In 1956, the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. This compromised the economic and strategic interests of Britain, France and Israel in the region. The armed forces of these three countries invaded Egypt to topple Nasser’s Arab nationalist regime. But the invaders had to withdraw after the United States refused to support the invasion. 

Various Muslim-majority countries witnessed large rallies against the invasion. The rallies were also held in the Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore. The protests in Pakistan were largely organised by left-wing groups such as the National Students Federation (NSF). Israeli, British and French flags were set on fire. Not a single Islamist party took part in the protests. 

The protests did not in any way target the US. In fact, many leading voices at the rallies actually praised the then American president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision to castigate the invaders.  Eisenhower was angry because the US wasn’t informed beforehand of the invasion. He was also weary that the invasion would push Egypt in the Soviet orbit. It eventually did. 

So what does this say? First of all, till the late 1960s, the US did not provide blanket support to Israel like it began to after 1967. Secondly, till the early 1980s, Israel’s core detractors were secular Arab nationalist regimes and the equally secular Palestinian nationalist groups. Thirdly, the Islamist groups were not very vocal about the ‘Palestinian cause’ because they were opposed to the Soviet Union, and to the secular nature of Arab and Palestinian nationalisms. 

The primary Palestinian nationalist outfit, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), maintained strong relations with Arab nationalist regimes and with progressive parties in the Muslim world, more than it did with any Islamist group. It was only after 1979’s ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran that Islamist groups began to dominate the discourse on Palestine in Muslim countries.

From the 1960s onwards, as progressive groups in the larger world began to exhibit sympathy for Palestinian outfits such as the PLO, right-wing Zionists developed the ‘New Anti-Semitism’

For example, in Pakistan, in the 1980s, Islamist parties began to monopolise the anti-Israel narrative and protests — especially after the PLO was greatly weakened by Islamist groups, such as the Iranian-backed Shia outfit Hezbollah and the Sunni Hamas. In fact, Hamas evolved from an Islamist movement that was initially facilitated by Israel to ‘neutralise’ the PLO.

This shift was a reflection of the shift in the US’s Israel policy. After Israel defeated the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967, the US began to see Israel as a formidable ‘power’ in a region that included various pro-Soviet Arab regimes. Interestingly, at around the same time, Zionist groups in the US began to reshape the meaning of anti-Semitism. In 1973, the then Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban defined a ‘New Anti-Semitism.’

In his controversial book The Holocaust Industry, the American political scientist Norman Finkelstein wrote that, till the late 1960s, Jewish victims of the Holocaust were advised by Zionist groups in the US to downplay the memory of the tragedy because Germany had become a Cold War ally of the US (after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945). According to Finkelstein, only certain left-wing groups and intellectuals in the US were willing to talk about the Holocaust. But things in this regard began to change from the late 1960s onwards.

Finkelstein’s parents were victims of the Holocaust. Yet, he chose to criticise the fact that, after 1967, a whole new narrative began to be built by American Zionist groups, in which even questioning Israel’s political and military policies towards the Palestinians began being dubbed as ‘anti-Semitism.’ This was the ‘New Anti-Semitism.’

But this narrative struggled to immediately take root because, till the 1980s, Israel and Zionism’s primary opponents were secular, and Zionism itself was understood as a secular nationalist ideology. However, the new narrative’s appeal strengthened when Zionism’s secular opponents were weakened by the post-1960’s US/Israeli policies and with the consequential rise of the Islamists. The Islamists soon seized the anti-Zionist rhetoric and militancy.

The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ sought to reshape Zionism as a form of Political Judaism. And this is how it was understood by the Islamists as well, who were using Political Islam to contextualise the Israel-Palestine ‘war’. 

Till the late 1960s, decrying anti-Semitism, and emphasising the need to keep the horrific memory of the Holocaust alive were largely the projects of left-leaning groups in the US. But when progressive groups in the larger world began to exhibit sympathy for Palestinian outfits such as the PLO, right-wing Zionists developed the ‘New Anti-Semitism.’

Criticism of Israel’s political policies came to be seen as an attack on Jewish people as a whole. And despite this view’s inherent illogic, it actually became policy in various Western countries from the 1990s onwards. In a 2010 article for The Guardian, the American author Kenneth Stern lamented that anti-Semitism had been ‘weaponised’ by right-wing groups to stall all criticism of Israel. 

The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ also came in handy to deflate the prospects of Western politicians who are seen by Zionists as being ‘anti-Israel.’ According to the British author and journalist Asa Winstanley, “[the] Israel lobby deployed charges of anti-Semitism to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for power as leader of UK’s Labour Party.”  Winstanley wrote that Labour’s so-called ‘anti-Semitism crisis’ was manufactured by pro-Israel groups to keep Corbyn from being elected as Britain’s prime minister. 

Whereas, decades ago, action against anti-Semitism was largely championed by left and progressive groups, these groups eventually became targets of the ‘New Anti-Semitism.’ But they are now fighting back in the wake of Israel’s recent attacks against unarmed Palestinians. These groups are also taking to task the illogic within ‘New Anti-Semitism.’ Their response is entirely secular. Their core question is: how can one equate attacks against Jewish people, Judaism and synagogues with criticism of Zionism and of the Israeli state?

It is due to this curious equivalence that even the most secular and, in some cases, atheistic men and women have been declared ‘anti-Semitic.’ These include the famous scientist Stephen Hawkins and the musician Roger Waters, both atheists. They were declared ‘anti-Semitic’ because they criticised the policies of the State of Israel.

On the other end, the monopoly over the anti-Israel narrative enjoyed by Islamist outfits since the 1980s too is sliding back in the hands of ‘moderate’ and secular Muslims. This doesn’t bode well for the prospects of ‘New Anti-Semitism’, which looks to have, and even shape, Islamist opponents as a way to solidify the dimension of Political Judaism that was added to Zionism from the late 1960s onwards.

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 12th, 2023