White nationalism is anti-Semitic

The argument

This position holds that the Jewish people are not aligned with white identity, and it argues the point from the content of that identity as its most committed adherents define it. A defining feature of white nationalism is distrust and hatred for the Jewish people, along with many other marginalized people of color. Because a large part of nationalistic white identity is hatred for the Jewish people, the argument runs, Jewish people can't be white — a person cannot align themselves with a group that will not accept them, and whiteness in this account is not a description someone can simply claim for themselves. The reasoning turns on how white nationalists have defined the category. They have created the concept of "white" as a culture instead of a race, and this white culture takes religion as well as ethnicity into account. Once religion is written into the definition, the boundary stops tracking appearance or ancestry: white nationalists discriminate against anyone who practices Judaism, and therefore, on their own definition, anyone who practices Judaism cannot be white. Public demonstrations are cited as evidence that this is the operative definition rather than a marginal one. Recently, a protest in Charlottesville cemented the Jewish identity as non-white: white nationalist protesters held banners with hateful statements such as "Jews are Satan's children" and chanted "Jews will not replace us". Proponents of this position argue that this sentiment has always been at the heart of white identity, and that it clearly displays where the Jewish people stand in regard to race. On this reading the question is settled not by how Jewish people look or how they describe themselves, but by the fact that the group which defines whiteness has never counted them within it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Many believe that because there are Jews who align themselves with white nationalism, Jews can therefore be white. Stephen Miller, White House advisor, is one such member. As a strict, anti-immigration focused, man of european descent, Miller is able to identify as both jewish and white.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise lets the most extreme fringe define the category. Whiteness as used in censuses, in law and in ordinary social life is not the property of white nationalists, and defining it by their creed grants them authority over a classification most people apply quite differently. [Rejecting P2] Belonging to a social category does not require acceptance by its most hostile members. Antisemites also reject Jews as neighbours and colleagues without that settling whether Jews are neighbours or colleagues, and on this test any group could be defined out of any category by a sufficiently determined enemy. [Rejecting P3] What the premise documents is how one movement classifies people, which is a fact about that movement. The opposing position points to Jews who are counted as, and identify as, white — including within anti-immigration politics — and the premise's rule has no room for them.