Calling it antisemitism is just a way of shutting down criticism of Israel

The fuller answer

Somebody said something. You said it looked antisemitic. Rather than answer, they told the room that the accusation is a tactic, and within one sentence you are the one under examination. That reversal is the whole manoeuvre, and it has a name.

Name the move

It has two parts, and describing them out loud stops it. First, whatever was actually said is folded into the category of legitimate criticism of Israel, so the specific words drop out of view. Second, a counter-accusation replaces the complaint: the person raising antisemitism is not mistaken, they are lying, in order to shield Israel.

It has a name, the Livingstone Formulation, and it comes from a case worth knowing in outline. In February 2005 Ken Livingstone, then mayor of London, was asked a question by a reporter from the Evening Standard. Livingstone asked him whether he had previously been a German war criminal. The reporter replied that he had not, that he was Jewish, and that he was offended. Livingstone told him he was behaving just like a German war criminal anyway. Answering the complaints in the Guardian the following year, he wrote that for far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as he had been.

Hold that reply against what happened. It files repeatedly comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi under “criticism of the policies of the Israeli government”, and it tells you that whoever objected did so dishonestly. The complaint is never touched.

Concede the true part, then keep moving

The charge of antisemitism has sometimes been raised unjustifiably and sometimes in bad faith. Say so in one sentence and go on, because it is not an answer to the sentence in front of you.

Then use what you have conceded. A misuse you can name has a case attached to it: a measure, a date, a chapter that was banned. Ask for that, and offer the same in return. Whoever cannot produce one is not describing a misuse. They are declining to look at what was said.

Why nothing you say can settle it

Ask what evidence would change their mind. Almost always there is none, and the structure explains why.

Bring recorded incidents and you are illustrating the scale of the operation. Cite a Jewish communal organisation and you have named the machinery. Return to the actual words and you are the person policing language rather than facing the argument. The claim is about a hidden motive, and motive is the one thing no evidence reaches. Every response counts as confirmation, which is what makes the move comfortable to use and worthless as an argument.

The critics of Israel’s lobby make the point themselves: it is almost impossible to prove you are not an antisemite, which is why the charge is so effective. That is true, and it runs both ways. An accusation of bad faith is no easier to disprove than an accusation of prejudice, and whoever says it is making one.

Everybody uses it, which is the tell

More than twenty users of the formulation have been collected from sources with nothing else in common. They include people who think of themselves as antiracists, and they include Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan and Nick Griffin of the British National Party, all answering complaints in nearly the same words. Charles Lindbergh was using the same structure in 1941, before Israel existed.

That does not make everyone who uses the sentence an antisemite, and arguing so would wreck the point. What it establishes is narrower and much harder to shift. The sentence carries no information about whether the original complaint was sound. A move that serves a Klansman and a peace campaigner equally well is not doing any work.

The double standard underneath it

Point at their own rule and ask why this one is exempt. Antiracists accept without difficulty that speech, institutions and practices can be racist in effect with nobody intending it. That is the whole reason the concept of institutional racism exists: Macpherson needed it precisely because the failure was not in anybody’s malice. Antisemitism alone is then held to a different rule, one that demands proof of intent. So a person examines their own conscience, finds no hatred there, and closes the question.

That is the step that makes the formulation feel reasonable to the person using it. They looked within, found themselves innocent, and inferred that the complaint must be dishonest. Say that back to them and it is very hard to hold.

Does the three Ds test help?

Sometimes, and know where it stops. Demonisation, when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion or compared to the Nazis. Double standards, when Israel is singled out and major abusers are ignored. Delegitimisation, when Israel’s right to exist is denied alone among all peoples.

Its use is that it puts a question to a specific statement, which is exactly what the formulation is designed to prevent. Its limits are real and you are better off naming them first. Selective attention is normal in campaigning, and “I work on what I know about” is an honest answer to the double standards charge. Defenders of apartheid South Africa made similar complaints of demonisation and unfair singling out, and an informed opponent will say so. The three Ds work as prompts for examining a sentence. They do not work as a machine that returns verdicts.

Telling the two apart

The formulation is falsifiable, which is its strength. It describes one move, and you can check whether the move is being made.

Ask whether the response engages the words. A person answering in good faith disputes what was said, or explains it, or says where they think the line sits. A person using the formulation goes to your motive instead, and typically to the motive of an unnamed group standing behind you.

Ask whether it is available to be wrong. If the reply covers every possible complaint made by anyone at any time, it is a rule about people, not a response to this case.

And notice when the answer runs the other way. In October 2020 the Equality and Human Rights Commission found the Labour Party liable for unlawful harassment through the conduct of two individuals, conduct that included suggesting complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears. One of the two was Ken Livingstone. The move named after him was later treated by a statutory regulator as harassment in his own case.

The lines

“I haven’t said criticism of Israel is antisemitic. I said this sentence was. Tell me what you think it means.”

“You’re answering a question about what was said with a claim about why I said it. I can’t check that and neither can you.”

“What would an antisemitic statement about Israel look like, in your view? If nothing qualifies, we’re not disagreeing about this case.”

“I’ll take the point that the charge gets misused. The man who wrote the definition says so too. Now come back to the sentence.”

“You accept that racism can be structural and unintended. Why is this the one prejudice where I have to prove what’s in your heart?”

Where this backfires. Naming a rhetorical move in front of an audience can read as a debating trick, especially if you sound pleased about it. Use the name once, explain what it means in plain words, and return to the words that were said. And if the person in front of you has genuinely been through a process that treated an accusation as a verdict, leading with this will confirm everything they already believe about you. Ask what happened to them first. You lose nothing by listening, and the argument is still there afterwards.