No discussion of contemporary antisemitism
can be complete without examining its deeply
conspiratorial character.
The claims that “the Jews” or “Zionists”
are in possession of considerable wealth,
power and influence, and are using it to control
democratic governments, financial institutions,
media corporations, and cultural establishments,
can be found among all spheres from which
antisemitism emerges today.
“Jews” and “Zionists” are also scapegoated
for disasters and blamed for all that goes
wrong in this conspiratorial worldview.
This connection between conspiracy myths and
antisemitism is longstanding, and we’ve
already come across a major stage in its development
when discussing the publication and spread
of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of
Zion.
Throughout the course we’ve seen how myths
involving Jewish control and power have come
to surface again and again, leading, at times,
to disastrous results.
Let’s further examine the place these conspiracy
theories hold in contemporary antisemitism.
Conspiracy theories play a central role in
extremist politics of all time
and antisemitism has a very strong traditional
role within conspiracy theories.
And this is why, repeatedly, we see antisemitism
cropping up in the language, in the discourse
of extremist movements of all times.
Whether they're Far-right, Far-left, radical
Islamist movements, and even New Age movements,
we often find antisemitic conspiracy theories.
There is a British think tank called Demos
which has done a lot of research on conspiracy
theories.
They looked at the literature and the arguments
of a full range of extremist movements and
they found antisemitic conspiracy theories
cropping up in all their literature.
The idea of "ZOC", "the Zionist Occupation
Government", that there are Zionist or Jewish
hidden powers behind our governments was the
most common one they found in the literature
of all different extremist movements.
And there's reasons for this.
Antisemitism was the dominant type of conspiracy
theory in that conspiracy world pretty much
from the middle of the 19th century
to the middle of the 20th century.
So any conspiracy theory that came out of
that period or that harks back to that period
from today will inevitably bring antisemitism into it.
And this has been facilitated to a large extent
by the growth of social media on the internet.
If you wanted to come across these antisemitic
ideas twenty years ago, you would have to
go and actually find an extremist movement,
persuade them to let you into their meetings
- and these are not trusting people - get
to read their magazines, which would not really
look like professional magazines or send off
to their booklists. And then you start to
see these ideas.
Ten years ago you could find them on the internet
on extremist message boards like Stormfront
and other Far-right groups. But again it was
people talking to like-minded people.
It was Far-right people gathering together,
making networks and connections, but not really
reaching out of those boundaries.
Nowadays, with social media, these extremist
ideas, these conspiracy theories, this antisemitism,
is on all of our phones, in all of our pockets,
in our children's bedrooms.
It looks as professional and as believable,
as something from the BBC or from CNN.
All you need is a Facebook page or a Twitter
account or an Instagram account and there
it is.
So these ideas spread and what we're hearing
from teachers in schools is that increasingly
their students are bringing in material that
they found on the internet, that they do not
have the critical powers to assess and to
challenge and to debunk.
And increasingly teachers are having to argue
against conspiracy theories in the classroom.
So this is a new problem.
We hear a lot about fake news nowadays.
People talk about fake news and post truth
politics all the time. Of course antisemitism
is the original fake news.
Antisemitism has always relied on lies and
libels and myths about Jews that unscrupulous,
political and religious leaders have used
to mobilize their own supporters or to whip
up a mob.
George Orwell, one of the great British political
writers, wrote a famous essay on antisemitism
in 1945 where he wrote words to the effect
that one of the striking things about antisemitism
is that you have to be able to believe things
that could not possibly be true.
So conspiracy theories, antisemitism, what
is now being called 'fake news', they all
live together in a world and it's given a
new lease of life to some quite nasty antisemitic
ideas.
Holocaust Denial, for example, has really
failed as a political project.
It's something that Neo-Nazis tried 20, 25
years ago to use to revive National Socialism.
No one bought it. But in the conspiracy world
where you're not supposed to believe any official
story about anything; you shouldn't believe
anything that any establishment authority
tells you, Holocaust denial has a home and
it has a home alongside conspiracy theories
about 9/11, or about the July 7th tube
bombings here in Britain, or about the moon
landings, or about Princess Diana's
death. And all these things just fit into this
mix together.
And the old barriers between what is Far- left
and what is Far-right, what is fascist and
what is anti-fascist get completely blurred
and broken down because you get the same conspiracy
theories in all different parts of the political
spectrum.
And as ever, as I said, when conspiracy theories
are the main way of understanding politics
and of viewing the world antisemitism will
always have not just a place but a central
place.
The central place antisemitism holds in the
conspiratorial worldview today is clearly
exemplified in a wide range of outlandish
claims and accusations, depicting global Jewish
and Zionist power and influence, many taking
their cue from the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion.
"The Jews" and "Zionists" are accused of standing
behind the 9/11 attacks, the July 7th 2005
London bombings, the November 2015 Paris attacks,
the war in Syria, and various other wars and
terror attacks.
It is even claimed that ISIS was created as
part of an Israeli plot, and that it is still
funded by an Israeli-American alliance.
Other conspiracy theories have also blamed
the Jews and Zionists for the 2008 Financial
Crisis, for the 2011 earthquake and tsunami
in Japan, and for many more disasters affecting
our world today.
