O/C The search for tolerance amid rising antisemitism…this week on Firing Line LIPSTADT: This is a threat. It’s a threat, 

She holds an ambassador-level post focused on a global – and growing – problem. Deborah Lipstadt is the Biden administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism… 

“From the river to the sea… Palestine will be free” 

….a mission that has taken on new meaning since the Oct 7 Hamas attack against Israel. Lipstadt, an historian and author, has focused on various forms of antisemitism for decades. Her victory in court over Holocaust denier David Irving became the subject of the 2016 movie “Denial” 

CLIP: You can have opinions about the Holocaust but I won’t meet with anyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen. 

As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth month and new concerns emerge about antisemitism around the world, what does Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt say now? 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Stephens Inc., Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, The Asness Family Foundation, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, Kathleen and Andrew McKenna through The McKenna Family Foundation, Pfizer Inc., Charles R. Schwab, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Damon Button, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Roger and Susan Hertog, Cheryl Cohen Effron and Blair Effron, Al and Kathy Hubbard 

INTERVIEW 

HOOVER: Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, welcome to Firing Line. 

LIPSTADT: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

HOOVER: It’s been more than 100 days since Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7th. How do you understand why an attack against the Jews triggered, as you put it, “a tsunami of hate against the Jews.” 

LIPSTADT: It’s on one hand, it’s easy to explain, and on one hand it’s hard to explain. When you’re talking about anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is a form of prejudice. And if you think about the etymology of the word prejudice, prejudge. Don’t confuse me with the facts I’ve made up my mind. You know, Israel in many respects– and you can disagree with the policies of Israel. I disagree with many of the policies.

Many Israelis disagree with the policies of the government. But Israel has come to epitomize for many people the Jew. And many people who are reluctant to be, to express anything anti-Semitic and who would be very upset if you said what you’re saying is anti-Semitic, are not reluctant to criticize Israel. And again, not policies, but the existence of Israel, everything Israel does. Pointing the finger only at Israel. And when that happens, when they, you single out Israel– I’ll give you an example. The October 7th gender based violence: the rape, the mutilation of women, which happened in horrific– It was barbaric. That’s the only way of describing it. It was barbaric and done to humiliate the women while it was happening. And who knows what’s happening to the women who are still hostage? When there have been other instances of gender based violence – Boko Haram kidnapping the young women from school; the Yazidi women who were treated horrifically; Iranian women when they were so punished, and some in fact got killed for taking off their headscarves – the human rights organizations, the feminist organizations, had no trouble condemning it, some within a few days. They didn’t say,’ Oh, we have to see the evidence. We have to see the proof. We have to see the rape kits.’ Here there was a resounding silence. So what’s– together with a colleague of mine, our ambassador at the Human Rights Council, Michelle Taylor, we penned an op-ed in the Guardian, left leaning British publication, because that’s the audience we wanted to reach. And we asked the question: how is this atrocity different from all these other atrocities? And the only difference we could find is the perception was that they were all Jews. So if that’s the only difference, that’s anti-Semitism. 

HOOVER: So calling it a double standard is a sanitized version? 

LIPSTADT: Yes. That’s right 

HOOVER: It’s not double standards. It’s anti-Semitism. 

LIPSTADT: It’s anti-Semitism. Exactly. 

HOOVER: You said you published it in the Guardian strategically because that was the audience you needed to target. It’s a center left audience. Why? 

LIPSTADT: Look, I think it’s important to target everyone. 

HOOVER: But you published it in the Guardian because of the audience– 

LIPSTADT: Because these are organizations, the women’s organizations that claim to care about women anywhere who are subjected to discrimination, prejudice, violence. So you would have expected them to be in the forefront of condemnation. Here are people whose watchword is, if it’s a human rights violation, we will speak out, we will condemn, we will call attention to it. And they didn’t 

HOOVER: It evokes the Martin Luther King quote, “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” 

LIPSTADT: Or Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher who, after the Holocaust, and I’m paraphrasing here, said, what hurt us was not the words of our oppressors, but the silence of our neighbors. 

