ABSTRACT
Contemporary left-wing antisemitism is first and foremost a denial of Israel’s right to exist and, as a result, a comprehensive hostility to pro-Israel Jews, that is to most Jews alive, branding them as ‘Zionists’ and seeing that description as akin to ‘racist’ or ‘imperialist’. Defining the main features of left antisemitism, Matgamna identifies three widespread confusions or obfuscations that prevent a sober discussion of the phenomenon. He distinguishes left antisemitism from legitimate criticism of Israel, proposing that it is the left’s commitment to the destruction of Israel that, when present, marks it out as antisemitic. This attitude to the Jewish nation in Israel is unique, different from the left’s attitude to all other nations, and has profound ramifications for its attitudes to Jews outside Israel. Where the left ‘interfaces’ with Jews, the logic of this unique attitude to Israel can take on a persecuting quality, not least on campuses; a comprehensive hostility to Jews that is not far from what Bebel called the ‘socialism of fools’.
