comparison to when you have like Elon Musk, the
richest person in the world, one of the most powerful
(11:53):
people in the world, saying that Jews are engaged in
patrid against whites. Right, there's no comparisons in terms of
power and threat level. So it's really making Jews less safe.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, and we also talk about the fact that because
antisemitic conspiracy theories are such a foundational part of the
right's form of populism, it's sort of how they explain
of class, anger and energy from the base that there's
really no way to detach it, and so it ends
up being this foundational piece that even when they talk
about Israel consistently, the way that they've built a connection
(12:23):
with their base is by trumping up towards Soros or
Rothschild's conspiracy theories or basically presenting kind of us in
them populous narrative around theories about globalists and things like that.
So there's really no comparison that we're talking about anti
simpatism when it shows up on the left versus the
really deeply inlaid way that it exists on the right.
And like Ben was saying, right now, we have a
(12:44):
situation where the right is overwhelmingly united in support of
Israel and using that as their evidence of support for
Jews and then pushing sure great replacement theory claims which
are inherently anti Semitic on the one hand, or really
kind of mobilizing use in their rhetoric for their own
kind of geopolitical aims, which again is not based out
of like a deeply held love for Jews. It's either
(13:06):
built on sort of a Christian Zionist eschatology or just
simply an opportunistic use of this minority group to sort
of push their other political values, which itself is kind
of a deeply held antisemitic way of treating the Jewish community.
And so when we're looking at this, we can't let
the rhetoric that's become to dominate actually stand for how
(13:27):
we understand anti Semitism because it's been so politically motivated.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, I mean, as a researcher has it has been
quite frustrating because I've used to you know, and a
lot of people used to be able to rely on
some degree on like data aggorates like the ADL and
putting together like lists of incidents like maps. And as
I was putting together my piece looking at this opparticularity
semitism a few months ago, I was, you know, looking
(13:52):
through this ADL map and the amount of like equivocation
between just a standard pro Palestine protest protests that I
was present at, and I was like, this was a
Jewish led protest and having that be equivocated with acts
of like actual like neo Nazi terrorism as well as
acts of like genuine antisemitism from people on the left.
(14:14):
Basically it's resulting in like data poisoning, which makes it
really hard to actually unpack some of these like larger
issues that are that are facing both like Jewish people,
people who are very concerned about Palestine and people who
take like the threat of like you know, you know,
far right nationalism quite seriously.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, I went through all of the ADLs twenty twenty
three anti semitism data with like this project with Jewish currents,
and the reality is is that the standard they use
on sort of like left oriented Palestine protests is to
have almost any measure of support for Palestinians or any
kind of global call for justice in Palestine that is
(14:51):
to facto anti semitism, and like you said, it then
overwhelms the data sort of sort of shuts out other things.
And the way that they even set up the reporting
system just privileges those kind of protests, so people it teaches,
for example, they'll partner with the organizations and show people
how to report, and so they'll end up mass reporting
these protest events and then under reporting white nationalist incidents
(15:14):
or like violent incidents. So what you end up seeing
in their data is that they've actually undercoded white nationalist
events because of the way that they kind of set
up the data, and they don't really track things like
housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, and ex Jews, those kind of
things really don't fit into their models. So what you
end up with is this kind of map that just
privileges people saying from the River to the Sea is
(15:36):
like this inherently anti Semitic meme, and then undercounts like
what often Jews will report as what makes them feeling unsafe,
comments of work, or actual pressures when buying homes. Things
like that like that doesn't really show up. You've experiences
of Jews in prison, those don't show up, So you
end up with this really skewed image on what it is,
where you assume that the left is overwhelming the responsible party,
(15:58):
and then it actually invisible a pretty growing force on
the right and even institutionally just like in structures of
kind of like American culture. So it's really hard then
to say, like, well, how do I know what's actually
happening here? The ADL's the largest organization. Every organization then
uses their data where am I going? It leads you
in a really big kind of a gap in how
(16:20):
to understand this happening. So we can look at pretty
clear evidence that there's a rise in anti Semitism by
looking at things like street attacks or by looking at
the rhetoric on the right, but it's hard to get
like a clear picture of it because every organization is
that's oriented looking at the left.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Like I was just going to say, like this goes
way back to the ADL. Like you know, in our book,
we talk about how even in the nineteen seventies and
the eighties, the eight I was like spying on left
wing activists as part of their pivot towards seeing the
most important side of anti Semitism on what they call
the radical left right. In the nineteen seventies, as global
(16:54):
criticism of Israel's occupation mounted after the nineteen sixty seven,
you know, Six Day Wars, the ABL like really pivoted
further from whatever original mission they may have had about
like genuinely countering bigotry to really becoming like Israel defense organizations.
And so in the seventies and eighties, like you saw
them spying on anti apartheid activists, You saw them attacking
(17:16):
Arab American you know, professors at universities. You saw them
spying on ACTA, even left in Jewish groups like New
Jewish Agenda, you know. And so it's not only Jonathan Greenblatt.
It's not only since October seventh. The BBL has been
playing this role for a long time, along with a
whole lot of Christian Zionists and both sides of the
US political establishment. And yeah, the career saying like the
(17:39):
stakes are extremely high. The right and the center are
trying to legislate their definition of anti semitism, to destroy
free speech and to protect Israel's genocide.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
So the stakes are very high about this right now.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I think one of the most troubling notions about you
know how those groups like the ADL and others that
are kind of like, like you said, like lobbying for
legislation and trying to encourage like extreme crackdowns on human
rights protests and and anti genoside protests, is that this
is also like materially harms a whole bunch of Jewish
people who are involved in these protests and in organizing.
(18:25):
You're you're trying to get the FBI to investigate Jewish
people who are protesting against the genocide. And we saw
this with the with the campus university protests. You saw this,
you know, especially at Columbia of like a lot of
a lot of these kids are Jewish people who are
heavily involved in these protests and in calls to do
a very extreme crackdown and investigations. It's hard to see
(18:48):
how that's not just like calling for for our government
to like further further oppressed these Jewish people who don't
like agree with one side's opinion on something.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, yeah, you see it.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
You know, in the most kind of ironic twist of
history in Germany, where you know, the state was once
in Nazi state, is enforcing some of the most brutal
crackdowns on the Palestine solidarity speech, and Jews are disproportionately
represented among the crackdown there. And so you have you know,
German police pulling people with pipos and arresting them, you know,
(19:23):
shutting down events with Jewish speakers, right so it's really
like literally policing Jewish thought, right like. We know, there's
over a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism and Jewish
solidarity with Palestinians, and from the very beginnings of the
Zionist movement, which was originally a Christian movement in Christian
Europe by the way, you know, and we've always had
(19:43):
long traditions of Jews who have resisted it. And so
when the state is legislating saying only like a certain
expression of Jewish identity is valid, that's also anti Semitism,
right like.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
And we see it, you know, not only from Trump, right.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Trump will always say, oh, Jews who are democrats, Jews
who are quote unqute disloyal to Israel are problematic. You
also see it from Biden who says, you know, without Israel,
there's not a Jew in the world who's saved right.
So I think, you know, Jews who descend on Israel
are rapidly becoming enemies in a way of the right,
you know, and of forces align with it, right, And
(20:20):
I think that's an aspect of of anti Semitism that's
not talked about enough today.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, And there's a lot of examples of this too.
During the Labor Party controversy around Corbin and anti Semitism,
it was Jewish members who are overwhelmingly expelled from the party.
I think it's almost like a dozen times more likely
to face kind of consequences there, right, So, like those
ended up being the centerpiece of it. But I think
even when you when you broaden out, this ends up
being the case. And we kind of talk about this
(20:47):
as like a good Jew bad Jew distinction, where like
anti Semitism ends up being mobilized against whatever kind of
the culture decides is a bad Jew or whatever the
organization decides it's the bad version of a Jew, the
kind of Jew that they don't want to actually deal with.
And this happens in this pro Israel consensus whereby Laku Nyahu,
basically the far right coalition running Israel right now builds
(21:08):
alliances that they need around the world, with far right
parties in Hungary, in South Asia, Indian with the Hindian
Nationalism with other places, and then those movements are pretty
explicitly anti Semitic, therefore making Jews in various countries around
the diaspora less and less safe right and so this
sort of model of making Israel the bottom line on
(21:28):
defending against anti Semitism is one that strengthened the right,
helped to build up Christian nationalism domestically, and then that
creates this kind of general culture of unsafety for Jews
where the only Jewish voices that are then held up
are the ones that justify Christian nationalism on the one hand,
like you'll see at the National Conservatism Conference, or ones
who are so aggressively pro Israel that they're totally willing
(21:50):
to partner with Christian science groups or the far right
wing of the Republican Party or National conservative parties in Europe.
