Jew hatred has been mainstreamed into Western culture, politics, media, and higher education. Jews and the Jewish state have become “racialized” issues, as the American Jewish community is depicted as privileged “whites,” and Israel, likewise, as a “white supremacist colonialist entity” – an “apartheid state.” “Apartheid antisemitism” has coopted the U.S. public discourse, has divided the Jewish community, and has isolated Israel in international fora, particularly at the UN and associated agencies.
In 2016, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs launched an international initiative to combat “apartheid antisemitism.” Dan Diker traveled to South Africa and engaged government, business, and academic leaders in a joint research initiative to refute the BDS “apartheid” campaign against Israel.
In 2020, the Jerusalem Center partnered with Black American leaders, Arab and Ethiopian Israeli researchers to expose BDS political warfare with the publication of Dan Diker’s compendium, Israelophobia and the West, which Professor Alan Dershowitz called “the bible for understanding the new antisemitism.” The Jerusalem Center and its partners are transforming our research findings into actionable applied diplomacy in JCPA’s Black American-Israel Leadership Initiative.
Our diplomatic initiative to combat political antisemitism is powered by the work and research of our previous Combating Delegitimization and BDS program, which produced over 10 comprehensive and influential publications on all aspects of BDS – from mapping its terror connections and its campus wings to its mainstreaming in the Western public discourse.
