The study of antisemitism occupies a very low status in contemporary political and social literature throughout the region, across its various peoples and languages. It is often dismissed as a Western problem, primarily related to the complexities of European history, while local states and nations grapple with other issues—chief among them “Zionist aggression.” This assumption, even if accurate in its grievances, remains peculiar. The study of antisemitism possesses significant theoretical and research value that warrants examination; it is inherently interdisciplinary, spanning fields such as Jewish Studies, Nationalism Studies, Critical Theory, Political Theory, Philosophy, Classical Marxism, and Post-colonial Studies. It is, therefore, incomprehensible that most of these disciplines have reached local intellectual debates in one form or another, while the concept of “antisemitism” remains obscure or unthought-of—as if the knowledge that reached us was “clipped” at every point where this concept appeared.
Fundamentally, the modern concept of “antisemitism” is not primarily concerned with the grievances of Jews; rather, it essentially examines modernization, national formations, political conceptions of “the people” and “the nation,” founding myths, and notions of the self and the world. It explores the production of “minorities” and “majorities” in modern societies, as well as issues such as industrialization, legal codes, labor, relations of production, techniques of power, and the sciences (ethnology, evolutionary biology, medicine, linguistics, etc.). It attempts to explain the exterminationist, genocidal, and discriminatory tendencies witnessed by humanity after the Enlightenment, rather than during the “Dark Ages”—that is, during an era when universal ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity spread, supposedly transcending the medieval hierarchies and privileges that assigned specific groups a fixed, inescapable place within a permanent pyramid. The fundamental question of antisemitism studies is: How did modern societies reach the point of executing an organized, bureaucratized, legalized, and ideologized genocide of millions of Jews? What steps and developments led to this on all levels? And is it possible for such a tragedy to recur? The subject is not merely about studying the Nazi regime as a “deviation” in modernity, but about studying the structures of modernity itself that made the emergence of Nazism possible.
On the other hand, the “Jewish Question” had to be constantly reintroduced within antisemitism studies. Why the Jews specifically? How did they become, for a long period before the establishment of Israel, the “Absolute Minority” (the minority in every modern nation without being a majority anywhere in the world)? What attributes were bestowed upon them in modern discourses and knowledge? And why were they always at the center of hostility and hatred?
This leads to a qualitative distinction between “antisemitism” and all other forms of modern racism. Racism generally relies on classifying a human group, then stigmatizing it and assigning it inferior traits—characterizing it as barbaric, degenerate, corrupt, or even impure—and regarding these as essential traits. Consequently, actions escalate from unorganized assault to structural discrimination, and ultimately to killing and genocide. Antisemitism, however, is more complex; it is based on a contradictory view. On one hand, it views Jews as a group with inferior traits, but on the other, it grants them supernatural powers, such as controlling the world order, dominating nations from within to tear them apart, and possessing a malicious, historically uninterrupted capacity for conspiracy. Thus, the only solution is eradication. The famous metaphor for this is the surgical removal of a “malignant tumor” from the body of the nation.
Generally, the racist looks “down” at groups they consider inferior, existing on the margins of the system. In contrast, the antisemite looks “up” at a group, elite, or malicious and highly capable race (despite its perceived inferior life and values) that controls the system itself. Furthermore, antisemitism can sometimes be accompanied by “noble” values that formally align with liberty, equality, and fraternity; the “Jewish conspiracy” is seen as the obstacle preventing the equality of peoples, their liberation, and their brotherhood. Therefore, the eradication of Jews might be seen as the only solution for the victory of great causes, such as the pride of the nation after its humiliation, confronting capitalism, eliminating colonialism and dependency on imperialism, and achieving equality—whether between individuals within the nation or between “natural” nations.
Once the concept of “antisemitism” is distinguished, it can be abstracted to understand its basic mechanisms and study how they apply to groups other than Jews who are also deemed a “tumor.” This has led to disputes between scholars who insist on the total “racialization” of antisemitism (viewing it as a unique racial event pertaining exclusively to Jews) and others who believe its mechanisms can be generalized to any group facing a similar situation. Regardless of the details of this debate, both sides generally agree that any movement carrying the hallmarks of antisemitism will end in the hatred of Jews and demands for their eradication, even if it did not begin with them. The reverse is also true: any movement that begins with hostility toward Jews will end by “Judaizing” other groups, labeling them as “pseudo-Jews” (or perhaps “the internal Jews,” per Saddam’s famous expression). In this sense, the hostility toward the “Absolute Minority”—the Jews—becomes a complete cognitive and political paradigm for every process of “minoritization” (the transformation of a specific group into a perceived controlling minority, followed by demands for its eradication).
