New antisemitism


New antisemitism is the concept that a form of antisemitism, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism, developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The concept dates to the early 1970s and was popularized in The New Anti-Semitism by Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein of the Anti-Defamation League.
Proponents of the concept generally argue that anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, or double standards applied to its conduct represents an evolution in the appearance of antisemitic beliefs, are linked to antisemitism, or constitute disguised antisemitism, particularly when emanating simultaneously from the far-left, Islamism, and the far-right. Some describe it as a third political wave of antisemitism, after the religious and racial forms dominant in previous periods.
Critics of the concept argue that it is used in practice to weaponize antisemitism in order to silence political debate and freedom of speech regarding the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by conflating political anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government with racism, condoning violence against Jews, or likening the Israeli government's actions to the Holocaust. Such arguments have in turn been criticized as antisemitic and rhetorically irrelevant to the contested reality of new antisemitism. Further critical arguments include that the concept defines legitimate criticism of Israel too narrowly and demonization too broadly, and that it trivializes the meaning of antisemitism.

History of the concept

1960s: origins

French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff argues that the first wave of "la nouvelle judéophobie" emerged in the Arab-Muslim world and the Soviet sphere following the 1967 Six-Day War. He cites papers by Jacques Givet and historian Léon Poliakov discussing the idea of a new antisemitism rooted in anti-Zionism. He argues that anti-Jewish themes centered on the demonical figures of Israel and what he calls "fantasy-world Zionism": that Jews plot together, seek to conquer the world, and are imperialistic and bloodthirsty, which gave rise to the reactivation of stories about ritual murder and the poisoning of food and water supplies.

1970s: early debates

Writing in the American Jewish Congress' Congress Bi-Weekly in 1973, the Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban identified anti-Zionism as "the new anti-Semitism", saying:
ecently we have witnessed the rise of the new left which identifies Israel with the establishment, with acquisition, with smug satisfaction, with, in fact, all the basic enemies... Let there be no mistake: the new left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism. One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism. The old classic anti-Semitism declared that equal rights belong to all individuals within the society, except the Jews. The new anti-Semitism says that the right to establish and maintain an independent national sovereign state is the prerogative of all nations, so long as they happen not to be Jewish. And when this right is exercised not by the Maldive Islands, not by the state of Gabon, not by Barbados... but by the oldest and most authentic of all nationhoods, then this is said to be exclusivism, particularism, and a flight of the Jewish people from its universal mission.

In 1974, Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein of the Anti-Defamation League published the book The New anti-Semitism. They expressed concern about what they described as new manifestations of antisemitism coming from radical left, radical right, and pro-Arab figures in the U.S. Forster and Epstein argued that it took the form of indifference to the fears of the Jewish people, apathy in dealing with anti-Jewish bias, and an inability to understand the importance of Israel to Jewish survival. Writing in 2025, Jewish American activist Simone Zimmerman writes that, since the 1970s, the ADL has "conflated the safety of Jews with support for the state of Israel" and that it "has sought to popularize the concept of the 'new antisemitism,' the idea that Israel as 'the Jew on the world stage,' was being unfairly singled out for criticism in ways that echoed old school antisemitism."
Although many reviewers criticized Forster and Epstein's work for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, Earl Raab, founding director of the Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University, argued in Commentary that a "new anti-Semitism" was indeed emerging in America, in the form of opposition to the collective rights of the Jewish people, but he criticized Forster and Epstein for conflating it with anti-Israel bias. Edward S. Shapiro, in A Time for Healing: American Jewry Since World War II, wrote that "Forster and Epstein implied that the new anti-Semitism was the inability of Gentiles to love Jews and Israel enough."

1980s–present day: continued debate

Historian Robert Wistrich addressed the issue in a 1984 lecture delivered in the home of Israeli President Chaim Herzog, in which he argued that a "new anti-Semitic anti-Zionism" was emerging, distinguishing features of which were the equation of Zionism with Nazism and the belief that Zionists had actively collaborated with Nazis during World War II. He argued that such claims were prevalent in the Soviet Union, but added that similar rhetoric had been taken up by a part of the radical Left, particularly Trotskyist groups in Western Europe and America.
When asked in 2014 if "anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism", Noam Chomsky stated:
Actually, the locus classicus, the best formulation of this, was by an ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban,... He advised the American Jewish community that they had two tasks to perform. One task was to show that criticism of the policy, what he called anti-Zionism that means actually criticisms of the policy of the state of Israel were anti-Semitism. That's the first task. Second task, if the criticism was made by Jews, their task was to show that it's neurotic self-hatred, needs psychiatric treatment. Then he gave two examples of the latter category. One was I.F. Stone. The other was me. So, we have to be treated for our psychiatric disorders, and non-Jews have to be condemned for anti-Semitism, if they're critical of the state of Israel. That's understandable why Israeli propaganda would take this position. I don't particularly blame Abba Eban for doing what ambassadors are sometimes supposed to do. But we ought to understand that there is no sensible charge. No sensible charge. There's nothing to respond to. It's not a form of anti-Semitism. It's simply criticism of the criminal actions of a state, period.

Definitions and arguments for and against the concept

A new phenomenon

In 2003, Irwin Cotler, Professor of Law at McGill University and a scholar of human rights, has identified nine aspects of what he considers to constitute the "new anti-Semitism":
Cotler defines "classical or traditional anti-Semitism" as "the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit" and "new anti-Semitism" as "discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nationsthe denial of and assault upon the Jewish people's right even to livewith Israel as the 'collective Jew among the nations.
Cotler elaborated on this position in a June 2011 interview for Israeli television. He re-iterated his view that the world is "witnessing a new and escalating... and even lethal anti-Semitism" focused on hatred of Israel, but cautioned that this type of antisemitism should not be defined in a way that precludes "free speech" and "rigorous debate" about Israel's activities. Cotler said that it is "too simplistic to say that anti-Zionism, per se, is anti-Semitic" and argued that labelling Israel as an apartheid state, while in his view "distasteful", is "still within the boundaries of argument" and not inherently antisemitic. He continued: "It's you say, because it's an apartheid state, it has to be dismantledthen crossed the line into a racist argument, or an anti-Jewish argument."
Jack Fischel, former chair of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, writes that new antisemitism is a new phenomenon stemming from a coalition of "leftists, vociferously opposed to the policies of Israel, and right-wing antisemites, committed to the destruction of Israel, were joined by millions of Muslims, including Arabs, who immigrated to Europe... and who brought with them their hatred of Israel in particular and of Jews in general." It is this new political alignment, he argues, that makes new antisemitism unique. Mark Strauss of Foreign Policy links new antisemitism to anti-globalism, describing it as "the medieval image of the 'Christ-killing' Jew resurrected on the editorial pages of cosmopolitan European newspapers."
Rajesh Krishnamachari, researcher with the South Asia Analysis Group, analyzed antisemitism in Iran, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and posited that the recent surge in antisemitism across the Muslim world should be attributed to political expediency of the local elite in these countries rather than to any theological imperative.
The French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff argues that antisemitism based on racism and nationalism has been replaced by a new form based on anti-racism and anti-nationalism. He identifies some of its main features as the identification of Zionism with racism; the use of material related to Holocaust denial ; a discourse borrowed from third worldism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism and anti-globalization; and the dissemination of what he calls the "myth" of the "intrinsically good Palestinianthe innocent victim par excellence."
In early 2009, 125 parliamentarians from various countries gathered in London for the founding conference of a group called the "Interparliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism". They suggest that while classical antisemitism "overlaps" modern antisemitism, it is a different phenomenon and a more dangerous one for Jews.