The effects of the Hamas invasion and killings on Israeli soil, along with the Israeli Government's response in Gaza, continue to be felt in Australia. Communities with ties to Israel and Gaza have been deeply distressed, with many and have taken sides in the conflict. There have also been threats and attacks on Jewish places of worship and property, and instances of abuse directed at Jewish students. Simultaneously, many demonstrations have taken place in cities and universities protesting the actions of the Israeli Government and military in Gaza. The press has highlighted manifestations of antisemitism in Australia, and governments are under considerable pressure to make laws against it.
Now that the military operations and resultant deaths in Gaza have been temporarily paused, there may be space to reflect on the meaning of antisemitism, why it is noxious, and on the proper and improper use of the term. I shall set antisemitism in the company of other similarly shaped words as anticatholic and anticommunist, not to minimise the great difference between their respective usage, but to point out what makes genuinely antisemitic behaviour and language uniquely pernicious.
Antisemitism, like many other ‘anti-’ words, is usually pejorative. If we are accused of it, we feel blamed for a perceived fault. If we use it to describe someone else, we hope that the charge will offend and perhaps change their behaviour. If we are accused of it, our first response will be to rebut the charge. ‘Anti’ words are not neutral. Even seemingly mild terms like antifootball, antigambling, and antismoking carry connotations of negativity and narrow-mindedness. They can be used as weapons to demean someone with whom we disagree. This does not mean that we should not use ‘anti’ words. But we should not use them lightly or recklessly.
In reflecting on whether and when such words are properly used, we should begin with people. The test of acceptable language and behaviour is whether they respect the human beings at whom they are directed. Antisemitic or anticatholic behaviour is unacceptable because it shows lack of due respect for persons. It treats them as objects and not as subjects, as things and not as human beings, as ciphers and not as agents. It claims to know everything that needs to be known about a person and about how to treat them on the strength of a label. It licenses us to deny someone employment on the grounds that they are a Catholic, refuse to serve them because they look foreign, or to graffiti their house because they are Jewish.
To say that the root of the evil of antisemitic, anticatholic and other similar prejudicial ways of speaking and behaving lies in a lack of respect for persons does not imply that they are of equal gravity. Human beings are not isolated individuals but are defined by their relationships, including those to family, to town, to land, to language, to friends, neighbours, townsfolk, and fellow citizens, to religious faith and practice, to political parties and views, and to their environment, among others. These relationships also extend to their history as it is held in memory. To respect people means going beyond our attitude to them as individuals in the present day. We must also respect them in all the relationships that have shaped who they are.
The multitude of different relationships involved in our personal and communal identity means that the demands of respect and the effects of disrespect will differ at different times and places. What can jocularly be said and done in one group setting will be insulting and frightening to members of another. For that reason, antisemitism expressed in words and actions is now more reprehensible than anticatholicism, for example. Both terms are loaded with a history of discrimination. But the history of discrimination, exile, intimidation and violence directed against Jewish people in the Western world, however, has been far more extensive and destructive. It is central in the relationships of Jewish people to the world and also to the attitude of Christians to them. Its culmination in the Shoah, too, which enacted the determination to exterminate Jews from the world because of their race, means that Jewish people today will be rightly horrified, offended and fearful of violent and contemptuous words and actions directed against them and their religion.
Expressed positively, respect for people who are different from us means wishing them well as persons like ourselves, caring for their welfare and security, and having a general interest in their beliefs, rituals, history and culture. It is a form of love. It does not, however, entail agreement with their religious and political beliefs, nor approval of the actions of individuals, state agencies or governments, including our own. If we wish persons well, whether they are our political allies or opponents, we would want them and the agencies associated with them to act with respect in all their relationships. We would be prepared respectfully to question their beliefs and express our disapproval of disrespect on their part. For example, it would not be anticatholic for people to register disagreement with Catholic beliefs and moral teaching, and still less to criticise child abuse by clergy. Nor would it be anti-Australian or antisemitic to deplore war crimes by members of the Australian or Israeli armed forces.
Such cool and abstract distinctions, of course, will have little purchase among people whose relatives and kinsfolk have been killed in a continuing war, and who fear for their ancestral lands. Many people directly affected will resent all criticism of their side in conflict. In the case of Jewish people, that fear and resentment will understandably be intensified by the sense of being surrounded by enemies and constantly living with the threat of being attacked. It is understandable that many Jews will regard criticism of the actions of the Israeli armed forces in Gaza as antisemitic.
'Just as considered criticism of the actions of the Australian Government and of some of its soldiers in military operations should not be seen as unpatriotic but as a gift to the nation, so too is considered criticism of participants in the conflict in Gaza.'
Equally, however, some Palestinian people in Australia have also been subject to anti-Islamic abuse, and apart from the trauma caused by such loss of life and destruction of their ancestral home, also fear for their future. It will be understandable, too, that they will regard criticism of their protests as hypocritical.
Nevertheless, it is proper for Jewish and Palestinian people and for others not involved in the conflict to ask whether the actions of Hamas and of the Israeli Government and military have enacted due respect for persons. The body of international law provides a framework for considering the legitimacy of both the strategy and tactics used in armed action. After examining the evidence to decide that some of these actions are indefensible, people may be mistaken but it would not be antisemitic or anti-Islamic for them to express their views.
Just as considered criticism of the actions of the Australian Government and of some of its soldiers in military operations should not be seen as unpatriotic but as a gift to the nation, so too is considered criticism of participants in the conflict in Gaza. Such critique affirms the claims of our shared humanity and our trust that those whose institutions we criticise will want to honour them.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.
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