New anti-Semitism is the concept of an international resurgence of anti-Jewish incidents and attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of anti-Semitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse, which is held to be associated with certain left-wing political views. Chesler, Phyllis. The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, Jossey-Bass, 2003, pp. 158-159, 181 Kinsella, Warren. The New anti-Semitism, accessed March 5, 2006 Jews predict record level of hate attacks: Militant Islamic media accused of stirring up new wave of anti-semitism, The Guardian, August 8, 2004. Endelman, Todd M. "Antisemitism in Western Europe Today" in Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World. University of Toronto Press, 2005, pp. 65-79 Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, retrieved April 22, 2006
The adjective "new" is used to distinguish this form of anti-Semitism from the older, usually right-wing form. The term was used as early as 1974, but entered common usage to refer to a wave of anti-Semitism that escalated, particularly in Western Europe, after the Second Intifada in 2000, the failure of the Oslo accords, and the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Taguieff, Pierre-André. Rising From the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe. Ivan R. Dee, 2004. ISBN 1566635713 Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004. ISBN 0812972031
Proponents of the concept argue that anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and opposition to the policies of the government of Israel are often either coupled with anti-Semitism or constitute disguised anti-Semitism. Critics of the concept argue that it serves to equate legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and that it is sometimes used to silence debate. Klug, Brian. The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism. The Nation, posted January 15, 2004 (February 2, 2004 issue), accessed January 9, 2006.
Mark Strauss of Foreign Policy has described the new anti-Semitism as "a kaleidoscope of old hatreds shattered and rearranged into random patterns at once familiar and strange," the "medieval image of the 'Christ-killing' Jew resurrected on the editorial pages of cosmopolitan European newspapers. It is the International Red Cross and Red Crescent refusing to put the Star of David on their ambulances ... It is neo-Nazis donning checkered Palestinian kaffiyehs and Palestinians lining up to buy copies of Mein Kampf". Strauss, Mark. "Antiglobalism's Jewish Problem" in Rosenbaum, Ron (ed). Those who forget the past: The Question of Anti-Semitism, Random House 2004, p 272.
It comes simultaneously from three directions, according to Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth: "first, a radicalized Islamist youth inflamed by extremist rhetoric; second, a left-wing anti-American cognitive élite with strong representation in the European media; third, a resurgent far right, as anti-Muslim as it is anti-Jewish." Sacks, Jonathan. "The New Antisemitism", Ha'aretz, September 6, 2002.
Jack Fischel, chair of the history department at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, describes the new anti-Semitism as stemming from an "unprecedented coalition" of enemies, "an unlikely alliance of leftists, vociferously opposed to the policies of Israel, and right-wing anti-Semites, committed to the destruction of Israel, were joined by millions of Muslims, including Arabs, who immigrated to Europe from North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and who brought with them their hatred of Israel in particular and of Jews in general." It is this new political alignment that "makes the 'new' anti-Semitism unique, an unprecedented configuration of forces whose militant, uncompromising support for the Palestinians makes little distinction between Israelis and Jews." Fischel, Jack R. [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2005/summer/fischel-new-anti-semitism/ "The New Anti-Semitism", The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 2005, pp. 225-234.
Fischel cites the French philosopher and political scientist Pierre-André Taguieff who argues, in his Rising From the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe (2002), that over the last 30 years, Judenhass based on racism and nationalism has been replaced by a new form of it based on anti-racism and anti-nationalism, wherein "among the left, Israel has come to personify the pre-eminent apartheid state." Fischel, Jack R. "The New Anti-Semitism", The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 2005, pp. 225-234, citing Taguieff, Pierre-André. Rising From the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe, 2002. Ivan R. Dee.
Taguieff argues that traditional anti-Jewish rhetoric and slogans have been merged into anti-Zionist rhetoric to create a syllogism:
Fischel argues that the widespread dissemination of these anti-Zionist arguments has resonated with intellectuals in France and Germany, both countries with large Muslim populations. By representing Zionism as evil, "an anti-Jewish vision of the world reconstituted itself in the second half of the 20th century that replicates the vicious stereotypes about Jews which laid the propagandistic groundwork for the Holocaust."