And so this ends up as a situation where like
increasing number of Jews, particularly in the US, or Jews
around the left, which again is still disproportionally Jewish, feel
increasingly targeted by the political consensus, and at the same
time this pro Israel rhetoric ends up being with the
(22:12):
fact of measure by which anyone's kind of set to.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Like there was this part in the book where you
were talking about the good Jew bad Jew binary, specifically
on the left, where there's like a minority of Jews
who identify as anti or non Zionist who are very
like celebrated, sometimes maybe even in like a tokenizing kind
of way, while the rest of jewsh people who do
not identify as such are belittled as unworthy or like untrustworthy,
(22:37):
where their opinions are dismissed or seen as morally compromised
on like an inherent level. And this can also be
coupled with this assumption that like every Jew is a
secret Zionist until proven otherwise, and you have to like
get every new Jewish person you meet to like prove
to you that they're not secretly a Zionist, which is,
you know, very antisemitic. And we also do have this
(22:57):
good Jew bad Jew binary mirrored in like an inverted
form on the right, with Zionist Jews, you know, being
seen as the good ones, and anti Zionist Jews have
their like jewishness questioned or are seen as like untrustworthy
or inherently evil, and I do believe it is worth
discussing kind of the flip side of this, And I
(23:19):
think of avoiding talking about actual anti semitism on the left,
I think only serves to harm all of us, and
I because it is something that I think is happening
and I think should be talked about, even if it
makes people like uncomfortable. And I think it's a it
is a mistake to assume that just because you're on
the left, that you're like somehow immune to antisemitic thinking,
(23:39):
whether purposeful or not. Like like both of you mentioned, like,
we live in a society that has a great degree
of structural anti semitism, and a lot of these people,
I think, who might be attending some of these protests
or might just be posting online who knows, might not
even be intentionally spreading antisemitism, right, but in action, that's
kind of what they're invoking through like ideas of like
(23:59):
you know, the Zionist cabal that secretly controls all of
the media, all all of all of the government. You know,
those types of things we're starting to like invoke these
like larger secretive organizations that are that are pre planning
this whole thing, and like just to some degree from
a lot of the discourse that you see, I feel
like some people think they can just like control f
(24:20):
Jews to Zionists, and like, if you're able to control
f Jews to Zionists and the sentence still works, that
means that you're doing it wrong. That means that you're
you're probably approaching this from a problematic standpoint. And there's
a whole bunch of aspects about the sort of thing
that you do talk about in the book, like you know,
including identifying Judaism with Zionism and how that also only
(24:43):
hurts all of us, including this like weird uptick in
like Jewish race science that you're starting to see more
and more of claiming that like all modern Jewish people
only come from Europe. And it's like there's just a
whole bunch of this kind of stuff that we're all
kind of pushing to this. But I do believe it
is like worth talking about in some degree because this
is going to not only harm people who are calling
(25:07):
for an end to the genocide in Gaza, I think
it does like strengthen this notion that a lot of
the Zionist project is built on, which is saying that
we need Israel as a way to secure.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Safety for Jewish people around the world.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah. I think we talk about this, you know, we
have a couple of chapters that talk kind of explicitly
about this at different points in history. But I think
there's a tendency and I kind of get where this
comes from, to basically see any ally or any kind
of voice in support of a movement as like a partner,
particularly when you're trying to build like mass support against
something that basically has kind of mass opposition on the
(25:42):
other side, like liberating Palestine. But what you see oftentimes
when you see a mohoment grow really dramatically, really quickly,
is that there's just not a kind of like common
baseline understanding always of that, and conspiracy theories are a
great way to fill the gap on them. Yeah, and
that's true of really any movement. It's just that, in particular,
in this case, we have this long history of antisemitic
(26:02):
conspiracy theories about Jewish power in particular, and then we're
talking about sort of like powerful political actors on the
other and so making clear distinctions is just not there
necessarily so you know, we talked with lots of folks
that have been sort of litmus tested when entering kind
of less spaces about zientism. I talked to folks where
other organizers asked to see their passport before they're allowed
(26:23):
to come to Meetia's crazy, It's it's wild, and you
think in most of the cases people we kind of
identify that as being kind of wild. We make a
lot of distinctions. We talk about, like the sort of
difference between talking about a Israel lobby organization like APEC
and its power or kind of a vague diffuse Israel
lobby that you know, control controls Western politics, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Like a like a this is predeceas Israel lobby.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Exactly exactly, and instead talking about like why would we
understand Israel is part of kind of a Western imperial
project rather than the flip side, this kind of small
country controlling Western foreign policy that kind of thing, and
make a lot of those clear distinctions. And again, I
think it's been sort of suggested like these ideas, anti
semetic ideas are a part of the culture. And you know,
I've been around the left long enough to see like
(27:10):
virulent transphobic ideas show up to see, like queer phobic
ideas in general be very very present. There's no reason
to believe that anti Semitism wouldn't show up here either,
where folks are sort of like consumed by anger. What
people are looking for clear answers, what people are trying
to identify that? And I think the easy answer is
often the paper over it. And I think what we
talk about here is that that exactly is what sort
(27:31):
of pro Israel voices want in this case is to
know that the left isn't good to deal with it.
And so the alternative to that is to both like
create like a sense of like how would we confront
antisemitic institutions and where structural anti semitism comes from, and
then also how do we deal with that internally? And
we talk with a bunch of social movements that have
done that. Right. Anti fascists are actually pretty used to
(27:51):
talking about anti semitism when it shows up on the left,
that's pretty common. Jewish Left has talked about this historically,
there's other voices, so bringing that back and sort of
making a safe place to confront and then then figure
out then where is it, like you know, just a
bad idea that you deal with, and you talk about
you have like education, and where do you draw lines
where like you know, this is now not a person
that's not allowed in or these are voices that we
(28:13):
can't partner with that kind of thing. I think that's
something people work out on the ground.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
No, And you make a really good comparison in the
book about how like anti smdic conspiracy theories inhibit a
actual understanding of like the mechanisms of capital right, like
it makes you unable to actually like analyze how capitalism operates.
And similarly, having like an antisemitic conspiratorial view of like Antizionism,
(28:39):
that also will mask the root cause of Palestinian oppression
by distracting from like the like the very like real
like geopolitical mechanisms that have caused this situation to take place,
and distracting from that with like these tales of like
you describe it as like innate Jewish wickedness or a
global Zionist power. And I think that's a really good
(29:00):
understand it because people often, like I think, have a
general idea that like, yeah, anti Semitism is like in
a lot of ways used as a way to not
fully confront like the mechanisms of capitalism and realizing how
you know, it's kind of it's kind of like a
similar situation with Palestine. Is a way for people to
understand that a little bit easier and to like reiterate
(29:20):
the point about how you know you're not immune to
anti Semitism just because you're on the left right. Something
else you also bring up in the book is like
Marxist Leninism has a very mixed history with their relationship
to anti Semitism, and I think you do see this
with with with the degree of the discourse on this issue.
You know, if you compare you know, anarchist viewpoints on
(29:42):
like statism and anti Zionism to a whole bunch of
Marxist Leninists talking about this issue, I do believe there
is you know, generally maybe more anti Semitic undertones among
some of the more like statist communists. And I think
you talk about like the Soviet Union's own oppression of
Jewish people and kind of the continued programs that happened
(30:04):
even after the end of World War Two.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Yeah, I'd say like in the history of the nineteenth
and the twentieth century, left I think the record of
both camps has been fairly mixed. I mean, I think
it was anarchist like you know Bakunen who maybe like
the ins and yeah, totally and you know, like I
guess I have to also have to say, you know,
the the with the nineteen seventeen October Revolution, and that
was like probably one of the first times that it
(30:27):
left led society did pass you know, laws out long
anty sentaitism, and then like they did, you know, defeat
the Nazis, so that I have to give them some
credit where it's due.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
But yes, there's also like a very mixed you know.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Record, especially in the thirties and in the forties and beyond,
and certainly yeah, today I would completely agree with you
that like the more statist camps on the left are
the most kind of aligned with conspiratorial.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Thinking with campus and yeah, I really like the way
that you.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Broke down just how these conspiracy theory can distract us
from the root causes of power. And that's really I
think where if you want to develop like a structural
understanding of anti Semitism and how it connects to capitalism
and all the other systems of oppression, that's where you
got to go, right, Seeing how especially if in times
of crisis and mass discontent like today, with the rise
(31:20):
of nationalism, with you know, widespread alienation, that's when anti
Semitism really rises and is mobilized by authoritarian and nationalists,
you know, leaders, When there's millions of people who are
are fed up that they don't have a job, they
don't have any savings, they know the media is lying
to them, they know that politicians don't represent them. That's
(31:42):
when these conspiracy theories, you know, really take root on
the right and on the left. And that's why you
have you know, Trump and Steve Bannon and the rest
of them, you know, saying, oh, go look at the globalists,
Go look at.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
George Soros, you go look at cultural Marxists, right.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
And I think the more that you know, the left
can advance our own and understanding of why the world
is so fucked up in how to make it better,
then we can really undercut the root causes of anti
Semitism and move more people into our coalitions.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So yeah, that's really key. I think I have two.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Examples I like to kind of bring up as ways
to like springboard discussions and like how we can actually
like handle this going forward, whether that be you know,
if you hear someone say something at a protest that
makes you think it's a little questionable, or as ways
to like actually just like continue like your own like
active participation in calls for ceasefire and ending the genocide
(32:46):
in Palestine and whatever justice in Palestine might look like.
So a few months ago I was at the Emory
University campus occupation and maybe like a week in or so,
Enemy of the Pod Jackson showed up in person along
with Hawes and a few of those kind of like cronies. Right,
these are people who are like conservative communists, mega communists.
