Norwich vandal #conspiracy everydayantisemitism.com
On, July 18th , graffiti was discovered on the pathway of a main pedestrian and high traffic footbridge leading to Norwich city centre. The graffiti reads “ISIS ARE THE PAWNS OF ZIONISM”, accompanied by two “tags”: a cartoon face, smoking, with the letter ‘J’ and the word “Gaph”. The incident has been reported to the authorities. Despite an attempt at removal the graffiti is still in situ.
This could be the work of one or more people, who are ill-informed as to the nature and meaning of Zionism and could simply be following a popular narrative. Despite popular assertions that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, uses of the word ‘Zionism’ in this context serve to simply take the place of the word ‘Jews’ in a style of conspiracy theory that has historically been used to defame Jewish people; conspiratorial activity has been levelled at Jews for centuries and alleged responsibility for ISIS is just a common new form of this canard.
Many are unaware that to be anti-Zionist means one is against the existence of the State of Israel in any form, it is often accompanied with accusations of being a racist endeavour. According to the EUMC definition of antisemitism, attacks against ‘Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity’ are antisemitic.
Whether these authors are aware of these aspects of antisemitism is neither here nor there; it is the casual and everyday nature of these accusations which permeate our communities, at every level, which is more divisive and frightening, as such themes are remarkably common, coming up time and time again.