Prof. Jeffrey Herf, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Maryland, College Park, discusses his book, The Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left and Islamist.
What common ground do these three markedly different worldviews hold when it comes to the Jews?
I’m a progressive and I support a two-state solution. Since Oct 7 I have become more ardently Zionist than ever. I am disturbed by the Jewish left’s dismissal of antisemitism as “ criticism of Israel.” It took the aftermath to make some Jewish leftists to do some rethinking.
Leftists don’t know that Israel had the help of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. They see Israel as created exclusively by America and Israel is a wholly owned subsidiary of America. They also don’t know that anti-Zionism is partly the creation of the Putin led KGB.
Jeffrey Herf ignored a fourth form of antisemitism, Christian antisemitism and not just Christian Nationalism either. Of course, they will tell you they love Jews but they don’t. Jews are pawns to be used and that’s not love.
How did Jews from Arab countries, Iran or Turkey transform into “white settler colonialists” the minute they landed in Israel?