(33:11):
They're basically like Duganists or like third positionists, and they
basically become influencers that monetize the genocide and gaza for
their own like personal political profile. So this guy showed
up one night and no one really knew what exactly
to do, Like people knew who he was. There was
people talking with organizers, and like organizers tried to talk
(33:31):
with him and be like, hey, can you like not
be here and he's like, well, no, I want to
be here because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
and you know, certain people would try to get into
like political arguments with him, which is I think is
completely useless. And it was. It was kind of a
weird situation. And then we learned that he was slated
to speak at an event the next day. Now it's
(33:52):
unclear if he was kind of hijacking this event or
if he was actually invited to speak, but regardless, he
was going to show up and make some kind of
speech at an event later that next day. So some
people put together this flyer kind of going through Hinkle's politics,
his history of anti semitism, rabid queer phobia, racism, all
these things that explain kind of who he actually is
(34:14):
as a person. And these flyers were distributed that morning,
like before he was slated to speak, around the venue.
As he went up on stage, a decent number of
people in the audience who had these flyers protested to
be like no, like you can't be here. He was
escorted out of the building and then he was escorted
off of campus. I think this was a very effective
(34:35):
way of handling a situation like this. It didn't give
him like an opportunity for like extra clicks. You know,
it wasn't a super volatile way to handle this was
it was very simple. It was it was kind of elegant.
There was just no way for him to really like
weaponize this effectively. So we have something like that as
a way to like, you know, clamp down on people
(34:57):
who are either disingenuous or just actually antisemitic. We're trying
to like infiltrate or take over in some degree this
kind of general call to stop the genocide and gaza. Meanwhile,
a few weeks ago, there were protests in DC as
Netanyahu was speaking to Congress, and there was this video
going around of people like graffitiing the fake liberty bell
(35:18):
with like just pro Palestine slogans and stuff, and like
everyone's freaking out about this.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Not everybody, you know, A.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Certain section of political people were freaking out about this.
A whole bunch of other people were like, Okay, well
it's graffiti on a fake bell, who cares. But I
actually watched that whole video and after they look at
the liberty bell, it pans over to this other monument
nearby where in big red lettering is written Hamas is coming.
And I see this as a pretty bad way to
(35:47):
handle a situation like this, because from what I can
tell here, all that matters is just being like edgy
and freaking out libs, and it kind of destroys any
ability to cultivate forward momentum. It's like they're doing it
just so that Democrats will be pressured into condemning it
to reinforce like their own hopelessness performative spiral of doing
nothing but edgi graffiti's political praxis. And I see this
(36:10):
as kind of a general pattern of people trying to
establish themselves as like the most radical and using that
as a weapon against anyone else. And it's just like
a form of political posturing. It's hardly any different from
posting a black square on Instagram. They don't want any
actual movement or any actual change. They want to be
the coolest, most correct people as the world ends. It's
kind of like a cowardly way out, because, as you
(36:32):
point out in the book, it's kind of hell to
actually have to deal with and work with people who
have some degree of like morally compromised politics, and that
actually requires like caring about the ends, But it's the
means that make you look cool. Things like this are
kind of bound to happen at any kind of protest
that has more than like, you know, fifty people, right,
there's going to be someone who does something that the
(36:53):
main protest is not aligned with. And on that note,
like what advice do would you have to people who
are attending these protests and you see someone who maybe
does something that's a little bit questionable, whether that be
you know, like harassing just a random like visibly Jewish person,
or you know, writing graffiti on a synagogue. Right, these
types of things that are like really not helpful and
(37:15):
actually kind of do display a degree of maybe like
like like coded anti Semitic motivation.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, so I think that's prepaid of Habas on the statue.
I think it's an interesting example because that was just
brandished all over right wing media. You know, Tablet Magazine
did an article about how these folks should be deported
all their Instagram. It was like a trending thing on
Instagram and it did very little like protests wise. Right,
And actually at that same demonstration, there's a number of rabbis,
(37:43):
particularly kind of like movement elder rabbis, Lindahltzman other folks
that were arrested by cops, yeah, pretty brutally and then
detained right, So there actually was Plice attacking like a
Jewish contingent of like religious figures totally. I think also
there's been a number of examples, I think where folks
really just aren't prepared for something, and I think this
is actually sort of a long conversation people should have
(38:03):
on the left. I remember years ago I was with
a group that created sort of like an accountability document,
and the idea was is that if something happens in
an organization, it often just destroys the organization, if there's
interpersonal issues, if there's like interpersonal trauma or assault, things
like that, and so getting out in front of it,
just like having a sense of like how you want
to deal with things, and like having had consensus amongst
(38:25):
folks with like this is like appropriate behavior, this is
how we want to handle stuff. That's always a strong
thing to do. But at I think it was a
George Washington University campus at the end of April. Patrick Casey,
who's formerly of Identity Europa and the American Identity Movement,
showed up at the encampment and wanted to talk to people,
wanted to ask them questions and that kind of thing,
and people were totally obliged him. They were in photos
(38:46):
with them, let him take video. It's because they didn't
know who he was.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Ye, right, In.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Reality, he didn't actually find anyone that was going to
basically support his vision. He stopped people ask you know,
will you allow right wing anti Zionists here? They basically
said no. He did find one person with a hat
that said Israel did nine to eleven, who then told
him that the Jews rejected Christ. But he was also
kind of on the edges of the encampment. Sure, the
reality is what happened was a white nationalist came into
(39:11):
an encampment and took photos of Jews and posted them
on a white nationalist website. That's what happened, you know,
So there actually was anti semitism. It affected the Jews
of the encampment, but no one know who it was.
And I think the flip side of that is having
partners with groups that actually do know who Petrick Casey
is and being able to say, oh, that guy is
not here, it's not legitimate. I think with someone like
Hinkle Maga communists, that's really confusing to people group. I mean,
(39:34):
that's why he does it like it's a dugonous and
kind of gray zone types and this kind of version
of authoritarian kind of like right leading, right coded so
called communists. It's there literally to confuse people and to
bridge the gaps between the right and the left, and
so again pulling that base of people, talking to them,
having like internal trainings about how this stuff works and
(39:54):
like what these groups are. I think that's always going
to be a good thing. We talked with one organizer
who had an organization that had put together a training
for other groups on anti semitism and invited all these
groups to come and you know, wanted to get feedback
on the training. So they did the training and everyone
kind of like thanked them and then went on to
ask them questions, and the questions were exceedingly anti semitic.
(40:14):
It was things like, well, how do you talk about
the New York housing market when clearly Jews go oh no.
And these were major, major organizations and so basically they
had like a choice like are we going to deal
with this here? Are we going to cut these relationships?
And they basically were like, Okay, let's talk about this,
let's deal with it. Yeah, yeah, and then moved. The
organization is huge, Like they were like we don't want
to make these kind of decisions. We want to realize
(40:36):
where we've made mistakes. That's not true if everyone do
not be polyanna about it and assume it's always going
to go over well. But I think we actually actually
attempt to make those changes. And the reason is is
that the left and building kind of left social movements
build on solidarity and equality. That's the only option we
have to do something about anti Semitism. The right has
never made Jews safer. We have right now a system
(40:58):
where Israeli nationalism is supposed to the primary vessel for
Jewish safety. I don't know about you, but when I
look at Israel, I don't think to myself what a
tremendously aboves of safe Jews Like this, we have a
situation that I don't think the political solutions actually offer
Jewish safety and instead just create like more and more
social division and more and more social hierarchy. So we
have to kind of look at the left and how
to build a left that can confront anti Semitism, and
(41:20):
that is really the only option we're being given.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I think like avoiding this whole issue out of
fears that like it, like it, like somehow like takes
away from other bad things that are happening in the world,
like it like somehow it takes away from the genocide
in Gaza. I think is so misplaced thinking, because I
view this as all part of the same struggle, and actual,
like active efforts to combat any any degree of anti
(41:46):
Semitism that is witnessed, I think will serve to only
like strengthen a general like overall united call to stop
what's going on. And I think like people have this
like inclination that maybe we shouldn't about it. Maybe she
was like could try to ignore it because it's uncomfortable
or it might like hurt the cause, And I think
that's just absolutely reversed. And I think, like you said,
(42:09):
like making inroads with like anti fascist researchers to help
like identify, you know, when these things are happening, who
bad actors might be, you know, people that might try
to trojan horse certain issues to kind of alter a
popular movement is all great ways to start. Ben, Did
you have any other other kind of thoughts on how
to handle this like unique political moment.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Yeah, no, I mean I've been around Palestine solidarity movements
for like, you know, over a decade. I remember, like
a decade ago, I was in a rally, and you know,
most of the signage there was like really inspiring and awesome,
but at one point I saw like a sign that
showed like kind of like a hook nose Israeli soldier
(42:51):
who was like feasting on children's blood.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
And it was like, okay, this is definitely like there's
an anti sententism.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
And I actually like went up and like talked to
the person and they were like really nice, and you know,
I explained to them, like, you know, there's a thing
called a Blood Bible, which is an anti Semitic myth
that's harmed Jews for centuries that the Jews like feast
on Christian children's blood, and that like it seems like
that image of the Israeli soldier is like seems to
(43:20):
like have a big nose and that's kind of like
a hystereotype from Europe. And they were like, oh, I
didn't really like know these things. They took the sign
down and left feeling like it was a good conversation,
and so like things like that. I think there's some
understandable fear like among Jewish people that you might see
signs like this at rallies, and when you do, I think,
just like trying to have conversations, it doesn't always go well,
(43:43):
but often it does. And I just think, like you know,
for any marginalized group or form of oppression, the more
the people just deep in their understanding of like what
anti semitism is, how it shows up, what some of
these these tropes are. Like, the more that it becomes normalized,
the more that it will become second nature to people,
and people won't be as afraid to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
There won't be this kind of like weird silence around it,
and there's some decenditism in that silence.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
To be clear, like for any any kind of oppression,
if you thought, oh, if people don't want to talk
about like anti black racism in the movement, that's that
itself is like is part of anti blackness, right, so
we should be clear. And I also think, like you're saying,
the fact that so often like agmuisations of anti semitism
are weaponized against our movements makes people not want to
talk about it, makes people think, oh, this is just
(44:32):
a right wing issue, or if we talk about it,
or we're just lending treadence to the right but I
think that's changing, especially with the growth of the Jewish
Left and with an understanding that anti Semitism is real
and needs to be tackled. And so I think, yeah,
the more the things to keep changing, this conversation will
be a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah, Is there any other thing that you would like
to mention kind of near the end of this piece,
you know, anything on like the Jewish Left, any other
kind of closing thoughts that didn't get brought up.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
The only thing was I can say we spend a
lot of time talking about the stake that non Jewish
folks have in this, and I think there's a couple
of things that are worth considering. Like we've sort of
talked about, you know, anti Semitism. One of the key
features of anti Semitism is that it's not true, Like
it's a bad actual analysis about power, state, empires, and
capitalism works. So if that is sort of steeping in,
(45:21):
and this is true of conspiracy theories broadly, if that's
cp into politics, that's just a failure right there. And
so it's really incumbent on people to sort of try
and move past that and confront those things, because that's
the only way that like social movements can actually gain
kind of efficacy. And the other thing is that they're
directly tied to other forms of oppression. If you look
at like the all out assault on trans healthcare and
transtitutions right now, it's overwhelming, using antisemitic conspiracy theories as
(45:44):
sort of the scaffold team to hold it together. Absolutely,
And this has been historically true about anti blackness in
the US and the other forms of oppression, and so
these things are intertwined. So I think it's important just
to acknowledge that, like anti Semitism is not like just
a Jewish problem or affecting Jewish people. It's really baked
into these kind of interlocking system of oppressions. So we
should see it as a way of confronting other things
(46:06):
as well. And to make that, can I give it
value or value to confront on its own terms?
