My latest paper was just published in a special issue of American Psychologist focusing on antisemitism, and it deals with the difficult topic of how beliefs about Israel relate to anti-Jewish attitudes.

The link between beliefs about Israel and antisemitism is a contested and politically charged debate, where critics reasonably worry that labeling anti-Israel sentiment as antisemitic can be weaponized to deflect legitimate criticism of Israeli governments and their policies.

While it’s clear that bad-faith and misguided accusations of antisemitism do occur (this, by the way, is also true for related concepts such as islamophobia and racism), there is a danger that focusing solely on this aspect obscures an empirical reality, namely that anti-Jewish hostility today frequently occurs in the context of opposition to Israel. This study provides quantitative, population-based evidence for such a pattern. It shows that a specific Israel-related belief – that Israel treats Palestinians just as badly as the Nazis treated Jews – is systematically associated with greater willingness to justify violence and harassment against Jews, even after accounting for other factors, including endorsement of blatantly antisemitic statements.

The article—Holocaust Inversion and Justification of Anti-Jewish Aggression: Evidence From Two National Surveys in Norway—is published open access.

Abstract:

While perpetrators of anti-Jewish harassment and violence are a small minority in democratic societies, they rely on a larger number of people who justify such aggression or silently condone it. Using data from nationally representative surveys of the Norwegian population, I report two studies investigating whether endorsement of Holocaust inversion—the belief that Israel treats Palestinians as badly as Jews were treated during World War II—is associated with (a) justification of harassment and violence against Jews and (b) refusal to take a stance against such aggression. Study 1 (N = 1,575) found support for both hypotheses. In a preregistered replication, Study 2 (N = 1,653) confirmed these results. Follow-up analyses found that endorsement of Holocaust inversion was also associated with refusal to answer questions measuring blatant antisemitic prejudice. The findings support theorizing that sees Holocaust inversion as a socially more acceptable vehicle for expressing and legitimizing antisemitic hostility.