This understanding played an important role in some contemporary studies, particularly in what is known as “Left-wing Antisemitism.” Among the most prominent figures to detail this was the Canadian Moishe Postone, who sought to rehabilitate the classical Marxist tradition of abstracting systems and their relations—even abstracting labor itself (Marx’s distinction between “abstract labor” and “concrete labor”). This stands in contrast to later Marxist and leftist calls characterized by “fetishism”—the practice of viewing a specific group or category as an idol symbolizing the system, offering a “comprehensive worldview that provides a superficial explanation and political expression for various types of anti-capitalist discontent” by confronting that “fetish.” We find many examples of this in contemporary leftist, populist, and activist discourses, such as “the 1% who control the global economy,” “anti-Whiteness,” and “Indigenous people vs. Israeli exceptionalism.” The problem with these calls is not merely the accuracy or error of the facts they cite, but their reliance on racialization and subjectivization; they transform systems into a “subject” and the opponent into a “race” or “quasi-race,” making them an idol that must be destroyed and eradicated for the world to return to its purity and cohesion. This type of thinking is not concerned with studying structures, abstracting relations, or clarifying their intersections and how everyone operates within the communicative and procedural channels of different social systems. Instead, it settles for a simplistic binary where one group is the victimizer of another, and exploitation or evil stems from the essential traits of the first group—such as greed, corruption, and authoritarianism—while the second group can only find salvation by displacing or destroying the first. Postone comments that this understanding allows the system to persist as long as it “only focuses on some of its social manifestations,” and it opens the door to bloody identity conflicts that end in major tragedies.
It may be clear now why the study of antisemitism is important for our region, and how costly its absence from theoretical and political thought has been. However, the basic dilemma remains: Does adopting an “anti-antisemitism” perspective lead to conciliatory or submissive positions toward Israel, as many intellectuals and political actors in our countries fear?
“The Internal Jews”
Based on the core mechanisms of discrimination and eradication clarified by the concept of “antisemitism,” the issue in our countries may not primarily concern the relationship with Israel or Israeli Jews, as much as it concerns other groups that have long been branded with labels such as “the internal Jews,” “local Zionists,” or “separatists seeking to create artificial entities resembling Israel”—such as the Kurds, the Maronites, and recently, the Druze of Syria.
The hostility toward these groups, despite varying motives, appears closer to the mechanisms of antisemitism than to traditional racism. Notwithstanding the inferior traits attributed to them (social, linguistic, class-based, or religious racism), they are depicted as possessing great powers that threaten the body of the nation. They become a site for political projection, being held responsible for the contradictions, divisions, and failures of the local national project. Their difference, political demands, and social and cultural status are presented as an existential threat; in most cases, it is claimed that no achievement can be realized, nor any battle won, while they exist.
The case appears even more striking with the Alawites of Syria. Historically, they were subjected to the harshest forms of racism, exclusion, and discrimination, yet they were later endowed with supernatural powers in the sectarian imagination; they allegedly established an “Alawite regime” that oppressed the majority for half a century. We are not talking here about external colonizers with vastly superior military and economic capabilities compared to the local population, nor a group with historical racial or religious privilege, but rather a group that was among the poorest and weakest. If they, as a “minority,” managed to achieve all this prolonged control, this points to the perceptions of an ideological and social structure based on “anti-Alawitism” rather than the facts and actual capabilities of the Alawites themselves.
The link between processes of “minoritization” and “Judaization”—bestowing the hated minorities with traits closer to the antisemitic imagination—can only occur within a pattern of modernization and nation-building based on confrontation with a specific existential enemy. This enemy becomes central to the self-understanding of the nation’s members, threatening the organic social values, traditions, and hierarchies that are considered superior but have suffered an undeserved historical humiliation.
Previously, the idea of the German nation was built in confrontation with the “corrupt nation”—France—following the defeat by Napoleonic armies. Thus, a romantic, conservative, and “superior” Germany (as it saw itself) sought to achieve unity, preserve its “spirit,” and possess technical and military superiority against the “West,” which at the time “began west of the Rhine.” After the humiliating defeat in World War I, Judaism emerged as a Bolshevik conspiracy at times (or rather, Bolshevism as a Jewish conspiracy), a global usurious banking system at others (capitalism as a Jewish system), and a threat to racial and cultural purity at all times. It became possible to “Judaize” any group that seemed to threaten the nation, including unionists, communists, Roma, homosexuals, bohemian artists, and even Catholics on occasion. It appears that the Palestinian-Israeli issue, since at least the 1920s, has provided similar motives for Arab/Islamic nationalism across a vast area, even in countries thousands of kilometers away from Palestine/Israel. Thus, a Jewish pogrom could occur in Libya (the Tripoli massacre of 1945) and Morocco (the Oujda and Jerada massacre of 1948), just as it could occur in Baghdad (the Farhud of 1941). Naturally, with every defeat, the nation turned toward the “internal Jews” more and more, perhaps reaching a peak in the Anfal campaign (1986–1989) and the Halabja massacre (1988) against the Kurds of Iraq. Was Israel ever an actual existential threat in those countries far from its borders?
