Orthodox Jews protest in support of Palestinians in New York City. Demotix/Angel Zayas. All rights reserved.Having introduced you to the origins of this “Anti-Jewish and anti–Muslim racisms and Palestine/Israel” guest week on openDemocracy, and the broad principles which underpin it, we want to flesh out the intellectual positions that we have taken in order to frame what we set out to do, and include some of the points raised at our conferences that have not made it into the articles we are publishing.
From the outset, we wanted this project to explore the multiple, complex and inter-related ways in which anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim racisms are constructed in relation to the question of Palestine/Israel. In particular, we wanted to explore how the histories of Zionist settlement, anti-colonial and nation-building struggles and twentieth-century warfare in the Middle East region were being transformed in the current historical conjuncture – especially in Britain and Europe, but also globally – and how these related to racialised discourses against Jews and Muslims.