HOOVER: In a similar vein, what struck me after 10/7 was, I kept thinking about the summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd –

LIPSTADT: Mm hmm 

HOOVER: –and how every political organization in America, elected official, corporation, company, rushed to make a statement about combating and recommitting to the ending of racial prejudice in the United States. And that there was a massive silence around this event in 10/7 and in some cases, frankly, a blaming of the Jews when it came to universities, or a silence in the condemnation of– About the sexual violence piece, you said it’s not just a double standard, it is anti-Semitism. 

LIPSTADT: It is anti-Semitism. That’s exactly right. 

HOOVER: And how about, do you think the same is true with the examples of the summer of 2020 and the response– 

LIPSTADT: Look, the outrage of the George Floyd murder was— 

HOOVER: Of course, of all those corporations– 

LIPSTADT: Many were silent here. And another thing that’s quite different, sometimes when there is condemnation of anti-Semitism, not necessarily around October 7th, a corporation, educational institution, an NGO, will say, ‘We condemn anti-Semitism and… racism, homophobia,’ all of which should be condemned. But the action you were talking about was anti-Semitism. And I said to someone, using the George Floyd example, I said, when George Floyd was murdered. If you had issued a statement saying, ‘We condemn the racism that brought this, and we condemn homophobia and misogyny…’ people would have said, ‘what are you talking about?’ You know, you can’t just say, oh, we hate hate. That’s sort of a let’s sing Kumbaya like we used to do in summer camp, and everything will be okay. You have to call something out for what it is. 

HOOVER: Was it a double standard that they didn’t call out the anti-Semitism after 10/7? LIPSTADT: I think, I think absolutely. 

HOOVER: Is it a double standard, or is it more than a double standard? 

LIPSTADT: It’s more. It’s a double standard which is a characteristic of anti-Semitism. And again, not to say that Israel’s policies were perfect. You know, that’s a whole separate issue– 

HOOVER: You make a very clear distinction between criticizing the government of Israel and criticizing Israel’s right to exist. 

LIPSTADT: That’s right. Look, if criticizing the government of Israel was anti-Semitism, the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who were in the street every Saturday night for months protesting the proposed judicial reforms would have been anti-Semites, which of course, is ridiculous. So we’re not talking about that. And anybody who says, ‘If I criticize, I get called an anti-Semite.’ No. The people who have been called out were the people who glorified what Hamas did. And who talked about deserving it. 

HOOVER: Why is it harder– Or why does it seem that it is harder to condemn Jew hatred than to condemn racism? 

LIPSTADT: You have to ask the people who are not doing the condemning–

HOOVER: It’s a lot of people. It’s a lot of corporations– 

LIPSTADT: I think it’s hard to answer. It’s a very good question. I think in part because when we’re talking about anti-Semitism, we’re talking about the longest or the oldest continuous hatred. So that anti-Semitism has been baked into, certainly the Western world and beyond. 

HOOVER: But racism has too. 

LIPSTADT: Absolutely. And racism is baked in this country. Racism is a serious, serious problem. HOOVER: There hasn’t been a national reckoning with our racism in 2020. 

LIPSTADT: Not as much as they should. Yes, there was. 

HOOVER: And there hasn’t been a national reckoning with the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism since 10/7. 

LIPSTADT: I’ll tell you something else as well. In most cases, certainly of racism, the racist punches down. The Black person is okay, the person of color is okay as long as they know their place. The anti-Semite punches down – the Jew is dirty, the Jew spreads Covid, etc. But they do something else that they don’t do in the case of, of this, of racism; they punch up. The Jew is more powerful. The Jew. Not Jews, but the Jew controls the media. The Jew controls the banks, the corporations, the, the electoral system. So if I’m punching up. I gotta protect myself by any means necessary. 

HOOVER: When you encounter anti-Semitism casually in your life, how do you engage with it? 