Because the concept is new, there are no indices of measurement, according to Irwin Cotler, Canada's former Minister of Justice. Cotler, Irwin. "Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness", FrontPageMagazine.com, February 16, 2004. Cotler defines classical anti-Semitism as "the discrimination against, or denial of, the right of Jews to live as equal members of a free society," the focus of which is discrimination against Jews as individuals. He argues that the new anti-Semitism, by contrast, "involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations"; that is, discrimination against Jews as a people. Anti-Semitism has expanded, in his view, from hatred of Jews (classical anti-Semitism) to hatred of Jewish national aspirations (new anti-Semitism). The latter is harder to measure because the usual indices of measurement used by governments to detect discrimination — standard of living, housing, health, and employment — are useful only in measuring discrimination against individuals. Because it is hard to measure, it is harder to show convincingly that the concept is a valid one.
However, Klug argues that this is a new outbreak of old anti-Semitism, not the emergence of a new phenomenon. He writes that proponents of the concept see an "organizing principle" that allows them to formulate a new concept, but Klug argues that it is only in terms of this concept that many of the examples cited in evidence of it count as examples in the first place. That is, the creation of the concept may be based on a circular argument or tautology.
What puts the "new" into "new anti-Semitism," writes Klug, is anti-Zionism. The proponents of new anti-Semitism vary in what they regard as legitimate criticism of Zionism or Israel, but the line between "fair and foul" tends to be drawn in such a way, argues Klug, that it rules out criticism "that goes much beyond a gentle rap across the government's knuckles or finger-wagging at the laws of the land." If most anti-Zionist arguments do cross the line, and if crossing the line is anti-Semitic, it follows that most attacks on Israel are anti-Semitic, as is any attack on a Jewish target that is inspired by the line that has been crossed. This is compelling logic, writes Klug, but the effect of it is "to produce, at a stroke, a quantum leap in the amount of anti-Semitism worldwide, if not a veritable 'war against the Jews'," given how much controversy Israel currently inspires. Klug, Brian. [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040202&s=klug The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism. The Nation, February 2, 2004, accessed January 9, 2006, p.2.
As compelling as the argument is, he argues that it is invalid, because it conflates the Jewish state with the Jewish people. "In fact," he writes, "Israel is one thing, Jewry another. Accordingly, anti-Zionism is one thing, anti-Semitism another." Klug, Brian. The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism. The Nation, February 2, 2004, accessed January 9, 2006, p.3.Zipperstein writes that, increasingly, a belief in the State of Israel's responsibility for the Arab-Israeli conflict is "part of what a reasonably informed, progressive, decent person thinks." Zipperstein, Steven. "Historical Reflections of Contemporary Antisemitism" in Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World, p. 53. He argues that the wild conspiracy theories about Jews and the disproportionate focus on criticism of Israel is not the result of new anti-Semitism, or even classical anti-Semitism, but is simply a "by-product of the wildly disproportionate responses that mark the post-September 11 world." Zipperstein, Steven. "Historical Reflections of Contemporary Antisemitism" in Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World, p. 60.
He writes that anti-Semitism is "unprovoked, irrational hostility" — repeating the tongue-in-cheek definition that it involves "hating Jews more than is absolutely necessary." Zipperstein, Steven. "Historical Reflections of Contemporary Antisemitism" in Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World, p. 55. He argues that, for example, the ancient dislike of Jews by Christians was often grounded, and not irrational; for example, when it was simply a competition between two monotheistic faiths. It is the question of whether criticism of Israel is unprovoked and irrational that goes to the heart of whether the current wave of hostility toward the Jewish state counts as anti-Semitism, new or old.
Jews are highly visible in the Western world, he writes, because of their social mobility, professions, education, and because of the importance of Judaism to Christianity, and are therefore widely regarded as influential beyond their numbers. However, he argues that this disproportionate focus on Jews can exist without hatred, and without irrational bias. The similarly disproportionate focus on Israel, which is now openly criticized in harsh and disrespectful terms — famously referred to as "a shitty little country" in December 2001 by Daniel Bernard, France's ambassador to England — is a consequence of a simplistic philosophy of good versus evil in public affairs, but is one that is "devoid of anti-Jewish bias." Criticism of Israel, and even prejudice against Israel, "however unsettling and wrong-headed," is not the same, he argues, as anti-Semitism.
Notwithstanding that the term is a blunt instrument, Bauer writes that there have been three waves of anti-Semitism since 1945 — 1958-60; 1968-1972; and 1987-1992 — and that we are now experiencing the fourth, which he estimates started in 1999 or 2000. Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 2. Each wave has had different causes, some of them to do with economic downturns. The common ground, however, has been "an underlying latency of anti-Semitism that waits to explode when aroused by some outside crisis." Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 4.
