Antisemitism and Palestinian Genocide: A Conversation with Raz Segal

The talk will first trace 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 second part of the talk will discuss the weaponization of this struggle as an Israeli state project since the 1990s that 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 genocidal 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 --- a world turned upside down. The talk will conclude with some comments about the unprecedented rupture in the Jewish world that this has created, which however has also given rise to new alliances in the struggle to stop Israeli genocide and work towards decolonial futures, for everyone.

Register here: https://go.rutgers.edu/hmutvfsg

Zoom registration: https://go.rutgers.edu/5sfg1rxr

Location: Rutgers University
Address: 59 Biel Road New Brunswick, NJ 08901