Antisemitism and Palestinian Genocide: A Conversation with Raz Segal

Announced by the University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Raz Segal traces the emergence of antisemitism as a modern phenomenon tied to the nation-state and the late colonial world and its settler outposts. The struggle against antisemitism from the late 19th century, therefore, focused on protecting a group from exclusionary and violent states. The weaponization of this struggle as an Israeli state project since the 1990s shifted the focus away from a group, Jews, to protecting the state from criticism of its settler colonialism and violence against a people, Palestinians. This weaponization has intensified markedly since October 2023 in the context of Israel's assault on Gaza, and on university campuses across the US, supporters of Israel use it to silence, intimidate, harass, expel, and fire Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and increasingly more also anti-Zionist Jewish faculty members and students. The weaponization of the struggle against antisemitism is, therefore, an expression of anti-Palestinian racism, which also puts Jews and others at risk.