The New Dreyfus Affair
One of the most disturbing and revealing features of the explosion of antisemitism since October 7 is how completely it has divided every layer of society—cutting across universities, media, political parties, cultural institutions, and even families. What we are witnessing is not just the return of an old prejudice but something far more profound: the transformation of antisemitism into a structuring principle of political allegiance, social belonging, and public morality.
In many ways, this recalls the Dreyfus Affair in late 19th-century France—a moment Hannah Arendt identified as a turning point when antisemitism became more than a social bias; it was consciously organized and weaponized as a political force. Then, as now, every institution took sides. Then, as now, the question of justice for Jews became inseparable from larger questions about the meaning of the nation, the future of democracy, and the nature of truth itself. And then, as now, mobs flooded the streets, convinced they were not perpetuating hatred but participating in a great collective awakening—a moral reckoning that justified irrationality, conspiracy, and the ritual humiliation of a scapegoated people.
Arendt also saw how the Dreyfus Affair exposed the deep fragility of liberal societies—how their professed ideals of justice and equality collapsed when confronted with the organized power of mass resentment. Bourgeois liberalism, confident in its universal values, was ultimately unable to defend them against the emotional power of conspiracy and scapegoating. Truth itself became irrelevant, replaced by ideological narratives that no amount of evidence could penetrate.
And the comparison goes further. Just as the Dreyfus Affair centered on a false accusation and a show trial meant to symbolize a broader political struggle, so too today we see Israel subjected to false and ideologically driven prosecutions. The International Court of Justice entertains baseless charges of “genocide,” while the International Criminal Court accuses Israel’s leaders of “intentional starvation”—accusations entirely detached from the complex facts on the ground but perfectly suited to sustain the narrative of Jewish criminality. The trial is staged; the verdict is predetermined; the truth is irrelevant.
Just as the Dreyfus Affair exposed how fragile the Enlightenment’s promises really were, the events we are living through now reveal the hollowness of our so-called “progressive” values—values that collapse into silence or outright hostility when confronted with the stubborn reality of Jewish existence and sovereignty.