Speaker 5 (46:11):
Yeah, And I think this book came out really at
a moment when like these conversations are needed more than ever,
and also at a moment when the Jewish left is
just growing by leaps and bounds. And I think to
end on a hopeful note, and that gives me a
lot of hope along with the growth of the left,
you know, more broadly right surging to the streets in
(46:33):
support of Palestine. We're seeing like new generations and folks
across all generations and Jewish communities who are building new
ritual modalities, new modes of Jewish identity, new politics, who
really questioning old ways of doing things, and really building
a Jewish future beyond nationalism and militarism, and connecting our
(46:55):
struggles with all other struggles as they've long been connected,
you know, like Jewish left has been around for a
long time.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
And so yeah, we're really living at a historic moment,
both around this issue and around all of our movements
in general. So that gives me a lot of both.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Thank you both so much for coming on to talk
about these not very fun topics. I spent two hours
this morning reading through the book.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
It was very good.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I strongly recommend people read it, especially considering everything that's
happened like these past eight months. I think there's a
lot of very good insights in there. Where can people
find a copy of Safety through Solidarity?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I think I think you can pick it up anywhere.
I appreciate the kind of words, I appreciate you having
us on to talk about it. We've been directing folks
to sort of like movement bookstores and we've been partnering
with a bunch of them, you know, So I think
like local read bookstores are always a great place. We
have to like actively sustain those places and be a
part of them. So I think that's a great place
to do it, and also kind of requesting them at
(47:50):
libraries sort of like pointing folks to both of those things.
So that's a great way to support the book.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Great.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
I really appreciate you having us on Garrison has been
a great conversation and we appreciate all the work you do,
so we needed to be connected, all right, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
For more podcasts from the cool Zone Media, visit our
website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Thanks for listening,
Also media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis,
and today I'm joined with the authors Shane Burley and
Ben Lorber, who have a new book out called A
Safety Through Solidarity, A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti Semitism.
Shane reached out to me to talk about both the
(00:22):
book and a variety of issues revolving around this topic.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you for coming on, both of you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for having us So.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
A few months ago I put out an episode looking
at a genuine uptick in anti Semitic incidents that have
happened in the United States and Europe, and sometimes it
feels kind of like a tricky thing to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
In some ways, it's.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Like you're threading a very difficult needle. It's like you're
caught between a rock and a hard place when discussing
this topic, because if you point to an actual trend
that you're seeing showing a genuine spike in anti Semitic incidents,
there's like a subset of people who are very focused
on the genocide in Gaza, very rightly so, but they
might push back since claims of anti Semitism have been
so conflated with any display of anti Zionist politics, or
(01:07):
even worse, they might even question, why are you talking
about this when there's this other horrible thing going on
right the actual genocide in Gaza. Now, I think, meanwhile,
if you avoid this as a lesser or a non issue,
if if you don't talk about these things, I would
argue that actually strengthens the Zionist political project of tying
Jewish safety solely to the state of Israel. And in
(01:27):
some ways, I think ignoring this entire issue legitimizes a
degree of criticisms that are being leveled against these massive
protests and calls for a ceasefire and justice in Palestine.
So I guess, how long have you been putting together
this book and how much did the war in Gaza
this past year kind of change the scope of it
as you were writing this?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, I mean we started, I think Ben and I
started talking about this and in the twenty nineteen beginning
of twenty twenty, so it's a totally it was a
totally different context when we started working on the book,
and what we had been wanting was actually the sort
of like drive a wedge into what you're talking about here.
Which is like that there isn't really good discourse on
what anti semitism actually is that takes it seriously, that
(02:08):
doesn't just kind of deflect and project onto anti Zionism.
Since Ben and I both come from like a history
of organizing a Palestine solidarity movement, me with Students for
Justice Palestine on campus, then the Jewish Voice for Peace,
so we had seems to basically firsthand how accusations of
anti Semitism basically leveled just constantly at Palastine solidarity protesters,
(02:31):
and then also in research and covering the far right,
seeing obviously the growth of anti Semitism in white nationalism
both in the US and internationally, and that only increased
increase over time. So we wanted to work on something
that took that seriously and also sort of revive different
traditions from the left that talk about anti semitism, whether
it's anti fascism, are different kind of Marxist trends or
(02:53):
the Jewish left kind of bring it to one place,
talk to other folks who are also taking it seriously,
and weave that together. All of that is different. And
before October seventh, because we were turning in the draft
or a book like a matter of days after October
seventh happened.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Oh wow, we went and talked.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
To the publisher. We're like, well, the whole world has changed.
I mean, we have to we have to make changes
about it. And so we've made some and basically, like
I address some questions there, and I think you can
kind of see the in the conclusion of like the
very end of the book kind of where we cut
it off in November December area and sort of have
acknowledge that things are different here. But I think that
there's also bigger questions that we're talking about now that
(03:31):
like we're doing interviews and the writing articles and stuff
afterwards about how that's changed. But a lot of this really,
I think one thing that's important is that because we
make very clear, like very incredibly clear, the anti Zionism
not the same as anti Semitism in a way, that
conversation is the same as before, because we're actually talking
about where real anti Semitism lives. And if you look
at the way that this course is now, particularly from
(03:53):
groups like in the Defamation League, is it's basically built
entirely around you know, attacking college protests, right, attacking these
mass anti genocide demonstrations, right, And since that's so foundationally
different than how we understand anti semitism, there's a way
in which, like the conversation that has the book is
sort of the same. And what do you think about this, Ben?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, No, I mean I agree that it really hasn't
changed that much, even though it's just a lot bigger
and more prominent. And the forces that are trying to
attack the Movement for Justice and pasts that are stronger.
They're trying to pass legislation taking away our free speech rights,
they're trying to restrict academic freedom, they're trying to go
after the irs status of justice organizations.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
So the stakes are really high.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
I think the intervention that we've always been wanting to
make is to really put the conversation backward alongs like
on the rise of the far right, on the rise
of white Christian nationalism. Right, anti Semitism is part of
the right wing worldview. It's just like the other systems
of oppression like anti blackness, anti LGBTQ, biggest true Islamophobia,
(05:01):
anti integrant xenophobia, anti Semitism.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Is deeply connected.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Right, These George Soros conspiracies are being used by authoritarian.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Leaders like Donald Trump and JB.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Vance and the rest of them to build up the
MAGA base and to attack the foundations of our multi
racial democracy. And we've seen it have deadly results for
Jews and for other groups. You know, white nationalists, you know,
mass shooters who are motivated by anti Semitic conspiracy theories,
have attacked synagogues, have attacked Latin X communities, have a
(05:34):
Black communities, and so yeah, anti Semitism is part of
that machinery of oppression. And so our book tries to
reframe the conversation and give Justice Organizer a way to
take back the conversation away from the right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Would one of you be willing to give like a
workable definition of anti Semitism because this is a word
that's certainly been used a lot, but I think it's
a word that signifies possibly a lot of different things.
