The New Antisemites – How the Delegitimization Campaign Against Israel Drives Hatred and Violence in America

Major Takeaways

The online open source research and evidence provided in this report yield the following major conclusions, which are relevant now more than ever considering the sharp rise in antisemitism across the world.

1. The delegitimization campaign against Israel and its social-action vehicle known as the BDS Movement radicalize legitimate criticism of Israel, turning it into delegitimization and ultimately to antisemitism.
2. The delegitimization campaign and the BDS movement participate in and perpetuate open antisemitism because their raison d’être, anti-Zionism (i.e., dismantling the modern democratic state that is the Jewish homeland), is antisemitic at its core, both according to the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism and as a matter of fact.
3. The legal loophole of anti-Zionism not being explicitly defined as a form of antisemitism must be closed by incorporating the IHRA’s working definition into all federal and state antidiscrimination laws.
4. One of the most powerful testimonies to the fact that delegitimization campaign is partially responsible for fueling the spike in antisemitism today is the increasingly public intellectual and philosophical alliance between the largely progressive BDS movement and the neo-fascist and white supremacist network internationally.
5. The messaging, imagery and propaganda spread by the delegitimization campaign is in turn borrowed and promoted by radical right wing and neo-Nazi forums, leaders and extremists contributing to the radicalization of democratic societies under the guise of a human rights campaign and presents a threat to a greater erosion of Western values in open democratic societies.