On Antisemitism and Human Rights

Abstract

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted, in part, as a response to the horrific antisemitism leading to the extermination of millions of Jews in World War II. Yet, today, organisations that utilise human rights instruments to criticise Israel’s laws, policies and practices are themselves being cast as antisemitic. How has the contemporary human rights regime come to be charged with antisemitism? The ostensible answer is that the meaning of antisemitism has expanded to include anti-Zionism and harsh criticism of Israel. While scholars have debated the validity of this expansion, this paper interrogates three types of abstractions: those deployed by traditional antisemites, those emanating from human rights, and those mobilised by the new antisemitism doctrine. An analysis of these abstractions helps clarify the new hostility between antisemitism and human rights. Whereas Zionism aims to protect Jews by asserting a right to Jewish difference within the context of a nation-state, human rights aim to protect Jews by promoting an egalitarian distribution of rights among the population. The crux of the matter is that the solution human rights offer to antisemitism also threatens the Zionist project, since it challenges the racialized mode of governance that this political ideology has implemented.