Bauer notes that the two crises that led to the post-1945 waves of anti-Semitism are the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. The Holocaust created an unease about Jews, he writes, especially in Europe, where people "have to live with six million ghosts, created by a deadly mutation of European culture." He quotes the saying that the Europeans cannot forgive the Jews for Auschwitz. "Periods of self accusation and beating of breasts alternate with periods in which everything is done to turn the Jews into perpetrators, nowadays even Nazis, in order to liberate the heirs of European culture from the burden of genocide." Although a feeling of relief accompanied the creation of Israel, because Europeans no longer had to deal with the Jews, at the same time, he argues, it turned the Jews from victims into perpetrators.
Bauer argues that the current Arab-Israeli conflict "provideample material for an antisemitism that sees itself as anti-Zionist." Anti-Zionism need not be anti-Semitic, "but only if one says that all national movements are evil, and all national states should be abolished. But if one says that the Fijians have the right to independence, and so do the Malays or the Bolivians, but the Jews have no such right, then one is anti-Jewish, and as one singles out the Jews for nationalistic reasons, one is anti-Semitic, with an attendant strong suspicion of being racist." Citing Irwin Cotler, Bauer writes that "the status of the collective Jew, that is Israel, is akin to the status of the individual Jew in the Middle Ages," Bauer, Yehuda. [http://humwww.ucsc.edu/jewishstudies/docs/YBauerLecture.pdf "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 5. a view echoed by Robert Wistrich, Neuberger Professor of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of its International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism:
Whether the assault comes from the far Left or Right, from liberals or fundamentalists, its focus now is above all the collective Jew embodied in the State of Israel. Despite the incessant hairsplitting over the need to separate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, this has in recent decades become a distinction without a meaningful difference. Whatever theoretical contortions one may indulge in, the State of Israel is a Jewish state. Whoever wants to defame or destroy it, openly or through policies that entail nothing else but such destruction, is in effect practicing the Jew-hatred of yesteryear, whatever their self-proclaimed intentions." Wistrich, Robert. "The old-new anti-semitism", The National Interest, Summer 2003.Although the Arab-Israeli conflict has produced real tragedy for the Palestinian people, Bauer suggests that Western latent anti-Semitism has fastened onto that tragedy in order to brand the Jews as mass murderers and Nazis as a way of solving the West's own psychological problems caused by the Holocaust. "Facts do not matter there," he writes, arguing that the number of Palestinians killed between the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2003 (when he was writing) was around 2,000, which is one sixth of the daily number of Jews shipped to Auschwitz from Hungary in the spring of 1944. Bearing these figures in mind, "kind of simplistic comparison becomes totally ridiculous," he argues. Bauer, Yehuda. [http://humwww.ucsc.edu/jewishstudies/docs/YBauerLecture.pdf "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 6.
Bauer describes the fourth wave of anti-Semitism in the West as an upper-middle class, intellectual phenomenon, "widespread in the media, in universities, and in well-manicured circles." He also refers to French ambassador to Britain Daniel Bernard's comment in December 2001 that Israel is a "shitty little country," arguing that it was not the comment itself that was shocking, but the ease with which the ambassador felt able to say it during a well-heeled cocktail party.
Bauer regards this wave of anti-Semitism as dangerous, not because of Western attitudes, but because of the addition of Islamism. He identifies Islamism as one of three major ideologies to have emerged during the 20th century, alongside Soviet Communism and National Socialism, Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 13. and argues that all three saw or see the Jews as a main enemy. Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 14. The language used about Jews by the Muslim media is, he says, "clearly and unmistakably genocidal," representing the ideology of Nazism "in a different dress." Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 15. He cites a television program broadcast on May 2, 2002 on the Egyptian television station IQRAA, financed by Saudi Arabia, during which a three-year-old girl was asked whether she knew who the Jews were and whether she liked them. She replied that she did not like them, because "they are monkeys and swine ... and also because they tried to poison the wife of our prophet." Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 8. Bauer writes that 1.2 billion Muslims are being exposed to these teachings, and as such, this fourth wave of anti-Semitism is a "genocidal threat to the Jewish people," Bauer, Yehuda. "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 17. concluding: "have been in that scenario before. We must not repeat past mistakes." Bauer, Yehuda. [http://humwww.ucsc.edu/jewishstudies/docs/YBauerLecture.pdf "Problems of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" (pdf), 2003, p 20.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates writes in his article "Zog Ate My Brains" that, during the early 1980s, isolationists on the far right, in the United States and in Europe, began to make overtures to anti-war activists on the left to join forces against government policies in areas where they shared concerns, Berlet, Chip. "ZOG Ate My Brains", New Internationalist, October 2004. which mainly centered around opposition to U.S. military intervention overseas, privacy rights and civil liberties, and support for Israel. Berlet, Chip. "Right woos Left", Publiceye.org, December 20, 1990; revised February 22, 1994, revised again 1999. Berlet writes that, as they interacted, some of the classic right-wing anti-Semitic scapegoating conspiracy theories began to seep into progressive circles, including stories about how a "New World Order", also called the "Shadow Government," or "The Octopus," was manipulating world governments. Berlet writes that anti-Semitic conspiracism Berlet does not himself use the expression "new anti-Semitism"; nor does he comment on whether he believes the current wave of anti-Semitism should be regarded as a new phenomenon or not. was "peddled aggressively" by right-wing groups, and that the left adopted and adapted the rhetoric, which Berlet argues was made possible by the left's lack of knowledge of the "complex history, different forms, and multiple tactics of fascism ... * the use of scapegoating, reductionist and simplistic solutions, demagoguery, and a conspiracy theory of history."
