Anti-Semitism’s New Expression: Anti-Israel

Prejudice is normally stigmatized, so people often try to deny or hide their prejudices. The terms modern or symbolic racism were developed because people stopped saying, “I hate blacks.” Instead, they simply opposed government policies to promote racial equality and the candidates supporting those policies. Classic anti-Semitism, like other forms of bigotry, has also gone underground. A more socially acceptable avenue for expressing anti-Semitism is opposition to Israel—or modern anti-Semitism. Just as people veil their racism and anti-black prejudice, for example, by opposing busing and affirmative action, people often similarly disguise their anti-Semitism by opposing Israel’s national policies.

For this reason, when I saw the Web version of TIME’s September 13, 2010 magazine cover story claiming that the Israelis have no interest in achieving peace with the Palestinians, I became alarmed. According to TIME’s author Karl Vick, Israelis do not care about the peace process; instead, all that concerns them is making money in a booming real estate market. As someone who has been to Israel several times, this claim was very unsettling. It is impossible not to notice the gun-carrying soldiers at the entrance to

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every mall, supermarket, and movie theater. Do people really want to experience the nuisance of airport-like security checks on a daily basis, as long as they are making money? Or is the article perpetuating the age-old anti-Semitic stereotype of the greedy Jew? Some recent experimental findings, in conjunction with a deeper reading of the full article, provided me with the answers I was seeking.

Modern Anti-Semitism Research

My colleagues and I recently began a program of research based on the New Anti-Semitism-Israel model (NASI). The NASI model predicts that when existential concerns or when thoughts of death are brought into conscious awareness, Jews are perceived as threatening to one’s cultural worldview because they are different in their beliefs and behaviors compared to non-Jews. This then leads to an increase in anti-Semitism, which can manifest itself in two ways: by developing into overt expressions of anti-Semitism (verbal slurs, defamation of property, bodily harm) or by manifesting itself covertly as hostility toward Israel, which we refer to as modern anti-Semitism. One way to unveil modern anti-Semitism has come to be known as Natan Sharansky’s “3-D Test”: double standards, demonization, and de-legitimization of Israel.

We conducted a series of studies testing the hypotheses that uniquely human fears of death serve to perpetuate expressions of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment and that the two are inexorably intertwined. Experiment One was designed to establish an empirical relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment. It consisted of a sample of 151 non-Jewish college students from a large Northeastern university. Three questionnaires were used to assess blatant expressions of anti-Semitism, anti-Israeli sentiment, and anti-Palestinian sentiment. Results confirmed a strong correlation between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment: when anti-Semitism increases, support for Israel decreases. Experiment

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Two revealed that existential concerns prompted participants (161 non-Jewish college students) to perceive the size of Israel as larger than it really is, thus supporting prior research showing that fear and prejudice often leads people to overestimate the size and power of minority groups.

Additional research revealed that double standards apply to Israel regarding human rights violations. Experiment Three differed from the first two experiments in a significant manner—participants consisted of 233 non-Jewish members of the general population recruited from doctors’ offices in upstate New York and New Jersey. Participants read one of three versions of an article concerning human rights abuses. All three versions of the article were identical, except for our alterations locating the human rights abuses in Palestine, Kashmir, or Chechnya, and the perpetrator nation as Israel, India, or Russia, respectively. After reading the article, participants rated their agreement with possible punishments of the human rights violator, ranging from a national campaign against the target country to the installation of a new government by force. When existential concerns were brought to mind, the level of punishment people wished to inflict on Israel was greater than the level of punishment they wished to inflict on other countries for the exact same human rights violations.

In a second set of studies, a non-readily apparent expression of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the form of demonization was assessed through obtaining the impressions of two offensive political cartoons depicting either the Israeli or the Chinese leader eating Palestinian or Tibetan babies, and a Jewish or Chinese man atop the world with a bleeding Arab or Tibetan surrendering beneath. Participants (156 non-Jewish college students) were asked to indicate how “justified” they thought each cartoon was. Results showed that when existential concerns were raised, participants rated the offensive political cartoons of Israel as

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more justified than those of China. Collectively, modern anti-Semitism research confirms that anti-Semitism can manifest itself in ways that are not easily detected as prejudice. As such, how are we to interpret Karl Vick’s cover story?

A Modern Example of a Classic Anti-Semitic Stereotype

Returning to the original questions prompted by Vick’s article: Do Israelis only care about economic prosperity without regard for peace, as he suggests? Or is his article the reincarnation of the classic anti-Semitic “greedy Jew” stereotype? A couple of points suggest the latter. First, according to the Israeli Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University’s 2010 Peace Index, 75% of Israelis support the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and 62% support direct dialogue, unmediated by the U.S. So what is responsible for the contradiction between the polls and Vick’s claim? It would seem that the contradiction lies in who Vick interviewed. While the Israeli Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University’s poll consisted of a representative sample of the Israeli population, Vick interviewed two young Israelis in their early 20s on the beach as they were sunbathing and drinking beer. Behavioral researchers refer to this as biased sampling for a variety of reasons, including the small number.

A comparable example would be Tonight Show host Jay Leno asking American teenagers to name the four people etched on Mount Rushmore. Most surveyed could not answer the question; however, those same people easily identified four cast members on MTV’s reality TV show Jersey Shore. Based on Leno’s interview, should we assess all Americans as ignorant fools? If your answer is no, then why should Israel’s desire for peace be based on two young Israeli beachgoers? To Vick’s credit, the full print article did interview Israeli academics and politicians, most of whom indicated that they did indeed want peace. However, they also said that after many previously failed peace talks, the chance

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for its success is unlikely and they therefore occupy themselves with day-to-day concerns, such as the unemployment rate.

This leads me to my second point. According to a 2010 Pew Research poll, the majority of Americans rated the economy as their main concern, with jobs being second and fighting terrorism in the U.S. third. Support for the military abroad came in tenth and fighting crime came in thirteenth. Based on this poll, is it correct to presume that Americans don’t care about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? Or that Americans could care less if criminals run wild, as long as the economy does well? The answer is clearly no. Why, then, would Israeli concern for the economy reflect a stance against peace? Simply put, it doesn’t. Vick is holding Israel to a higher standard than other countries are held to and is demonizing its citizens as uncaring and money-hungry.

Recognizing Modern Anti-Semitism

The picture painted of Israelis in Vick’s cover article supports the research conducted on modern anti-Semitism—when one holds Israel to standards of behavior to which other countries are not held (a double standard), interprets things Israel does as manifestations of evil (demonization), and attempts to delegitimize the state of Israel (especially with a goal of eliminating it altogether)—that is anti-Semitism. It is important to note that the “3-D Test” in itself suggests that not all opposition to Israel is anti-Semitism. One can oppose particular Israeli policies or practices without being anti-Semitic, just as one can oppose American, British, or Saudi policies without being prejudiced against Americans, Europeans or Arabs. This recognition, along with the awareness that existential concerns contribute to the rise in anti-Semitism, may aid in reducing a cycle that contributes to anti-Semitism. As people recognize that anti-Semitism is, in part, a defense aimed at existential anxieties which bombard our senses on the nightly news, they may find other means to

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assuage their terror and protect against it.

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