And I guess what is the definition of antisemitism that
you are using in your book.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Yes, Sott, we really see anti Semitism as a form
of conspiracy theory thinking that developed out of Christianity in
Christian Europe and that essentially sees Jews as the root
cause of evil or the root cause of the world's
problems kind of behind the scenes. It trades in images
(06:25):
of a cabal lurking behind either government or the media
or the economy. And these conspiracy theories are core to
an authoritarian and nationalists worldview that mobilize, you know, millions
really away from examining and confronting the root causes of
(06:45):
oppression and convinces them to chase, you know, kind of
illusory shadows instead.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Why do we have like a harder time kind of
pinning down this term? You know, I think people have
a general idea and a pretty easy way to like see, like,
you know, what's like islamophobic?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, what's racist?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
There's a few points in your book that you talk about,
you know, instances of people maybe unintentionally spreading anti Semitism
that if they were instead talking about like Muslims or
like trans people or like black people, they would like
easily identify as like, Oh, this is very clearly a
form of like xenophobia. This is very clearly like based
on some kind of like conspiratorial discrimination.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few reasons for this,
and we talk about this in the book. I Mean
one of them is that the way the anti Semitism
has operated is generally a narrative about punching up against power,
versus a lot of narratives of oppression, which are basically
about how various groups are subhuman or lesser than dominant population.
That's slightly different with Jews, though that has been a
(07:45):
component of some pieces of it historically. Is basically a
narrative that people who feel disempowered then use to sort
of like reclaim a sort of kind of populous energy,
and a lot of ways it ends up being a
place where folks are directed by people in power to
put their class aang or away from the actual ruling class.
So I think in a way, when people see anti Semitism,
(08:06):
they also recognize that there's legitimate class anchor legitimate like disenfranchisement,
and I think that's actually troubling to sort of people
don't want to undermine that feeling always necessarily. I think
there's also just the complexity of Jewish identity that's shifted
over time, different populations, different communities, different politics, sometimes religious,
sometimes more cultural, sometimes more ethnic. That can make it confusing.
(08:27):
So it's hard to use one model for understanding impression
than projected onto this and so in a lot of ways,
you kind of have to come at this question distinctly
from kind of other forms of oppression. That's actually true
of most forms of opression. They have a lot of distinctiveness,
but I think you have to kind of learn about
those contours. And again, I think part of it is
also that this hasn't been a big part of the
(08:49):
left conversation in the last twenty or thirty years. It
is to be more frequent that this would be like
you know, maybe trainings and left spaces where people would
talk about that. It just simply hasn't been the case
that much recently, and so I think there's actually a
big lack of just understanding of how to notice those
things and talk about them. And then I think weaponization
has become such it's not just such an overwhelming part
(09:11):
of it. It's actually the dominating conversation on anti semitism,
particularly in the US. So when you hear about anti semitism,
it's overwhelmingly going to be directed by the center or
the right, or for institutions directed at Palestine solidarity movements.
And again, people get heartened skin to that that they
don't want to give an inch on those sorts of things,
and I totally understand why, and so I think that
also has created that boundary of where examination would normally
(09:34):
take place.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is interesting looking at like how much the right
wing has been able to weaponize claims of anti semitism
against the left. I think the term that you use
in the book is selective outrage on anti semitism, because
I mean, I was just at the RNC and you're
hearing Marjorie Taylor Green talk about how there's like antisemitic
protests happening around the country, and you're like, wait a minute,
(09:56):
you're the Jewish space laser person, what are you talking about?
And I think it was Dysantis who just called all
university protesters hamas, right, not saying that they're like amas,
but just literally saying like these people are like are Hamas,
Like hamas took over university protests. And meanwhile, you would
be hard pressed to find anybody on this camp talking about,
(10:19):
you know, this strong degree, especially considering DeSantis, the strong
degree of anti Semitic people either involved in their own
campaigns or like their actual supporters. It was just a
year ago where DeSantis's campaign staff released a video of
him with the sonnet rat it's like Kamad buddy. So
it is interesting how how they've been able to try
(10:40):
to weaponize those claims while completely ignoring like the structural
anti semitism like baked into this new wave of nationalist
politics that we're seeing in the United States.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Yeah, no, it's totally. The example of Marjorie Taylor Green
is so striking. I mean, she, I believe, in the
same day once she called the protesters on a college
campus of anti Semitic and then she said that they
were funded by George Soros, right, and she's using them
both through the same purpose. And it's not only the Santists,
and they're right, I mean in Jonathan green Black, that
(11:10):
head of the d L, I remember, like a few
months ago, said that students of college campuses were Iranian proxies.
And when you use that language, you're basically authorizing military
counterinsurgency against protesters. It's just it really puts Jews in danger,
you know, not to mention Palestinians, the Muslims, you know,
(11:31):
basically all groups, right, because sure there's occasionally a stray
anti Semitic comment that shows up at protests, because anti
Semitism is part of our world. There's anti blackness injustice movements,
antiolgo guts pistory, and anti Semitism. I'm sure, but that's
no comparison to when you have like Elon Musk, the
richest person in the world, one of the most powerful
(11:53):
people in the world, saying that Jews are engaged in
patrid against whites. Right, there's no comparisons in terms of
power and threat level. So it's really making Jews less safe.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, and we also talk about the fact that because
antisemitic conspiracy theories are such a foundational part of the
right's form of populism, it's sort of how they explain
of class, anger and energy from the base that there's
really no way to detach it, and so it ends
up being this foundational piece that even when they talk
about Israel consistently, the way that they've built a connection
(12:23):
with their base is by trumping up towards Soros or
Rothschild's conspiracy theories or basically presenting kind of us in
them populous narrative around theories about globalists and things like that.
So there's really no comparison that we're talking about anti
simpatism when it shows up on the left versus the
really deeply inlaid way that it exists on the right.
And like Ben was saying, right now, we have a
(12:44):
situation where the right is overwhelmingly united in support of
Israel and using that as their evidence of support for
Jews and then pushing sure great replacement theory claims which
are inherently anti Semitic on the one hand, or really
kind of mobilizing use in their rhetoric for their own
kind of geopolitical aims, which again is not based out
of like a deeply held love for Jews. It's either
(13:06):
built on sort of a Christian Zionist eschatology or just
simply an opportunistic use of this minority group to sort
of push their other political values, which itself is kind
of a deeply held antisemitic way of treating the Jewish community.
And so when we're looking at this, we can't let
the rhetoric that's become to dominate actually stand for how
(13:27):
we understand anti Semitism because it's been so politically motivated.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, I mean, as a researcher has it has been
quite frustrating because I've used to you know, and a
lot of people used to be able to rely on
some degree on like data aggorates like the ADL and
putting together like lists of incidents like maps. And as
I was putting together my piece looking at this opparticularity
semitism a few months ago, I was, you know, looking
(13:52):
through this ADL map and the amount of like equivocation
between just a standard pro Palestine protest protests that I
was present at, and I was like, this was a
Jewish led protest and having that be equivocated with acts
of like actual like neo Nazi terrorism as well as
acts of like genuine antisemitism from people on the left.
(14:14):
Basically it's resulting in like data poisoning, which makes it
really hard to actually unpack some of these like larger
issues that are that are facing both like Jewish people,
people who are very concerned about Palestine and people who
take like the threat of like you know, you know,
far right nationalism quite seriously.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, I went through all of the ADLs twenty twenty
three anti semitism data with like this project with Jewish currents,
and the reality is is that the standard they use
on sort of like left oriented Palestine protests is to
have almost any measure of support for Palestinians or any
kind of global call for justice in Palestine that is
(14:51):
to facto anti semitism, and like you said, it then
overwhelms the data sort of sort of shuts out other things.
And the way that they even set up the reporting
system just privileges those kind of protests, so people it teaches,
for example, they'll partner with the organizations and show people
how to report, and so they'll end up mass reporting
these protest events and then under reporting white nationalist incidents
(15:14):
or like violent incidents. So what you end up seeing
in their data is that they've actually undercoded white nationalist
events because of the way that they kind of set
up the data, and they don't really track things like
housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, and ex Jews, those kind of
things really don't fit into their models. So what you
end up with is this kind of map that just
privileges people saying from the River to the Sea is
(15:36):
like this inherently anti Semitic meme, and then undercounts like
what often Jews will report as what makes them feeling unsafe,
comments of work, or actual pressures when buying homes. Things
like that like that doesn't really show up. You've experiences
of Jews in prison, those don't show up, So you
end up with this really skewed image on what it is,
where you assume that the left is overwhelming the responsible party,
(15:58):
and then it actually invisible a pretty growing force on
the right and even institutionally just like in structures of
kind of like American culture. So it's really hard then
to say, like, well, how do I know what's actually
happening here? The ADL's the largest organization. Every organization then
uses their data where am I going? It leads you
in a really big kind of a gap in how
(16:20):
to understand this happening. So we can look at pretty
clear evidence that there's a rise in anti Semitism by
looking at things like street attacks or by looking at
the rhetoric on the right, but it's hard to get
like a clear picture of it because every organization is
that's oriented looking at the left.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Like I was just going to say, like this goes
way back to the ADL. Like you know, in our book,
we talk about how even in the nineteen seventies and
the eighties, the eight I was like spying on left
wing activists as part of their pivot towards seeing the
most important side of anti Semitism on what they call
the radical left right. In the nineteen seventies, as global
(16:54):
criticism of Israel's occupation mounted after the nineteen sixty seven,
you know, Six Day Wars, the ABL like really pivoted
further from whatever original mission they may have had about
like genuinely countering bigotry to really becoming like Israel defense organizations.