In the antisemitic imagination, the answer is certainly “yes.” Zionism is seen as possessing superior capabilities, its conspiratorial influence able to reach the most distant societies and states; it is a colonial claw in the chest of the nation, capable of expanding and branching wherever it pleases. Indeed, the octopus symbol, used to express Jewish hegemony, was a well-known Nazi symbol.
Interestingly, this imagination still operates in the analysis of some contemporary events, even among groups that have abandoned much of their hostility toward Israel and are striving to communicate with it. For example, some claim that Israel caused the Suwayda massacres in Syria (July 2025) in a malicious conspiracy to entangle Jolani’s authority and then strike it, and to persuade the Druze to seek its protection—claiming Israel could have stopped the massacre from the start but refrained. Others claim that the call for a Kurdish state today is an Israeli conspiracy to produce a Kurdish entity resembling Israel. Always, this state appears as an omnipotent octopus, supremely cunning and proficient in planning, execution, and calculating every factor, variable, sequence of events, and surprise to serve its evil plot.
It is not necessarily about opposing Israel as an enemy; even those who seek the best relations with it retain their antisemitic imagination, which seems to serve other functions not limited to the war against Israel.
The Necessity of “Exceptionalism”
Israel cannot be endowed with all those superior powers and an immense capacity for evil without emphasizing its “exceptionalism”; it is supposedly unlike any other state and incomparable to any. This invites many questions: In what way does Israel differ—even if we agree with all the crimes, injustices, and aggression attributed to it—from a state like Turkey? Turkey was built on ethnic cleansing, bloody population exchanges, systematic discrimination, denying peoples the right to self-determination, and a national extremism reaching blatant fascism, in addition to assaulting the sovereignty of neighboring states, occupying their lands, and demographic manipulation through policies of displacement and settlement both inside and outside its borders—not to mention its role as a “colonial claw” in the vanguard of NATO. The question could be generalized to countries like Pakistan or even Iran.
It is difficult to find a logical and clear answer free from Arab/Islamic nationalist rhetoric, yet Turkey is considered a “natural state” while Israel is an exceptional “artificial entity.” Aside from searching for logical answers, the “exceptionalism of Israel” finds no justification except within the antisemitic logic. It is far more necessary for the internal national construction of the states hostile to it than it is for the “war effort.”
It can be said that internal conflicts in all Arabic-speaking countries have heavily utilized the “exceptionalism of Israel” to maintain internal hierarchies (or to flip and rearrange them), to impose a monolithic version of the nation, and to eradicate all who deviate from its normative images. Perhaps without it, it would have been difficult to maintain decrepit national formations mired in crises, historical contradictions, fierce internal violence, and attempts to suppress and eliminate diversity. That “exceptionalism” is an internal Arab/Islamic product more than an inherent Israeli characteristic. Among its contradictions is that it exacerbated the destruction of those states and peoples while attempting to settle their contradictions in the face of a brutal enemy—meaning it failed to achieve most of its goals. It achieved neither historical victory nor the internal purity of the nation’s body and the ending of its contradictions, though it did succeed in eradication to a large extent, as the region was rapidly emptied of its minorities. Currently, “Resistance” (Mumanawa) militias have replaced the states of “Steadfastness and Confrontation,” making permanent civil war a way to resurrect the nation in the face of the exceptional enemy—with victims far outnumbering those of all the Arab-Israeli wars.
Resistance to policies of occupation and aggression could have taken other paths. The questions of national liberation and national formation could have been answered differently, without that monolithic, antisemitic nationalist logic. Nothing is inevitable except in an imagination biased toward its own premises, reinterpreting history retroactively to cancel out all possibilities and choices produced by human agency. Such an imagination makes the oppressive and bloody realities of the existing mode of hegemony seem “natural” and “inevitable,” which is the direct definition of obscurantism.
However, this fatalism in understanding and interpreting events may also be linked to the enemy’s exceptionalism. As long as the enemy is exceptional in its evil, and our cause against it is absolutely just, then everything that originates from us is correct, natural, inevitable, and exceptional in its legitimacy.
Whether we fight Israel or seek its favor, we will keep it exceptional. This is an authoritarian necessity, and perhaps that is why we were never allowed to know much about antisemitism.