LIPSTADT: It depends on the setting, but if it’s, I feel it’s someone I can reach, someone I can educate. I’ll try to reach out to them. I’ll try to show them the absurdity of their statement. A lot of it comes from ignorance, and we acknowledge that. But some of it is utilitarian. Politicians, other countries, particularly authoritarian countries, NGOs, and political groups who know that anti-Semitism is a useful tool for riling up– for adding fuel to the fire. Now, I don’t want to say it always comes from overseas, you know– 

HOOVER: Well, I know that you’ve referred to Donald Trump as a utilitarian anti-Semite. LIPSTADT: In the past. Yeah, I don’t want to get into– 

HOOVER: I know, I know, but I’m just saying, as an example, how has he used it as a utilitarian tool? 

LIPSTADT: Well, I would say– Let me stay away from former President Trump. I’ll give you another example. We’re seeing now increased anti-Semitism coming from the PRC, from China. How do we explain that? Because in fact, the Chinese have always been philo-Semitic. Though there’s a journalist who once said a philo-Semite is an anti-Semite who likes Jews. You know, don’t don’t like me better because I’m a Jew. Don’t like me worse. Just like me for who I am. But they’ve always– 

HOOVER: In other words, they’re differentiating with, with affinity rather than with a prejudice. 

LIPSTADT: Well said. I’m going to steal that. But I’ll give you credit. There’s always been a great affinity. The Chinese, if you went to China, you spoke to Chinese nationals in other places. Oh. You’re Jewish. Oh. That’s wonderful. You’re an ancient civilization. We’re an ancient civilization. You believe in

filial piety? We believe in filial piety. You believe in education. We believe in education. You believe working hard and succeeding is a good thing. We believe that same way. We don’t apologize for it. So why this 180 switch? It’s a way of adding fuel to the fire. It’s a way– 

HOOVER: It’s a destabilizing– 

LIPSTADT: That’s right. Exactly, a destabilizing –more than that. If I can plant anti-Semitism in a Western democracy. I can suggest to the people in that country that this is a failed state. So don’t tout from me your democracy. Look, you have anti-Semitism. Look, you have racism. They’re both here, absolutely, that’s correct. But I’ve helped gin it up. 

HOOVER: But they’re stirring it up. You traveled to Israel last month, where you met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and you also visited the communities that were decimated in the Hamas attack. What did you see? 

LIPSTADT: I saw a destruction unlike anything I’ve ever seen, either personally or even, you know, in documentaries and films. And it was just– it was with a savagery. 

HOOVER: What was your takeaway from the consequence of the violence? 

LIPSTADT: I found that Israel has been traumatized. Because, a, Jews realized and understood that this was the biggest, the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And then the speed with which the anti-Semitism began to emerge. Not on October 14th, 15th, but eighth, ninth, immediately. 

HOOVER: Let me ask you, there has been a pretty strong response about Israel’s activity in Gaza, and there are way more than a few who call Israel’s engagement in Gaza a genocide. How do you engage with that? 

LIPSTADT: Look, I don’t– I’m not a military specialist, and I can’t tell you whether a bomb that was used was too large or could have, they could have used a smaller bomb. 

HOOVER: But the term genocide, does that seem like a fair use of the term? 

LIPSTADT: No, No. And I think, and it’s a very loaded use. And, of course– 

HOOVER: Does it surprise you? 

LIPSTADT: No. 

HOOVER: Why? 

LIPSTADT: Because I’ve seen too much of that kind of thing. I’ve seen, you know, I’ve been in this field. It– 

HOOVER: Is it– I mean, is it a double standard or is it anti-Semitism? 

LIPSTADT: It’s both. It’s both. It’s anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Semitism. You can surely– I’m sure if I were a military specialist, I could find things about Israel’s response which were wrong, may have even violated rules of war. I don’t know. But to call it genocide, that was very disturbing.

