JW:
Since we already have good reason to think the book is going to be antisemitic based only on the cover (sadly Nein Godfree thinks that so much evidence already in such a short sample of The Book is a defense against charges of antisemitism) let's create a Czeck list of the historically documented meinifestations of antisemitism:
Manifestations
Cultural antisemitism
charges the Jews with corrupting a given culture
Religious antisemitism
antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs.
Economic antisemitism
Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews.
Racial antisemitism
the idea that the Jews are a distinct and inferior race compared to their host nations.
Political antisemitism
hostility toward Jews based on the belief that Jews seek national and/or world power.
Conspiracy theories
Holocaust denial and Jewish conspiracy theories
New antisemitism [Especially for Neil Godfree]
the language of anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel are used to attack Jews more broadly. In this view, the proponents of the new concept believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and they attribute this to antisemitism. Jewish scholar Gustavo Perednik has posited that anti-Zionism in itself represents a form of discrimination against Jews, in that it singles out Jewish national aspirations as an illegitimate and racist endeavor, and "proposes actions that would result in the death of millions of Jews".[107]
What the above definitions have in common is attributing
negative characteristics to Jews in general. Not all Jews and not necessarily almost all or even most Jews, but a significant percent of Jews so the observation is considered worth mentioning.
A common attempted defense against charges of antisemitism for those who criticize Israel is the separation/limitation defense where the defender claims their criticism is limited to criticizing Israel and is separate from criticizing Jews in general. The practical problem is criticizers/haters of Israel will normally expand to supporters of Israel and most Jews support Israel. So even though the base criticism is limited to Israel the collateral criticism is expanded to Jews. Anyone who limits their criticism to only or primarily Israel (as opposed to any other country) is already guilty of New antisemitism since they are applying unique negative standards to Israel. And as explained, by extension, to some extent are applying unique negative standards to Jews (supporters of Israel).
To the extent the criticizer of Israel fails to criticize Israeli opponents, the one-sided criticizer is even guiltier of New antisemitism and possibly spilling over into other types of antisemitism as likewise critical examination of Israel's/Jewish opponents may provide some defense against criticism of Israel. Especially here, a failure to criticize Palestinians and Palestinian Terrorism implicitly accepts such terrorism.
So, moving beyond the cover of Atzmon's book, regarding his criticism as evidence of antisemitism, the key question is the limit of the
target of his criticism. To what extent does it go beyond Israel? Where does it fall between Israel and "The Jews"?
Joseph
The New Porphyry