And so in the seventies and eighties, like you saw
them spying on anti apartheid activists, You saw them attacking
(17:16):
Arab American you know, professors at universities. You saw them
spying on ACTA, even left in Jewish groups like New
Jewish Agenda, you know. And so it's not only Jonathan Greenblatt.
It's not only since October seventh. The BBL has been
playing this role for a long time, along with a
whole lot of Christian Zionists and both sides of the
US political establishment. And yeah, the career saying like the
(17:39):
stakes are extremely high. The right and the center are
trying to legislate their definition of anti semitism, to destroy
free speech and to protect Israel's genocide.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
So the stakes are very high about this right now.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I think one of the most troubling notions about you
know how those groups like the ADL and others that
are kind of like, like you said, like lobbying for
legislation and trying to encourage like extreme crackdowns on human
rights protests and and anti genoside protests, is that this
is also like materially harms a whole bunch of Jewish
people who are involved in these protests and in organizing.
(18:25):
You're you're trying to get the FBI to investigate Jewish
people who are protesting against the genocide. And we saw
this with the with the campus university protests. You saw this,
you know, especially at Columbia of like a lot of
a lot of these kids are Jewish people who are
heavily involved in these protests and in calls to do
a very extreme crackdown and investigations. It's hard to see
(18:48):
how that's not just like calling for for our government
to like further further oppressed these Jewish people who don't
like agree with one side's opinion on something.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, yeah, you see it.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
You know, in the most kind of ironic twist of
history in Germany, where you know, the state was once
in Nazi state, is enforcing some of the most brutal
crackdowns on the Palestine solidarity speech, and Jews are disproportionately
represented among the crackdown there. And so you have you know,
German police pulling people with pipos and arresting them, you know,
(19:23):
shutting down events with Jewish speakers, right so it's really
like literally policing Jewish thought, right like. We know, there's
over a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism and Jewish
solidarity with Palestinians, and from the very beginnings of the
Zionist movement, which was originally a Christian movement in Christian
Europe by the way, you know, and we've always had
(19:43):
long traditions of Jews who have resisted it. And so
when the state is legislating saying only like a certain
expression of Jewish identity is valid, that's also anti Semitism,
right like.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
And we see it, you know, not only from Trump, right.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Trump will always say, oh, Jews who are democrats, Jews
who are quote unqute disloyal to Israel are problematic. You
also see it from Biden who says, you know, without Israel,
there's not a Jew in the world who's saved right.
So I think, you know, Jews who descend on Israel
are rapidly becoming enemies in a way of the right,
you know, and of forces align with it, right, And
(20:20):
I think that's an aspect of of anti Semitism that's
not talked about enough today.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, And there's a lot of examples of this too.
During the Labor Party controversy around Corbin and anti Semitism,
it was Jewish members who are overwhelmingly expelled from the party.
I think it's almost like a dozen times more likely
to face kind of consequences there, right, So, like those
ended up being the centerpiece of it. But I think
even when you when you broaden out, this ends up
being the case. And we kind of talk about this
(20:47):
as like a good Jew bad Jew distinction, where like
anti Semitism ends up being mobilized against whatever kind of
the culture decides is a bad Jew or whatever the
organization decides it's the bad version of a Jew, the
kind of Jew that they don't want to actually deal with.
And this happens in this pro Israel consensus whereby Laku Nyahu,
basically the far right coalition running Israel right now builds
(21:08):
alliances that they need around the world, with far right
parties in Hungary, in South Asia, Indian with the Hindian
Nationalism with other places, and then those movements are pretty
explicitly anti Semitic, therefore making Jews in various countries around
the diaspora less and less safe right and so this
sort of model of making Israel the bottom line on
(21:28):
defending against anti Semitism is one that strengthened the right,
helped to build up Christian nationalism domestically, and then that
creates this kind of general culture of unsafety for Jews
where the only Jewish voices that are then held up
are the ones that justify Christian nationalism on the one hand,
like you'll see at the National Conservatism Conference, or ones
who are so aggressively pro Israel that they're totally willing
(21:50):
to partner with Christian science groups or the far right
wing of the Republican Party or National conservative parties in Europe.
And so this ends up as a situation where like
increasing number of Jews, particularly in the US, or Jews
around the left, which again is still disproportionally Jewish, feel
increasingly targeted by the political consensus, and at the same
time this pro Israel rhetoric ends up being with the
(22:12):
fact of measure by which anyone's kind of set to.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Like there was this part in the book where you
were talking about the good Jew bad Jew binary, specifically
on the left, where there's like a minority of Jews
who identify as anti or non Zionist who are very
like celebrated, sometimes maybe even in like a tokenizing kind
of way, while the rest of jewsh people who do
not identify as such are belittled as unworthy or like untrustworthy,
(22:37):
where their opinions are dismissed or seen as morally compromised
on like an inherent level. And this can also be
coupled with this assumption that like every Jew is a
secret Zionist until proven otherwise, and you have to like
get every new Jewish person you meet to like prove
to you that they're not secretly a Zionist, which is,
you know, very antisemitic. And we also do have this
(22:57):
good Jew bad Jew binary mirrored in like an inverted
form on the right, with Zionist Jews, you know, being
seen as the good ones, and anti Zionist Jews have
their like jewishness questioned or are seen as like untrustworthy
or inherently evil, and I do believe it is worth
discussing kind of the flip side of this, And I
(23:19):
think of avoiding talking about actual anti semitism on the left,
I think only serves to harm all of us, and
I because it is something that I think is happening
and I think should be talked about, even if it
makes people like uncomfortable. And I think it's a it
is a mistake to assume that just because you're on
the left, that you're like somehow immune to antisemitic thinking,
(23:39):
whether purposeful or not. Like like both of you mentioned, like,
we live in a society that has a great degree
of structural anti semitism, and a lot of these people,
I think, who might be attending some of these protests
or might just be posting online who knows, might not
even be intentionally spreading antisemitism, right, but in action, that's
kind of what they're invoking through like ideas of like
(23:59):
you know, the Zionist cabal that secretly controls all of
the media, all all of all of the government. You know,
those types of things we're starting to like invoke these
like larger secretive organizations that are that are pre planning
this whole thing, and like just to some degree from
a lot of the discourse that you see, I feel
like some people think they can just like control f
(24:20):
Jews to Zionists, and like, if you're able to control
f Jews to Zionists and the sentence still works, that
means that you're doing it wrong. That means that you're
you're probably approaching this from a problematic standpoint. And there's
a whole bunch of aspects about the sort of thing
that you do talk about in the book, like you know,
including identifying Judaism with Zionism and how that also only
(24:43):
hurts all of us, including this like weird uptick in
like Jewish race science that you're starting to see more
and more of claiming that like all modern Jewish people
only come from Europe. And it's like there's just a
whole bunch of this kind of stuff that we're all
kind of pushing to this. But I do believe it
is like worth talking about in some degree because this
is going to not only harm people who are calling
(25:07):
for an end to the genocide in Gaza, I think
it does like strengthen this notion that a lot of
the Zionist project is built on, which is saying that
we need Israel as a way to secure.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Safety for Jewish people around the world.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah. I think we talk about this, you know, we
have a couple of chapters that talk kind of explicitly
about this at different points in history. But I think
there's a tendency and I kind of get where this
comes from, to basically see any ally or any kind
of voice in support of a movement as like a partner,
particularly when you're trying to build like mass support against
something that basically has kind of mass opposition on the
(25:42):
other side, like liberating Palestine. But what you see oftentimes
when you see a mohoment grow really dramatically, really quickly,
is that there's just not a kind of like common
baseline understanding always of that, and conspiracy theories are a
great way to fill the gap on them. Yeah, and
that's true of really any movement. It's just that, in particular,
in this case, we have this long history of antisemitic
(26:02):
conspiracy theories about Jewish power in particular, and then we're
talking about sort of like powerful political actors on the
other and so making clear distinctions is just not there
necessarily so you know, we talked with lots of folks
that have been sort of litmus tested when entering kind
of less spaces about zientism. I talked to folks where
other organizers asked to see their passport before they're allowed
(26:23):
to come to Meetia's crazy, It's it's wild, and you
think in most of the cases people we kind of
identify that as being kind of wild. We make a
lot of distinctions. We talk about, like the sort of
difference between talking about a Israel lobby organization like APEC
and its power or kind of a vague diffuse Israel
lobby that you know, control controls Western politics, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Like a like a this is predeceas Israel lobby.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Exactly exactly, and instead talking about like why would we
understand Israel is part of kind of a Western imperial
project rather than the flip side, this kind of small
country controlling Western foreign policy that kind of thing, and
make a lot of those clear distinctions. And again, I
think it's been sort of suggested like these ideas, anti
semetic ideas are a part of the culture. And you know,
I've been around the left long enough to see like
(27:10):
virulent transphobic ideas show up to see, like queer phobic
ideas in general be very very present. There's no reason
to believe that anti Semitism wouldn't show up here either,
where folks are sort of like consumed by anger. What
people are looking for clear answers, what people are trying
to identify that? And I think the easy answer is
often the paper over it. And I think what we
talk about here is that that exactly is what sort
(27:31):
of pro Israel voices want in this case is to
know that the left isn't good to deal with it.