TWO STATE SOLUTION 

HOOVER: Much of your work has involved trying to build positive relationships in the Arab world, including working towards normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia now says this will not happen without a Palestinian state. The Biden administration is in support of a two state solution. The Netanyahu administration is firmly redoubling its statements that it is not under any circumstance in favor of a Palestinian state, it views it as an existential threat. Help engage the argument that antisemitism will be greatly diminished or muted if only there is a two state solution. 

LIPSTADT: My first trip as an ambassador was to Saudi Arabia. And one of the points I made early in my trip to an imam in Riyadh when he was saying, ‘Well, if Israel solved the Palestinian crisis there’d be no anti-Semitism.’ I said, you know, in my country after 9/11, there was a surge of hatred of Muslims, I said, and many of us felt that was wrong. And in fact, in New York City, there was an effort to build a Muslim faith center, community center on land adjacent to Ground Zero, to the World Trade Center. And there were people who stopped it, who felt, you know, that it was it was, not being respectful of the memory of the people. And there were many people, including many Jews in New York and other places, who felt that was wrong, to punish them because other Muslims had attacked those buildings and murdered the people, that’s prejudice. And the man said to me, ‘I’m glad to hear that. That’s exactly right.’ I paused and then I said, well, that’s exactly the same as when you say, If Israel solved the Palestinian crisis, there’d be no anti-Semitism. It’s blaming Jews for– And he got very quiet. I don’t know that I convinced him, but he got quiet. But my feeling is that if we can normalize to whatever extent, if we can remind the Saudis and many of them remember it, that Jews were indigenous to this region, if we can lessen the tensions, if we can lessen the stereotyping, if we can lessen the hostility, that’s a good thing all around. 

CEASE FIRE 

HOOVER: Yeah. In November, more than 500 administration appointees in the Biden administration, staffers, sent a letter to President Biden urging him to demand a cease fire. Dozens of State Department officials have also signed onto official dissent cables over the administration’s handling of the conflict. Do you have a sense of why there is an unusually passionate dissent within the administration about this? 

LIPSTADT: Look, there are a lot of people who agree with the policy. You know, I think, look, there have been tremendous tragedies in Gaza. And anybody who can look at what’s going on in Gaza, particularly the children. Not only the children, but particularly the children and not feel empathy, I don’t know what their heart is. So anyone who doesn’t have empathy for that suffering, I feel for them. And I think they’re truly wrong. And I think there are many people who are struck by that. And they– I’m glad to be part of an administration where people who dissent feel free that they can dissent. But I think the president has made his policy and his position very clear. 

HOOVER: This program is a renewed version of Firing Line that William F. Buckley hosted for many, many years. And in 1992, on the original Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. he discussed antisemitism with the editor of Commentary magazine, Norman Podhoretz. Take a look at this clip about what they said then.

PODHORETZ: Your focus on Israel is the right focus. It seems that antisemitic passions, for reasons that nobody quite understands, are inextinguishable and if they don’t have one outlet they will find another. And most of the anti-Semitic ideas and attitudes that were directed against individual Jews or Jewish communities in the Diaspora in the past have now been translated into the terms, into the language of international affairs and been attached to Israel– 

BUCKLEY: Sure. 

PODHORETZ: –to the Jewish state as the Jewish state among the nations just as the Jews among the peoples… 

HOOVER: The pivotal question now that I have for you is to what extent is opposition to Israel and its policies actually driven by anti-semitism? 

LIPSTADT: I can’t give you an exact answer to that. I know there are people who criticize, who oppose Israel’s policies. I know many Israelis who oppose Israel’s policy. 

HOOVER: But when you talk about Israel as representing the Jew and the fact that, you know, to be against the state of Israel now– 

LIPSTADT: To be against the existence of the state of Israel, I would say, if it’s not anti-Semitism, it’s certainly very close to anti-Semitism. It’s the only national– the Jews have one national home. It houses seven and a half million Jews. You know, there are people who say, oh, we’re looking for a democratic, 

binational state, etc. That doesn’t work very well in Belgium, much less in the Middle East. It doesn’t work very well in Lebanon. It doesn’t– It’s being very flip with the survival and the future of half of the world’s Jewish population. 

