Attributed to progressives sympathetic to Islamist criticisms of Israel and Zionism, this genre of anti-Semitism is the least understood form of prejudice against Jewry. Viewed as opportunist in its support of Islamic and right-wing Arab views of Jews and Zionism, as a means of disguising racism as anti-colonialism, left-wing anti-Semites are treated almost as though they are false progressives, who don the multicultural mantle of the left in order to be openly prejudiced.
Jews are incited against not because they profess an inferior culture or religion, but because the object of their faith is a state that discriminates against non-Jews, specifically, Muslims. Because their concept of the state is so integral to their religious identity, Jews are viewed as being inherently biased against non-Jews. Whether they are Diaspora or Israeli Jews, the foundational importance of the Zionist state, as an exclusively Jewish state, is supposed to be similarly viewed by progressives and by Islamists as an iconographic instance of the core politics of Jewish identity.
In short, Judaism is a synonym for racism because behind it hides Israel. Progressives aren't supposed to like Judaism, first, because Israel stands for the indivisibility of religion and state, and second, in the form of the Israeli state, for the official practice of discrimination against Palestinians on the basis of their ethnicity. Though Judaism is found to be deeply problematic, both historically and theologically, the notion of returning to the promised land that Zionism prescribes is less important than how it is understood to function as a cultural cover for the West's theft of Arab lands.
- From an article I'm currently working on