Settler Antisemitism, Israeli Mass Violence, and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Keywords: 
settler colonialism
settler antisemitism
Israeli mass violence
global Holocaust memory
Holocaust and genocide studies
Gaza
genocide
white supremacy
Abstract: 

This article examines the depiction of Israel as a nation-state like any other as a mechanism of disavowing Israeli settler colonialism. It is a depiction that also brings into focus the antisemitic marginalization and violence against Jews in nation-states. In this framework, the article shows that since modern antisemitism emerged at the intersection of the nation-state system and European imperialism and colonialism, Israel as a settler nation-state also functions according to the logic of what the author calls settler antisemitism. While the racialization of Jews in the frame of White supremacy in other settler-colonial states could include Jews as immigrant settlers but never more, White supremacy in Israel has manifested itself as Jewish supremacy, which defined the project of creating a White Jewish settler society. The article concludes with a discussion of the crisis in Holocaust and genocide studies that this situation has exposed, especially in the midst of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Author biography: 

Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies and endowed professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University, where he also founded the Refugee Studies Initiative. He is the author of Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016).