Anti-Semitism as western self-loathing

“We don’t want no Christmas tree. Long live the intifada.” The chant was one of many shouted out by anti-Israel protestors in New York last Friday. It came as they passed the iconic Christmas tree outside the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

It is not at all clear what the Palestinian ‘uprising’ has to do with Christmas in New York. But the theme followed a common pattern on last week’s anti-Israel marches in the city. Many protestors made disparaging remarks about America while wearing keffiyehs as well as carrying banners, placards and Palestinian flags.

An aversion to American prosperity in particular was apparent when they marched through Columbus Circle shouting “while you’re shopping bombs are dropping”. 

The previous day, on Thanksgiving, at least 30 anti-Israel protestors were taken into police custody after attempting to disrupt Macy’s traditional Thanksgiving parade. 

On the face of it the protests are puzzling. There is nothing particularly Jewish let alone Israeli about Thanksgiving. No doubt many American Jews celebrate Thanksgiving  but they do so as Americans rather than Jews. It is a quintessentially American festival.

For Jews in other countries, including Britain and Israel, the American Thanksgiving festival has no special meaning. Nor would it be expected to have one. From a Jewish religious perspective there is Sukkot (Tabernacles) which is the religion’s harvest festival. It also falls in the autumn but not on the same dates as Thanksgiving.

So looking at the question from a straightforward perspective there is no direct connection between Israel and Thanksgiving. The protests linking these two remain an enigma.

One explanation for last week’s Manhattan protests could be pragmatic. Perhaps they just saw it as way to get publicity for their cause? After all the Macy’s parade is a high profile public event and the Rockefeller Christmas tree is famous.

This argument only works on the assumption that the protestors are not concerned with winning broader support. Although they gained publicity they probably put many off their cause. Most Americans see Thanksgiving as a non-political family festival. Most would no doubt accept calls to remember the less fortunate. A disruptive protest at a joyful Thanksgiving parade is another matter. 

The understandable bemusement of many Americans seemed to be summed up in a vignette from one of the Macy’s protest video clips. A masked anti-Israel protestor screamed “free Palestine m*therfu8k3r” at a man next to him. The target of the shouting responded incredulously “this is America”.

Thanksgiving statements by some congressmen give a clue about what really seemed to be happening. Rashida Tlaib, a Representative from Michigan, was quoted  as saying on her Instagram account:  “This Thanksgiving we mourn the Indigenous people killed by European settlers and the United States in order to steal their land”. She went on to say “From here to Palestine, we stand in solidarity with all indigenous people as they fight for freedom on their own land.”

Summer Lee, a Representative from Pennsylvania, made a broadly similar statement. She used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to raise the “stolen land and broken treaties” for Native Americans. Lee, like Tlaib, is staunchly anti-Israel having accused it of committing genocide in Gaza.

The link made between Israel and America’s supposed crimes is instructive. Anti-Israel activists nowadays typically see Israel as a western bastion of white privilege in what they generally describe as the ‘global south’. At the same time they detest the West itself with its attachment to democracy and prosperity as well as its supposed upholding of white supremacy.

From such a flawed premise it makes sense to loath Thanksgiving. Anything quintessentially American seems ripe for derision in activist circles. 

The Western self-loathing of such campaigners all too often links hatred of Israel to hostility to Christmas. The current generation of anti-Israel protestors typically despise the West and all that it stands for including democracy, modernity and prosperity. This aversion to Israel is in turn often a reflection of their repugnance by America and the West more generally. The activists project the western values they already hate on to Israel.

From this strange premise the peculiar forms often taken by anti-Israel activism since October 2023 makes sense. This week’s disruption of the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade followed a similar anti-Israel protest last year. Demonstrations have also disrupted notable sites such as New York’s Brooklyn Bridge  and Grand Central Station.  Neither of these has any particular Israeli or Jewish connection but they are iconic American landmarks. Similar protests have taken place in key sites in London and elsewhere.

As is often the case the hatred of Jews, and now the Jewish state, reflects broader preoccupations. Many campaigners hate Israel because they project on to it what they despise about their own societies. 

The phenomenon of projection or projective behaviour is common in the history of anti-Semitism although its subjects vary. I have written previously about how Jews, at different times, have come to be seen as the personifications of capitalism, communism  and modernity. Israel is now most often linked by its woke critics to western civilisation and white privilege. 

This still leaves open some key questions. Why is western self-loathing so prevalent at present? And why are Jews so often the target of such projection? These are important to answer but they are outside the scope of this article.

The main point to recognise here is that the visceral hatred of Israel cannot be explained purely in its own terms. Contemporary anti-Semitism is based on a warped understanding of broader concerns.

PHOTO: "Christmas @ Rockefeller Plaza (11655103956)" by Rob Young from United Kingdom is licensed under CC BY 2.0.