From a Global War of Narratives to a Binational Framework

This problem is particularly severe in Germany. Following the Achille Mbembe debate in Germany in which the Cameroonian and South African intellectual was accused of antisemitism and practically disinvited from opening the Ruhrtriennale, the Journal of Genocide Research published a scholarly forum on the topic. One of the participants preferred to conceal her/his identity. See Anonymous, “Palestine Between German Memory Politics and (De-)Colonial Thought”, Journal of Genocide Research 23/3 (2021), pp. 374–382. For more on Germany see: Sa’ed. Atshan and Katharine Galor, The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians, Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.

See Ali Abunimah, “Watch: German TV “regrets” airing this interview about Gaza”, The Electronic Intifada 13 May, 2021. https://​electronicintifa​da.​net/​blogs/​ali-abunimah/​watch-german-tv-regrets-airing-interview-about-gaza

See The Guardian, 29 November 2020, https://​www.​theguardian.​com/​news/​2020/​nov/​29/​palestinian-rights-and-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism

A. Dirk Moses, “The German Catechism”, Geschichte der Gegenwart, 23 May, 2021, https://​geschichtedergeg​enwart.​ch/​the-german-catechism/​

Four of them in The New Fascism Syllabus and one in 972 Magazine.

Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt, Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews 1933–1946, New York and London: Norton, 2009, xiv. On the special features of pot-Holocaust reparations, see: Charles S. Maier, “Overcoming the Past? Narrative and Negotiation, Remembering and Reparations: Issues at the Interface of History and Law,” in John Torpey (ed.), Politics and the Past, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2003 p. 295–304.

See: Wole Soyinka, The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 92; In the context of post-apartheid South Africa, see: Antjie Keog, The Country of My Skull, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999, p. 171. See also: Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil, London: Allen Lane, 2019; Rothberg, The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2019. It is worth mentioning that in May 2021 Germany acknowledged its genocide in South-West Africa (today’s Namibia) and expressed willingness to pay reoperations.

See for example report in the New York Times February 18, 2021. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2021/​02/​18/​world/​europe/​france-universities-culture-wars.​html

I am referring here primarily to west European societies. Things are quite different in the post-Soviet states like Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and other countries.

See for example: Tom Lawson “Coming to Terms with the Past: Reading and Writing Colonial Genocide in the Shadow of the Holocaust”, Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, Volume 20 (2014) issue 1–2, 129–156. For a critical reading of this intersection see: Steffen Klävers, Decolonizing Auschwitz? Komparativ-postkoloniale Ansätze in der Holocaustforschung, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019.

Ibid, p.13.

Ibid, p. 33.

James Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United Stets and the Making of Nazi Race Law, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

Mamdani, p. 4.

At times Arabs and Palestinian writers and caricaturist (as well as their supporters) made use of clear antisemitic tropes and images and at times even adopted explicit antisemitic rhetoric like quoting from the “Elders of Zion” as a reliable source. This was termed already in the sixties as the “new antisemitism”. Fierce debates are taking place since then on the legitimacy of this concept, on its nature, range, importance, use, misuse and abuse. There is voluminous literature on this see for example the two summarizing articles: Esther Webman, “The Challenge of Assessing Arab/Islamic Antisemitism“, Middle Eastern Studies, 46/5, September 2010, 677–697; Scott Uri, “Strange Bedfellows? Anti-Semitism, Zionism and the Fate of “the Jews””, American Historical Review 124 (October 2018) issue 4, 1151–1171.

For a detailed account of the diplomatic development leading to the conference and of the conference itself from an American Jewish point of view see Harris O. Schoenberg, “Demonization in Durban: The World Conference Against Racism”, The American Jewish Year Book 102 (2002): 85–111. And Tom Lantos, “The Durban Debacle: An Insider’s View of the World Racism Conference at Durban”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 26, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2002): 31–52. See also Kenneth S. Stern, The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 77–86.

Tareq Baconi, “What Apertheid Means for Israel”, The New York Review, November 3, 2021. https://​www.​nybooks.​com/​daily/​2021/​11/​05/​what-apartheid-means-for-israel/​

WCAR NGO Forum Declaration, 3 September 2001. http://​humanrightsvoice​s.​org/​assets/​attachments/​documents/​durban_​ngo_​declaration_​2001.​pdf

Tom Lantos, “The Durban Debacle”, 44.

Arjan El Fassed, “Remember Durban”, The Electronic Intifada, 22 September 2003. https://​electronicintifa​da.​net/​content/​remember-durban/​4783

On its website it explicitly says that “It was founded following the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa”https://​www.​ngo-monitor.​org/​about/​faqs/​

See Dina Port, who attended the 2001 Durban WCAR and dedicated much of her time countering these trends which she perceives as antisemitic, in a webinar organized by the Moment Magazine on July 21, 2021 (minute 10:30 and onward) https://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​BeRVMYhM0Kk&​t=​1879s

The IHRA actually adopted only the core definition without the examples which were contentious at the time of the vote. But later on, some of the stakeholders like Mark Weitzman of the Wiesenthal Center LA, made it appear as if the examples were included in the vote and are an integral part of the definition. See: Jamie Stern-Weiner, The Politics of a Definition, April 2021 https://​www.​documentcloud.​org/​documents/​20689366-stern-weiner-j-fsoi-the-politics-of-a-definition

See for example: Yehuda Bauer, “Daniel Blatman’s Anti-Semitic Attack”, Haaretz, August1, 2019 https://​www.​haaretz.​com/​world-news/​europe/​.​premium-daniel-blatman-s-anti-semitic-attack-1.​7613216. Idem, “Al Mahut Ha-vikuach al Ha-antishemiut” (On the Essence of the Debate over Antisemitism), Haaretz https://​www.​haaretz.​com/​world-news/​europe/​.​premium-daniel-blatman-s-anti-semitic-attack-1.​7613216, 22 July, 2021 (Hebrew) https://​www.​haaretz.​co.​il/​opinions/​.​premium-1.​10019937

See a very partial list in the “No IHRA” website: https://​www.​ijvcanada.​org/​ihra-definition-at-work/​

There is by now voluminous literature on Israel, Zionism and settler colonialism. The two basic texts are: Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research, 8. no 4(2006): 387–409; Lorenzo Veracini, Israel and Settler Society, London: Pluto Press, 2006. See a recent summary: Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, “Tracing Settler Colonialism: A Genealogy of a Paradigm in the Sociology of Knowledge Production in Israel”, Politics and Society (online since March 15, 2021).

Ibid., 295–296. Indeed, there is a growing engagement in Arab literature with the Holocaust – e.g. in the works of Rabai al-Madhoun Boualem Sansal, Anouar Ben Malek and others. I thank Sadia Agsous for this information.

In recent years, Khoury has been working on a trilogy, at the heart of which lies the connection between the Holocaust and the Nakba