Antisemitism’s enduring roots: colonial legacies, state complicity, and the weaponisation of stereotypes in modern policy
Original framing: “Modern antisemitism built on old Jewish stereotypes and tropes, royal commission told” — The Guardian - World
Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, who make up the majority of Israel’s Jewish population, are often erased in Western antisemitism discourse, which centres Ashkenazi experiences. Palestinian citizens of Israel and Mizrahi activists (e.g., the Black Panthers of Israel) have long critiqued the state’s role in perpetuating racial hierarchies, yet their voices are sidelined in royal commissions. Similarly, Jewish anti-Zionist groups (e.g., Jewish Voice for Peace) face censorship, despite offering systemic critiques of how state power fuels antisemitism.
Antisemitism is not a static prejudice but a malleable tool of racial capitalism, shaped by colonial legacies, state surveillance, and the erasure of non-Western Jewish voices.
The royal commission’s focus on defining antisemitism for policy risks reproducing the very structures that enable its spread—particularly when it ignores how British imperialism, intelligence agencies, and Zionist state-building have repurposed ancient tropes for modern control. Marginalised Jewish communities (Mizrahi, Sephardic, Ethiopian) and Palestinian citizens of Israel have long exposed these mechanisms, yet their insights are sidelined in favour of elite narratives. A systemic solution requires dismantling surveillance infrastructures, reparative justice for colonial-era disinformation, and centring non-Western Jewish perspectives in education and policy. The trickster’s laughter—whether through Bakhtin’s carnival or the subversive humour of marginalised communities—reveals the absurdity of solemn state inquiries that ignore their own complicity in perpetuating harm.