HOOVER: But what else could account for the virulent and widespread anti-Israel sentiment? 

LIPSTADT: It’s very hard to explain unless you go to anti-Semitism. I’m reluctant to do that because I hate painting with such a broad brush, but I might be wrong. You know– 

HOOVER: Maybe it is just that simple. 

LIPSTADT: Maybe it is just that simple. Maybe it’s– For some it’s an ignorance. You know, some of those students who are marching on campuses, you know, if you ask them ‘from the river to the sea,’ they don’t know what river, what sea. It’s an ignorance. I mean, but students glom onto things. They, you know, who is the oppressor, the person with the tanks. Who is the oppressed, the person with the stones. But here it’s been much more than that. 

HOOVER: But, you know, you are a student of anti-Semitism. Explain how antisemitism in this contemporary moment has taken on the language of liberation? 

LIPSTADT: It’s taken it on with the Jew as colonizer, the Jew as white. Now here’s the irony. 52%, 51%, we don’t know exactly, but that’s the guesstimate of the Israeli population being non-European,

non-Ashkenazi. You have Ethiopians. You have, you have a mixed population. But if you ask some of the protesters on the campuses, whether it’s in this country or other countries, they will say to you, Israel are white colonizers. It’s an ignorance which has been too readily and too easily accepted. And I think the thing to remember is that this is a threat. It’s a threat, as I said earlier, to democracy, to national stability. This is an attempt to paint Western liberal societies, small-l liberal, as failed. If you can show. Oh, look, there’s so much anti-Semitism in this country. There’s so much racism. And you claim that democracy is a better system. It’s a threat. This is a defining moment in the future of Western democratic existence as nation states, etc.. 

HOOVER: I will give it to you in your own words. You have said, “other minorities should not feel immune. It is not likely to end with the Jews. Like a fire set by an arsonist, passionate hatred and conspiratorial worldviews reach well beyond their intended target.” 

LIPSTADT: That’s right. Anybody who thinks you can fight hatred in silos, where you’re only against one group, but not the other, just you wait Henry Higgins, just you wait. It’s going to come around. 

HOOVER: With the emergence, reemergence of antisemitism in full force here in this country and around the world. How much confidence do you have about– what does it tell you about the stability of our own democracy? 

LIPSTADT: It worries me about the stability of our own democracy. But I have to say, Margaret, that even after all these years and all these decades of studying anti-Semitism, for some inexplicable reason, I remain an optimist. Jews are resilient. So even as I fight the hatred, I am very much aware and treasure the resiliency of the Jewish people. And I want to say the same thing about Western democracy and certainly about the United States. We are facing a time when there is deep division in this country. We are facing a time, you know, external, external actors may be riling up the anti-Semitism in this country, but it exists. It’s here. It’s here very much so. But I have enough faith in this country. And as president Biden likes to say it’s the only country that was ever founded on an idea. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of problems to solve. But I have to be an optimist because otherwise I couldn’t go to work every day and do the job I do. 

HOOVER: In your decades of experience of interacting on this issue, what is most successful in pushing back against anti-Semitism and what needs to happen? 

LIPSTADT: I don’t want to say education simply because, you know, you can be a PhD and an S.O.B. at the same time. But I think to show people, a, the terrible illogic of their beliefs and the terrible consequences of such beliefs. We won’t change the minds of the committed anti-Semites, whether they’re right, left, center, any faith or whatever. But the people I want to reach are those students on a campus, whether it’s in Berlin, whether it’s in Brighton, London or United States when I’m back on the campus in the United States, and say to them, think about what you’re doing. Think about what you’re saying. Learn about this. Figure out what the consequences are. I have to believe that that will help. Will it solve the problem? I don’t think anything’s going to eradicate anti-Semitism. Could it help in sort of lessening the fires? Maybe. And that’s why I do what I do. 

HOOVER: Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt. Thank you for joining me. 

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