Visual Antisemitism Across Europe During the Gaza War
Abstract
This chapter examines how antisemitism is visually expressed in public space in Europe against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Drawing upon a qualitative analysis of publicly documented incidents, it focuses on offline, material, and symbolic acts such as graffiti, paint attacks, stickers, and the defacement or removal of memorials. The study analyses these incidents as communicative interventions that embed antisemitic meaning into everyday environments through repetition, placement, and symbolic association. The analysis identifies four recurring visual strategies: red symbolism and implied violence; Nazi symbolism and Holocaust inversion; desecration and overwriting of Jewish memory; and the marking and targeting of Jewish space. Together, these themes demonstrate how contemporary antisemitism operates offline by creating false and dangerous equivalences between European Jews and the actions of the Israeli state, thereby normalising hostility within shared public spaces. Rather than relying on explicit declarations of hatred, these visual practices often function through implication, collapsing distinctions between Jewish identity and geopolitical conflict. By foregrounding these visual strategies and their cumulative effects, the chapter contributes to a broader understanding of antisemitism as a historically adaptive form of political hostility that becomes normalised through everyday visual exposure.
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