Is antisemitism a 'woke' term, or is disguising antisemitism what is woke?

For some time now, I have been warning about repeated attempts to promote anti-Western propaganda within right-wing circles.

SIG: The Soviet operation to promote “a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews”
The anti-Western propaganda that is poisoning a segment of the right-wing

It does not take a particularly keen eye to spot such attempts. Pro-Russian propagandists rarely bother to be subtle—and this is even truer of propagandists for other dictatorships like Iran, Communist China, and North Korea. The same applies to antisemites, even though they often cloak their rhetoric in the guise of "anti-Zionism"—which is essentially denying the Jewish people the right to their own country in the land of their ancestors. These tactics are nothing new. Let us recall that communism promoted antisemitism by disguising it as anti-Zionism to make it appear less despicable, even though, in reality, it was the same filth.

Of course, the far left is not the only force promoting antisemitism; Islamism and the far right do so as well. I am referring to the actual far right, not the manipulative way many media outlets label liberals, conservatives, and any other democrat who does not subscribe to leftist views with that term. Just as with the far left, the far right exists and is characterized by its support for anti-democratic positions—whether openly or by backing dictatorships like those mentioned, treating them as an acceptable alternative to the decline of the West.

There are very twisted and cynical ways of whitewashing those positions. One of them—encountered in a media outlet that has become very popular among the Right in recent times—consists of claiming that "antisemitism" and "far-right" are "woke" terms, as if they had been coined by the Left to demonize the Right. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let us recall that as early as 1848, Karl Marx wrote an infamous antisemitic pamphlet that could have been signed by any Nazi. The Left's growing antisemitism has led many Jews to distance themselves from it.

This is the case with American activist David L. Bernstein, author of the book Woke Antisemitism (Post Hill Press, 2022), who explained in an interview in 2023:

"I became concerned that this ideology, which divides the world simplistically into oppressors and oppressed, was viewing Jews as the oppressor and was viewing Israel as the oppressor, and amid that ideological trend we were seeing in a growth of antisemitism on the left and we were seeing growing anti-zionism as well so that's why I wrote this. I thought it was very important that the Jewish community be able to connect the dots between this ideology, whatever we want to call it -wokism, critical social justice- that they were able to connect the dots between that ideology and the growth in antisemitism, because if you don't identify what's causing it what's fueling it then you really are not able to fight it effectively."

Discussing David L. Bernstein's book, another Jewish author, Jason Shvili, noted in the Jerusalem News Syndicate (JNS):

"Bernstein hints that woke ideology very much resembles the communist creed of the Soviet Union. In fact, former refusenik and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, in the book’s forward, compares woke ideology to the rigid communist tyranny he suffered under. Like the communism of the old Soviet Union, woke ideology has made Jews a target. Worst of all, many Jewish organizations have overlooked woke antisemitism so they can be accepted by progressives in supporting liberal causes. They often pay a high price—abandoning their Jewish identity in exchange for the curse of “whiteness,” and suffering condemnation for supporting the Jewish state."

Just to clarify, the term "liberal" in the US is typically applied to what we in Spain call "progressives," whereas there, they use the terms "classical liberal" or "libertarian" for what we call "liberal."

Regarding the links between the "woke" movement and antisemitism, I would like to point out that George Soros—one of the leading promoters of leftist organizations in the West—has dedicated a significant portion of his funding to antisemitic and anti-Israel groups, a fact for which he has faced harsh criticism from conservative governments in Israel. In 2018, Jeff Dunetz, writing for the Jewish publication The Jewish Star, noted:

"While Soros is Jewish, he funds so many anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations that it is hard to believe any criticism of him to be based on his Jewish background. In addition to supporting the Woman’s March, which is run by anti-Semites, since 2001 the Soros network has given $2,688,561 to Adalah, which has accused Israel of war crimes and contributed charges to the now-disgraced Goldstone Report. Adalah has also called on governments the world over to sever or downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel."

Thus, not only is antisemitism not a "woke" term (it emerged long before the woke movement, just like the term "far-right"), but the truly "woke" thing to do is to disguise antisemitism in order to promote it—presenting it as "anti-Zionism," much as communism did decades ago. We could certainly also speak of a "woke right" that mimics the far-left, copying its rhetoric to stir up social conflict (as I warned here last year), yet substituting white people and the wealthy with "boomers," Jews, or foreigners in general.

That "woke right" today also adopts the worst tendencies of the far-left regarding international politics, showing sympathy for the dictatorships of Russia, Iran, and even China—as I warned here back in February. What we are witnessing now is yet another attempt to present ideas contrary to the values ​​of the conservative movement as "anti-woke" in order to deceive the unwary and lead them to share the far-left's hatred of the West, the United States, Israel, and the Jewish people.

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Photo: Cottonbro Studio.