How Anti-Semitic Rhetoric Became Mainstream

Using anti-Semitic rhetoric, society historically accused Jews of being rich oppressors as well as leeches. Jews were rulers as well as disloyal agitators. Jews, they opined, are members of an inferior race; now, they are members of a privileged one.

Contemporary Jew-haters have similarly evolved in their use of anti-Semitic rhetoric. They have transformed what were once the sentiments of the radical fringe into the accepted stance of our current woke moralists.

“Doublespeak” – the deliberate use of language to conceal or distort the truth, a concept made popular in George Orwell’s 1984 – is the main tool in the arsenal of today’s anti-Semites. Spouting the correct language, they have seamlessly transformed their expressions of unbridled, raw hatred into commendable academic jargon. Unfortunately, it is also pure anti-Semitic rhetoric.

“What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program,” explains writer Edward S. Herman in his book Beyond Hypocrisy.

Phase I: “Zionism is Racism”

Post World War II, the anti-Semitic rhetoric shifted away from overtly anti-Jewish to a new concept, “anti-Zionist.” The murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust was a fresh memory. This made attacking Jews on the international stage less politically attractive.

While this didn’t stop powerful countries from closing their doors to Jewish refugees from Europe, it did change the discourse. Now, Jews were attacked by the declaration that “Zionism is racism.”

Where and how did this ruse begin? Not surprisingly, with the Soviets, world-class masters of doublespeak.

The USSR’s Campaign Against Israel

The 1917 revolutionary forces in the former USSR officially abolished the Czarists’ discriminatory policies against Jews. Yet, the reality of life for Jews under the Bolsheviks was one of state-enforced antisemitism and demonization.

Jews lived with quotas as well as outright rejection from universities. Many professions simply shut them out. When they did find employment, they faced glass ceilings, never able to progress to the highest levels.

Yet, surprisingly, when the state of Israel was created in 1948, “All international communist parties supported partition and the creation of a Jewish State,” documents Philip Mendes in Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance.

This included as well the U.S. Communist Party which called Israel “an organic part of the world struggle for peace and democracy. The French communists viewed the Israelis in solidary with “resistance” fighters throughout the world.