And so the alternative to that is to both like
create like a sense of like how would we confront
antisemitic institutions and where structural anti semitism comes from, and
then also how do we deal with that internally? And
we talk with a bunch of social movements that have
done that. Right. Anti fascists are actually pretty used to
(27:51):
talking about anti semitism when it shows up on the left,
that's pretty common. Jewish Left has talked about this historically,
there's other voices, so bringing that back and sort of
making a safe place to confront and then then figure
out then where is it, like you know, just a
bad idea that you deal with, and you talk about
you have like education, and where do you draw lines
where like you know, this is now not a person
that's not allowed in or these are voices that we
(28:13):
can't partner with that kind of thing. I think that's
something people work out on the ground.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
No, And you make a really good comparison in the
book about how like anti smdic conspiracy theories inhibit a
actual understanding of like the mechanisms of capital right, like
it makes you unable to actually like analyze how capitalism operates.
And similarly, having like an antisemitic conspiratorial view of like Antizionism,
(28:39):
that also will mask the root cause of Palestinian oppression
by distracting from like the like the very like real
like geopolitical mechanisms that have caused this situation to take place,
and distracting from that with like these tales of like
you describe it as like innate Jewish wickedness or a
global Zionist power. And I think that's a really good
(29:00):
understand it because people often, like I think, have a
general idea that like, yeah, anti Semitism is like in
a lot of ways used as a way to not
fully confront like the mechanisms of capitalism and realizing how
you know, it's kind of it's kind of like a
similar situation with Palestine. Is a way for people to
understand that a little bit easier and to like reiterate
(29:20):
the point about how you know you're not immune to
anti Semitism just because you're on the left right. Something
else you also bring up in the book is like
Marxist Leninism has a very mixed history with their relationship
to anti Semitism, and I think you do see this
with with with the degree of the discourse on this issue.
You know, if you compare you know, anarchist viewpoints on
(29:42):
like statism and anti Zionism to a whole bunch of
Marxist Leninists talking about this issue, I do believe there
is you know, generally maybe more anti Semitic undertones among
some of the more like statist communists. And I think
you talk about like the Soviet Union's own oppression of
Jewish people and kind of the continued programs that happened
(30:04):
even after the end of World War Two.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Yeah, I'd say like in the history of the nineteenth
and the twentieth century, left I think the record of
both camps has been fairly mixed. I mean, I think
it was anarchist like you know Bakunen who maybe like
the ins and yeah, totally and you know, like I
guess I have to also have to say, you know,
the the with the nineteen seventeen October Revolution, and that
was like probably one of the first times that it
(30:27):
left led society did pass you know, laws out long
anty sentaitism, and then like they did, you know, defeat
the Nazis, so that I have to give them some
credit where it's due.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
But yes, there's also like a very mixed you know.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Record, especially in the thirties and in the forties and beyond,
and certainly yeah, today I would completely agree with you
that like the more statist camps on the left are
the most kind of aligned with conspiratorial.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Thinking with campus and yeah, I really like the way
that you.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Broke down just how these conspiracy theory can distract us
from the root causes of power. And that's really I
think where if you want to develop like a structural
understanding of anti Semitism and how it connects to capitalism
and all the other systems of oppression, that's where you
got to go, right, Seeing how especially if in times
of crisis and mass discontent like today, with the rise
(31:20):
of nationalism, with you know, widespread alienation, that's when anti
Semitism really rises and is mobilized by authoritarian and nationalists,
you know, leaders, When there's millions of people who are
are fed up that they don't have a job, they
don't have any savings, they know the media is lying
to them, they know that politicians don't represent them. That's
(31:42):
when these conspiracy theories, you know, really take root on
the right and on the left. And that's why you
have you know, Trump and Steve Bannon and the rest
of them, you know, saying, oh, go look at the globalists,
Go look at.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
George Soros, you go look at cultural Marxists, right.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
And I think the more that you know, the left
can advance our own and understanding of why the world
is so fucked up in how to make it better,
then we can really undercut the root causes of anti
Semitism and move more people into our coalitions.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So yeah, that's really key. I think I have two.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Examples I like to kind of bring up as ways
to like springboard discussions and like how we can actually
like handle this going forward, whether that be you know,
if you hear someone say something at a protest that
makes you think it's a little questionable, or as ways
to like actually just like continue like your own like
active participation in calls for ceasefire and ending the genocide
(32:46):
in Palestine and whatever justice in Palestine might look like.
So a few months ago I was at the Emory
University campus occupation and maybe like a week in or so,
Enemy of the Pod Jackson showed up in person along
with Hawes and a few of those kind of like cronies. Right,
these are people who are like conservative communists, mega communists.
(33:11):
They're basically like Duganists or like third positionists, and they
basically become influencers that monetize the genocide and gaza for
their own like personal political profile. So this guy showed
up one night and no one really knew what exactly
to do, Like people knew who he was. There was
people talking with organizers, and like organizers tried to talk
(33:31):
with him and be like, hey, can you like not
be here and he's like, well, no, I want to
be here because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
and you know, certain people would try to get into
like political arguments with him, which is I think is
completely useless. And it was. It was kind of a
weird situation. And then we learned that he was slated
to speak at an event the next day. Now it's
(33:52):
unclear if he was kind of hijacking this event or
if he was actually invited to speak, but regardless, he
was going to show up and make some kind of
speech at an event later that next day. So some
people put together this flyer kind of going through Hinkle's politics,
his history of anti semitism, rabid queer phobia, racism, all
these things that explain kind of who he actually is
(34:14):
as a person. And these flyers were distributed that morning,
like before he was slated to speak, around the venue.
As he went up on stage, a decent number of
people in the audience who had these flyers protested to
be like no, like you can't be here. He was
escorted out of the building and then he was escorted
off of campus. I think this was a very effective
(34:35):
way of handling a situation like this. It didn't give
him like an opportunity for like extra clicks. You know,
it wasn't a super volatile way to handle this was
it was very simple. It was it was kind of elegant.
There was just no way for him to really like
weaponize this effectively. So we have something like that as
a way to like, you know, clamp down on people
(34:57):
who are either disingenuous or just actually antisemitic. We're trying
to like infiltrate or take over in some degree this
kind of general call to stop the genocide and gaza. Meanwhile,
a few weeks ago, there were protests in DC as
Netanyahu was speaking to Congress, and there was this video
going around of people like graffitiing the fake liberty bell
(35:18):
with like just pro Palestine slogans and stuff, and like
everyone's freaking out about this.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Not everybody, you know, A.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Certain section of political people were freaking out about this.
A whole bunch of other people were like, Okay, well
it's graffiti on a fake bell, who cares. But I
actually watched that whole video and after they look at
the liberty bell, it pans over to this other monument
nearby where in big red lettering is written Hamas is coming.
And I see this as a pretty bad way to
(35:47):
handle a situation like this, because from what I can
tell here, all that matters is just being like edgy
and freaking out libs, and it kind of destroys any
ability to cultivate forward momentum. It's like they're doing it
just so that Democrats will be pressured into condemning it
to reinforce like their own hopelessness performative spiral of doing
nothing but edgi graffiti's political praxis. And I see this
(36:10):
as kind of a general pattern of people trying to
establish themselves as like the most radical and using that
as a weapon against anyone else. And it's just like
a form of political posturing. It's hardly any different from
posting a black square on Instagram. They don't want any
actual movement or any actual change. They want to be
the coolest, most correct people as the world ends. It's
kind of like a cowardly way out, because, as you
(36:32):
point out in the book, it's kind of hell to
actually have to deal with and work with people who
have some degree of like morally compromised politics, and that
actually requires like caring about the ends, But it's the
means that make you look cool. Things like this are
kind of bound to happen at any kind of protest
that has more than like, you know, fifty people, right,
there's going to be someone who does something that the
(36:53):
main protest is not aligned with. And on that note,
like what advice do would you have to people who
are attending these protests and you see someone who maybe
does something that's a little bit questionable, whether that be
you know, like harassing just a random like visibly Jewish person,
or you know, writing graffiti on a synagogue. Right, these
types of things that are like really not helpful and
(37:15):
actually kind of do display a degree of maybe like
like like coded anti Semitic motivation.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, so I think that's prepaid of Habas on the statue.
