Anatomy of a Moral Panic: The repressive machine currently arrayed against campus protests follows a familiar pattern.

[Beastly Boy]

11. Interestingly, this theory illustrates the nature of antisemitism in its current iteration.

Last edited Fri May 3, 2024, 10:21 AM - Edit history (1)

I instinctively and distinctly smelled the whiff of the old antisemitism in the speeches of campus protesters, and now I am reading a theory that confirms my hunches.

Following the above described classic features of moral panic almost verbatim, the current iteration of campus antisemitism appears new, lying dormant until recently but always present, deceptively ordinary and routine ("we are for peace", "we are not antisemitic, we are anti-zionist", "we merely lament the 30,000 dead civilians" ), but invisibly creeping up the moral horizon (serving as justification for calls for genocide - "from the river to the sea", ethnic cleansing - "go back to Europe", glorification of terrorism - "resistance by any means necessary", stubbornly refusing to acknowledge who is legally responsible for the deaths of the aforementioned 30,000 civilians, etc.)—but also old, camouflaged versions of traditional and well-known evils ( traditional blood libels, this time cloaked in accusations of genocide and apartheid, followed by harrassment and intimidation of random Jews on these grounds - menacing crowds screaming "we charge you with genocide" ). They are damaging in themselves—but also merely warning signs of the real, much deeper and more prevalent condition (the aforementioned emergence of previously dormant and hidden, but now explicit and normalized antisemitism). They are transparent - anyone can see what’s happening - but also opaque: accredited experts must explain the perils hidden behind the superficially harmless (various UN experts and accredited intellectuals baring their biases 'splaining it to the Jews that asserting the right of self-defense by local Israelis is the ultimate iteration of European colonialism, while being overtly antisemitic in their 'splaining).

There are few, if any, proponents of "new antisemitism". Anyone who has had any experience with it recognizes full well that antisemitism is as old as sin.