A critical conversation on zionism

Em Cohen’s article titled “The Only Way Out is Through,” sheds a critical light on the concepts of antisemitism and philosemitism, exploring their intersection in service of the zionist project in Palestine. The text reveals how the fight against antisemitism upholds imperialist structures. Cohen examines how antisemites and philosemites posit Israel’s colonial existence as a prerequisite for worldwide Jewish safety. Examples provided by Cohen will be touched upon in this review.

Cohen’s scope lies within all Western political ideologies, from the left to the extreme fascist right, arguing that their philosemitism helps perpetuate a colonial cycle where colonialism, racist measures against Arabs, and militarized policing are the norm. The scope is certainly wide and to prove such an argument may come across as a tall order, but Cohen’s arguments illustrate how this cycle is continuous in the West.

Through the text, Cohen examines how White Euro-America’s uses the interplay between antisemitism and philosemitism to “offload its history of antisemitism to its Arab, Muslim, and Immigrant populations” through vague slogans of fighting antisemitism. This has allowed both far-right fascists and liberals to deploy mass surveillance against Black and Brown communities under the name of fighting antisemitism. On the other hand, these political formations use philosemitism to both abet the genocide in Gaza and militarize policing domestically.

Cohen argues that the white Euro-American left, including self-described anti-fascists, fails to effectively combat Zionist genocide and colonization due to the entrenchment of philosemitism and a superficial understanding of antisemitism. She outlines how this has led the left to equivocate between genocidal colonizers and anti-colonial partisans or even condemn anti-zionist and indigenous resistance while prioritizing pyrrhic victories over ineffectual fascist personalities when zionism stands in front of them.

In arguing this position, Cohen makes the connection between philosemitism and antisemitism through the works of Houria Boutledja, an Algerian thinker and political activist: “[b]oth antisemitism and philosemitism work by maintaining the status of Jews as a perpetual ‘other,’ against which white euro-america defines itself.” She continues, “[i]n other words, philosemitism is built upon and invariably produces antisemitism; philosemitism cannot exist without antisemitism. and [sic] while not all antisemitism is philosemitic in nature, all philosemitism is antisemitic.” As such, the dynamic of philosemitism and antisemitism is laid bare for the reader as Cohen continues to list examples of Western philosemitism as antisemitism through the political statements and gestures of the United States while stressing that international zionist institutions allied with Israel’s project—including “basically every international Jewish organization”—in the Arab region, remain unchallenged by the left.

Meanwhile, those engaged in furthering fascism within the space of the United States, for example, are largely unchallenged by the anti-fascist left and remain to gather popular support for their political aims. Cohen’s use of Cesaire, J. Sakai, and Boutledja, among others, serves to ground her argument in a theoretical basis while listing off instances of blatant antisemitism and philosemitism convinces the reader of the applicability of the theoretical in the real world.

Cohen’s assertions that Palestine’s colonization rests upon both philosemitism and antisemitism are important to highlight. Connecting the threads between the left’s parochial views towards Palestinian liberation and how it feeds into the current genocide acts as a moral litmus test to the left in the imperial center. Acknowledging zionism’s co-optation of the Jewish faith and its various institutions, on the other hand, serves to underscore how the Western government’s philosemitic/antisemitic discourse is given legitimacy by both the political left and right institutions in the imperial core. This article serves as a must-read for anyone interested in how the West tackles Palestine, antisemitism, and its colonial legacy.

You can email me back here at ameed.faleh1@gmail.com. You can also read my two most recent articles in Ebb Magazine, here and here.

In solidarity,

Ameed Faleh