The (anti-Semitic figure of the) “Jew” as the threat to the organic order of a society, as the element which brings into it from the outside corruption and decay, is a fetish whose function is to mask the fact that antagonism does not come from the outside but is immanent to every class society. Anti-Semitism “reifies” (embodies in a particular group of people) the inherent social antagonism: it treats “Jews” as the Thing which, from outside, intrudes into the social body and disturbs its balance. What happens in the passage from the position of class struggle to Fascist anti-Semitism is not just the replacement of one figure of the enemy (bourgeoisie, the ruling class) with another (Jews); the logic of the struggle is totally different. In class struggle, the classes themselves are caught in the antagonism inherent to social structure, while the Jew is a foreign intruder who causes social antagonism, so that all we need in order to restore social harmony, according to Fascist anti-Semitism, is to annihilate Jews.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK ON THE RACIST CONSTRUCTION OF WHAT OTHERS ARE LIKE http://ift.tt/2eYJzAJ