I think it's an interesting example because that was just
brandished all over right wing media. You know, Tablet Magazine
did an article about how these folks should be deported
all their Instagram. It was like a trending thing on
Instagram and it did very little like protests wise. Right,
And actually at that same demonstration, there's a number of rabbis,
(37:43):
particularly kind of like movement elder rabbis, Lindahltzman other folks
that were arrested by cops, yeah, pretty brutally and then
detained right, So there actually was Plice attacking like a
Jewish contingent of like religious figures totally. I think also
there's been a number of examples, I think where folks
really just aren't prepared for something, and I think this
is actually sort of a long conversation people should have
(38:03):
on the left. I remember years ago I was with
a group that created sort of like an accountability document,
and the idea was is that if something happens in
an organization, it often just destroys the organization, if there's
interpersonal issues, if there's like interpersonal trauma or assault, things
like that, and so getting out in front of it,
just like having a sense of like how you want
to deal with things, and like having had consensus amongst
(38:25):
folks with like this is like appropriate behavior, this is
how we want to handle stuff. That's always a strong
thing to do. But at I think it was a
George Washington University campus at the end of April. Patrick Casey,
who's formerly of Identity Europa and the American Identity Movement,
showed up at the encampment and wanted to talk to people,
wanted to ask them questions and that kind of thing,
and people were totally obliged him. They were in photos
(38:46):
with them, let him take video. It's because they didn't
know who he was.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Ye, right, In.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Reality, he didn't actually find anyone that was going to
basically support his vision. He stopped people ask you know,
will you allow right wing anti Zionists here? They basically
said no. He did find one person with a hat
that said Israel did nine to eleven, who then told
him that the Jews rejected Christ. But he was also
kind of on the edges of the encampment. Sure, the
reality is what happened was a white nationalist came into
(39:11):
an encampment and took photos of Jews and posted them
on a white nationalist website. That's what happened, you know,
So there actually was anti semitism. It affected the Jews
of the encampment, but no one know who it was.
And I think the flip side of that is having
partners with groups that actually do know who Petrick Casey
is and being able to say, oh, that guy is
not here, it's not legitimate. I think with someone like
Hinkle Maga communists, that's really confusing to people group. I mean,
(39:34):
that's why he does it like it's a dugonous and
kind of gray zone types and this kind of version
of authoritarian kind of like right leading, right coded so
called communists. It's there literally to confuse people and to
bridge the gaps between the right and the left, and
so again pulling that base of people, talking to them,
having like internal trainings about how this stuff works and
(39:54):
like what these groups are. I think that's always going
to be a good thing. We talked with one organizer
who had an organization that had put together a training
for other groups on anti semitism and invited all these
groups to come and you know, wanted to get feedback
on the training. So they did the training and everyone
kind of like thanked them and then went on to
ask them questions, and the questions were exceedingly anti semitic.
(40:14):
It was things like, well, how do you talk about
the New York housing market when clearly Jews go oh no.
And these were major, major organizations and so basically they
had like a choice like are we going to deal
with this here? Are we going to cut these relationships?
And they basically were like, Okay, let's talk about this,
let's deal with it. Yeah, yeah, and then moved. The
organization is huge, Like they were like we don't want
to make these kind of decisions. We want to realize
(40:36):
where we've made mistakes. That's not true if everyone do
not be polyanna about it and assume it's always going
to go over well. But I think we actually actually
attempt to make those changes. And the reason is is
that the left and building kind of left social movements
build on solidarity and equality. That's the only option we
have to do something about anti Semitism. The right has
never made Jews safer. We have right now a system
(40:58):
where Israeli nationalism is supposed to the primary vessel for
Jewish safety. I don't know about you, but when I
look at Israel, I don't think to myself what a
tremendously aboves of safe Jews Like this, we have a
situation that I don't think the political solutions actually offer
Jewish safety and instead just create like more and more
social division and more and more social hierarchy. So we
have to kind of look at the left and how
to build a left that can confront anti Semitism, and
(41:20):
that is really the only option we're being given.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I think like avoiding this whole issue out of
fears that like it, like it, like somehow like takes
away from other bad things that are happening in the world,
like it like somehow it takes away from the genocide
in Gaza. I think is so misplaced thinking, because I
view this as all part of the same struggle, and actual,
like active efforts to combat any any degree of anti
(41:46):
Semitism that is witnessed, I think will serve to only
like strengthen a general like overall united call to stop
what's going on. And I think like people have this
like inclination that maybe we shouldn't about it. Maybe she
was like could try to ignore it because it's uncomfortable
or it might like hurt the cause, And I think
that's just absolutely reversed. And I think, like you said,
(42:09):
like making inroads with like anti fascist researchers to help
like identify, you know, when these things are happening, who
bad actors might be, you know, people that might try
to trojan horse certain issues to kind of alter a
popular movement is all great ways to start. Ben, Did
you have any other other kind of thoughts on how
to handle this like unique political moment.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Yeah, no, I mean I've been around Palestine solidarity movements
for like, you know, over a decade. I remember, like
a decade ago, I was in a rally, and you know,
most of the signage there was like really inspiring and awesome,
but at one point I saw like a sign that
showed like kind of like a hook nose Israeli soldier
(42:51):
who was like feasting on children's blood.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
And it was like, okay, this is definitely like there's
an anti sententism.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
And I actually like went up and like talked to
the person and they were like really nice, and you know,
I explained to them, like, you know, there's a thing
called a Blood Bible, which is an anti Semitic myth
that's harmed Jews for centuries that the Jews like feast
on Christian children's blood, and that like it seems like
that image of the Israeli soldier is like seems to
(43:20):
like have a big nose and that's kind of like
a hystereotype from Europe. And they were like, oh, I
didn't really like know these things. They took the sign
down and left feeling like it was a good conversation,
and so like things like that. I think there's some
understandable fear like among Jewish people that you might see
signs like this at rallies, and when you do, I think,
just like trying to have conversations, it doesn't always go well,
(43:43):
but often it does. And I just think, like you know,
for any marginalized group or form of oppression, the more
the people just deep in their understanding of like what
anti semitism is, how it shows up, what some of
these these tropes are. Like, the more that it becomes normalized,
the more that it will become second nature to people,
and people won't be as afraid to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
There won't be this kind of like weird silence around it,
and there's some decenditism in that silence.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
To be clear, like for any any kind of oppression,
if you thought, oh, if people don't want to talk
about like anti black racism in the movement, that's that
itself is like is part of anti blackness, right, so
we should be clear. And I also think, like you're saying,
the fact that so often like agmuisations of anti semitism
are weaponized against our movements makes people not want to
talk about it, makes people think, oh, this is just
(44:32):
a right wing issue, or if we talk about it,
or we're just lending treadence to the right but I
think that's changing, especially with the growth of the Jewish
Left and with an understanding that anti Semitism is real
and needs to be tackled. And so I think, yeah,
the more the things to keep changing, this conversation will
be a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah, Is there any other thing that you would like
to mention kind of near the end of this piece,
you know, anything on like the Jewish Left, any other
kind of closing thoughts that didn't get brought up.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
The only thing was I can say we spend a
lot of time talking about the stake that non Jewish
folks have in this, and I think there's a couple
of things that are worth considering. Like we've sort of
talked about, you know, anti Semitism. One of the key
features of anti Semitism is that it's not true, Like
it's a bad actual analysis about power, state, empires, and
capitalism works. So if that is sort of steeping in,
(45:21):
and this is true of conspiracy theories broadly, if that's
cp into politics, that's just a failure right there. And
so it's really incumbent on people to sort of try
and move past that and confront those things, because that's
the only way that like social movements can actually gain
kind of efficacy. And the other thing is that they're
directly tied to other forms of oppression. If you look
at like the all out assault on trans healthcare and
transtitutions right now, it's overwhelming, using antisemitic conspiracy theories as
(45:44):
sort of the scaffold team to hold it together. Absolutely,
And this has been historically true about anti blackness in
the US and the other forms of oppression, and so
these things are intertwined. So I think it's important just
to acknowledge that, like anti Semitism is not like just
a Jewish problem or affecting Jewish people. It's really baked
into these kind of interlocking system of oppressions. So we
should see it as a way of confronting other things
(46:06):
as well. And to make that, can I give it
value or value to confront on its own terms?
Speaker 5 (46:11):
Yeah, And I think this book came out really at
a moment when like these conversations are needed more than ever,
and also at a moment when the Jewish left is
just growing by leaps and bounds. And I think to
end on a hopeful note, and that gives me a
lot of hope along with the growth of the left,
you know, more broadly right surging to the streets in
(46:33):
support of Palestine. We're seeing like new generations and folks
across all generations and Jewish communities who are building new
ritual modalities, new modes of Jewish identity, new politics, who
really questioning old ways of doing things, and really building
a Jewish future beyond nationalism and militarism, and connecting our
(46:55):
struggles with all other struggles as they've long been connected,
you know, like Jewish left has been around for a
long time.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
And so yeah, we're really living at a historic moment,
both around this issue and around all of our movements
in general. So that gives me a lot of both.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Thank you both so much for coming on to talk
about these not very fun topics. I spent two hours
this morning reading through the book.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
It was very good.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I strongly recommend people read it, especially considering everything that's
happened like these past eight months. I think there's a
lot of very good insights in there. Where can people
find a copy of Safety through Solidarity?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I think I think you can pick it up anywhere.
I appreciate the kind of words, I appreciate you having
us on to talk about it. We've been directing folks
to sort of like movement bookstores and we've been partnering
with a bunch of them, you know, So I think
like local read bookstores are always a great place. We
have to like actively sustain those places and be a
part of them. So I think that's a great place
to do it, and also kind of requesting them at
(47:50):
libraries sort of like pointing folks to both of those things.
So that's a great way to support the book.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Great.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
I really appreciate you having us on Garrison has been
a great conversation and we appreciate all the work you do,
so we needed to be connected, all right, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
For more podcasts from the cool Zone Media, visit our
website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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