Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis is that Ms De Keyser’s actions and statements amount to breaches of the International Definition of Antisemitism and qualify as antisemitic discourse according to our methodology.
Zionism is an expression of national self-determination for Jews, and since the establishment of the State of Israel, of support for the continued existence of that state. However, the allegation that Zionism is an inherently far-right and racist ideology was promulgated by the Soviet Union in the post-war era until 1989, as part of a deliberate and explicitly antisemitic campaign to persecute Jewish citizens who wished to practise their religion and/or leave the Soviet Union — especially to emigrate to Israel — as well as to demonise and undermine Israel on the foreign stage for global strategic gain. A singular purpose of this propaganda was to drive a false distinction between “Jews” and “Zionists”, in which the latter is the enemy of the former, and the embodiment of many older antisemitic tropes. By stating that “Jews are not Zionists” [1], Ms De Keyser was demonising Zionist Jews, and as such was “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”
By signing a statement which accused a Jewish charity fighting antisemitism of being a “politically motivated external campaign” enacting an “anti-Palestinian agenda” by “systematically [making] accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestine activists” [2],she was endorsing the deployment of the so-called ‘Livingstone Formulation’, by accusing Jews who cite evidence of antisemitism of lying, conspiring or having deceitful motives in doing so, when there is clear evidence that there have been breaches of the International Definition of Antisemitism. This further constitutes “making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews…”
