3-D test for anti-Semitism

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The 3-D test for anti-Semitism is a method to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel's politics or its government from anti-Semitism , which only poses as "criticism". For this purpose, the test three criteria ready: If Israel statements d ämonisieren , d elegitimieren, or d scrappy standards create, then they are anti-Semitic.

Natan Sharansky , Israel's Minister for Social Affairs at the time, designed the test and presented it to the public for the first time in February 2003. Its criteria influenced the working definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in 2005. They are praised as being easily memorable, but their applicability for scientific and political purposes is controversial.

Historical context

As a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and current conflicts in the Middle East , attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions increased in many countries around the world, including Europe. Anti-Semitism appears today not only in the traditional expressions of blanket hatred of Jews, but also in hidden, indirect and coded forms. This includes a fundamental rejection of the State of Israel, which poses and legitimizes itself as a criticism of its politics, but actually projects anti-Semitic stereotypes onto it. The Antisemitismusforschung discussed since about 2003, if the "new" or just as a new variant of the old anti-Semitism is to be classified. A central question is what the increasing criticism of Israel and anti-Israeli anti-Semitism have to do with one another and how they can be distinguished.

Governments and social initiatives in many Western countries are trying to raise awareness of this newer form of anti-Semitism and to combat it more specifically. To this end, Scharanski founded the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in 2003 . At its annual meeting in 2008, he named two indispensable criteria for legitimate criticism of Israel: 1. It should not devalue its constitution as a Jewish state as apartheid , 2. It must recognize Israel's right to exist. Sharanksi sees the 3D test as a contribution to “moral clarity” in order to protect legitimate criticism of Israel and to distinguish it from inadmissible hatred of Israel. Otherwise criticism of the latter would be too easily fended off as the deliberate suppression of criticism of Israel. Anti-Semitism can only be recognized with clear moral boundaries: "Evil flourishes when these lines are blurred, when right and wrong are a matter of opinion and not of objective truth."

The three criteria

Demonization

Sharansky first referred to traditional examples of demonizing Jews: They were collectively accused of murdering God in Europe and portrayed as greedy and underhanded in the figure of Shylock . As an analogy, Sharansky cited widespread comparisons between Israelis and the National Socialists , for example by equating Palestinian refugee camps with the Auschwitz extermination camp or the Gaza Strip with the Warsaw ghetto . Such comparisons showed either a complete ignorance of the Nazi era or, more likely, an intent to portray Israel today as the epitome of evil. Other examples are statements like "Israel is a terror regime " or the z. B. in Iran widespread saying "Israel is Satan ".

Double standards

According to Sharansky, a double standard ( double standard ) occurs when Israel is treated differently from other states and is selectively criticized for behavior that is ignored by other states. This is similar to previous discrimination against Jews by majority society laws. As examples he cited UN resolutions against human rights violations by Israel, but not against those by China, Iran, Cuba or Syria (see also criticism of the UN Human Rights Council ). Further examples are the condemnation of Israeli military strikes or sanctions against Palestinian terrorist organizations, with simultaneous silence about the rocket fire on Israel by these organizations and other terrorist attacks against the Israeli civilian population, as well as one-sided criticism of Israel's dealings with Palestinians, while at the same time accepting the brutal repression of Jews, dissidents or homosexuals in neighboring Arab countries.

Delegitimization

According to Sharansky, criticism is anti-Semitic, which seeks to deprive the state of Israel of its basic legitimation and denies it its right to exist, for example by portraying it as a remnant of colonialism (see also anti-Zionism ). Unlike other peoples, Jews are not granted the right to live protected in their own state. This continues the analogous devaluation of Judaism as a religion and / or people. This also includes the agreement of Israel's right to self-defense as well as misrepresentation of history or conspiracy theories regarding the founding of the state of Israel.

reception

As a member of the government of Israel, Sharansky declared in 2005 that Israel could only recognize a state of Palestine if the Palestinians had established serious democratic institutions. The American political scientist Michael C. Desch criticized this condition as a double standard because Sharansky had previously welcomed the peace agreement with Jordan , a monarchy , in 1994 .

Günter Grass's poem “ What must be said ” sparked a public controversy in Germany in 2012 about the limits of acceptable criticism of Israel. Jan Riebe ( Amadeu Antonio Foundation ) referred to the 3D test: This is a helpful “warning system for assessing certain statements”, but it does not yet allow any judgment about an author. Riebe classified some of the poem's motifs as anti-Semitic resentment: presenting criticism of Israel as breaking a taboo, confronting “we Germans” collectively with Israel and describing German history as a “burden” that must be thrown off in order to speak the “truth” towards Israel.

On the basis of the 3D test, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) assessed some statements by journalist Jakob Augstein as anti-Semitic in November 2012 . In the public debate about it, SWC representative Abraham Cooper gave detailed reasons for this judgment in January 2013: Augstein's statements met all three test criteria for anti-Semitism. The social scientist Samuel Salzborn also judged .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kenneth L. Marcus: The New OCR Antisemitism Policy. ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Journal for the Study of Antisemitism. Vol. 2, Edition 2, p. 484 and fn. 21. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jewishresearch.org
  2. ^ Moshe Zuckermann (ed.): Tel Aviver year book for German history: Antisemitism - Antizionism - Israel criticism. Wallstein, 2005, ISBN 3892448728 , p. 50 and fn. 4
  3. ↑ Georg Kreis : Israel criticism and anti-Semitism. In: Moshe Zuckermann: Tel Aviver yearbook for German history: Antisemitism - Antizionism - Israel criticism. 2005, p. 17
  4. ^ Rebekka Denz (ed.): Yiddish sources. Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies. Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2008, ISBN 3940793418 , p. 183
  5. ↑ a b c d Natan Sharanski: Anti-Semitism in 3-D. The differentiation between legitimate criticism of Israel and the so-called new anti-Semitism. ( HaGalil , March 2004)
  6. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/ffektenfinder/kurzerklaert/israelkritik-antisemitismus-101~_origin-2322c77a-5078-4c15-9ccb-4932e5bc5133.html
  7. ↑ https://m.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/hetzattacke-iranischer-minister-nennt-israel-kleiner-satan-a-397253.html
  8. ↑ Michael C. Desch: Sharansky's Double Standard . The American Conservative, March 28, 2005; accessed October 28, 2017.
  9. ↑ Jan Riebe (Der Stern, April 13, 2012): Grass poem: Criticism or anti-Semitism?
  10. ↑ Leander Steinkopf (FAZ, January 31, 2013): "Augstein Case": How do you become one of the worst anti-Semites?
  11. ↑ Philip Kuhn (Die Welt, January 16, 2013): Augstein Debate: Demonization with the aim of delegitimization