Thread by @ComiskeyNathan, Antisemitic ideas linked to Black Hebrew Israelite movements have come to the [...]

Antisemitic ideas linked to Black Hebrew Israelite movements have come to the forefront through people like Wiley. The ideas appear so outlandish and ridiculous that it is easy to dismiss them. However, they are an expression of the most dangerous form of antisemitism. 1/x

The central idea is that Africans are the true Israelites, the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel and that modern day Jews are evil imposters who have stolen their culture. https://areomagazine.com/2019/12/12/antisemitism-and-black-nationalism/ 2/x

This idea didn’t come from nowhere and has equivalents on the Far Right, a religious ideology called Christian Identity. It the same idea but this time for white people: Scandinavian, Germanic, Anglo tribes are the true descendants of the Israelites. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/christian-identity 3/x

Both these movements derive from a late Victorian popular movement called the British Israelism (which still has headquarters in County Durham). It wasn't antisemitic & didn’t view Jews as imposters but it did claim Britain as the final destination of the Israelite tribes. 4/x

One thing that differentiates Antisemitism from other types of racism is the central idea that Jews need to be eradicated. Antisemitism has a clear aim: the extinction of the Jewish people. Nazism was not an aberration, it was simply the ultimate expression of this idea. 5/x

This idea is an artefact of Medieval Christian antisemitism. Christianity believed the Jewish covenant with God had been replaced by a new covenant with Jesus and that Christians were now the chosen people of God. This idea is called supersessionism https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/supersessionism 6/x

Jews were seen as an anachronism, following a defunct system of beliefs, but not only did Jews claim to have a unique relationship with God, they had a prior claim and this undermined the Christian covenant. Eradicate them and the problem is solved. And they certainly tried. 7/x

Medieval Christianity waged a genocidal war against Jews: forced conversions from Heraclius in 7th Century Byzantium through to the Spanish conversions, Jews expelled and ghettoised, repeated mass slaughters on a genocidal scale, slanders and libels invented to justify it all 8/x

This idea of eradicating the Jews may have had specific theological origins and religious perpetrators but the idea of ridding the world of Jews has persisted. All the various ways Antisemitism is expressed are in service to this central idea: we need to wipe out the Jews 9/x

Return to the Black Hebrew Israelites and Christian Identity: “Jews are imposters who have stolen our culture, stolen our place in the world. We are the true Israelites, the people of God”. It is supersessionism repackaged for racial supremacists. 10/x

Antisemitism on the Left is often traced back to Proudhon and Marx. And they both directly promote the idea that Jews should be eradicated (though Marx is more humane)
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/1847/jews.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
11/x

Here is Proudhon on the Jews: “The Jew must disappear by steel or by fusion or by expulsion:

Marx on the Jewish Question: “In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.” 12/x

In recent years Left Antisemites have brought Holocaust deniers to parliament or called for the destruction of Israel (another form of eradicating Jews). Fundamentally these are genocidal behaviours.
Photo of James Thring and Nazi Lady Renouf https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2020/02/24/new-report-inside-keep-talking-the-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-group/ 13/x

Antisemitism is a genocidal idea. It is expressed in different ways, using different excuses but the end-point is the same. The BHI Antisemite, the Left Antisemite, the Nazi Antisemite promote the same idea, eradicating the Jews.

Your opposition to them is so important. 14/14

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