Workers World Party gets it wrong on anti-Semitism.

I posted the article link with this note on my Facebook page this week:

Goldstein seems to be suggesting that attacks by Islamists against Jews are only an inappropriate or misguided but understandable expression of anger by the oppressed at their oppressors (ie Israel).

There are lots of abstractions and very little concrete content to this article, which I have read twice. He seems to be suggesting that historically anti-semitism was only a product of right wing politics and fascism. But that Islamophobia is the product of imperialist policy.

There is no pedagogical attempt to explain the role antisemitism plays in explaining capitalism to the proletariat as the product of a purely Jewish activity: i.e. telling the working class that exploitation, economic crisis and hardship are the fault of Jewish bankers. Anti-semitism is not just another form of  prejudice or chauvinism. It is a deadly trap most actively employed when workers are trying to figure out who the enemy really is.

Goldstein also never mentions the outright antisemitic politics of groups like Hamas. If he did I suspect it would be to blame Israeli policies for the creation of that kind of politics .

No materialist attempt at a Marxist explanation of why Islamist cadre are attacking Jewish targets(like the kosher shop in Paris) other than blaming anger over Israeli actions.

Goldstein seems to come dangerously close to the suggestion that anti-semitism today in the world is the product of Zionism and Israel, rather than pointing to its true source in the normal workings of the capitalist system.

JR

http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/01/26/anti-semitism-and-islamophobia/