Toward the end of 1990 and in early 1991, as the movement against the Gulf War began to build, a number of far-right and anti-Semitic groups sought out alliances with liberal, progressive, and left-wing anti-war coalitions, who began to speak openly about a "Jewish lobby" that was encouraging the United States to invade the Middle East, Berlet writes: "It is important to recognize that as a whole the antiwar movement overwhelmingly rejected these overtures by the political right, while recognizing that the attempt reflected a larger ongoing problem. It certainly was a problem for individuals like Wisconsin antiwar activist Alan Ruff who appeared on a panel discussing the pros and cons of the Gulf War in the town of Verona. Also on the panel in the antiwar camp was another local activist Emmanuel Branch. "Suddenly I heard Branch saying the war the result of a Zionist banking conspiracy," explains Ruff. "I found myself squeezed between pro-war hawks and this anti-Jewish nut, it destroyed the ability of those of us who opposed the war to make our point." A number of persons report that during Gulf War protests, they heard persons attempting to turn legitimate criticism of U.S. intervention in Iraq, or objections to pressure for invasion by some pro-Israel lobbies, into a blanket indictment of all Jews, which is a classic form of bigotry." (Berlet, Chip. "Right woos Left: Sowing confusion", Publiceye.org, December 20, 1990; revised February 22, 1994, revised again 1999.) an idea that morphed into conspiracy theories about a "Zionist-occupied government" (ZOG) Berlet reports that the right-wing use of anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-Semitism can be seen in a 1981 issue of Spotlight, published by the neo-Nazi Liberty Lobby: "A brazen attempt by influential "Israel-firsters" in the policy echelons of the Reagan administration to extend their control to the day-to-day espionage and covert-action operations of the CIA was the hidden source of the controversy and scandals that shook the U.S. intelligence establishment this summer. The dual loyalists ... have long wanted to grab a hand in the on-the-spot "field control" of the CIA's worldwide clandestine services. They want this control, not just for themselves, but on behalf of the Mossad, Israel's terrorist secret police. (Spotlight, August 24, 1981, cited in Berlet, Chip. "Right woos Left", Publiceye.org, December 20, 1990; revised February 22, 1994, revised again 1999.) which Berlet writes is the modern incarnation of the anti-Semitic hoax, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, widely regarded as the most influential piece of anti-Semitic literature of modern times. Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy'', University of California Press, 2003; this edition 2006, p. 145.
Political scientist George Michael of the University of Virginia cites as an example of the new alliance the March 2001 conference in Beirut, Lebanon on "Revisionism and Zionism," organized by the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust-denial group, and a Swiss group, Verité et Justice, where there was a plan to present lectures in English, French, and Arabic. The Lebanese government cancelled the conference after protests from Jewish groups and the American government, but a smaller meeting was held in May 2001 in Amman, Jordan. Michael, George. The Enemy of my Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006, p.156. The Islamist group, Hamas, the majority party of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has also engaged in Holocaust denial, calling the Holocaust "an alleged and invented story with no basis," which "reveals the racist Zionist face," Paz, Reuven. "Palestinian Holocaust Denial", Washington Institute Peace Watch, NO. 255, April 21, 2000. and Edward Said warned of a "nasty, creeping wave of anti-Semitism" insinuating itself into Palestinian politics, writing that the "notion that the Jews never suffered and that the Holocaust is an obfuscatory confection ... is one that is acquiring too much, far too much, currency. Said, Edward. "A Desolation and They Called It Peace," in Rosenbaum, Ron. Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism. Random House, 2004, p. 518. Michael writes that the statements by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust is a "myth" and that Israel should be "wiped off the map" were met with public approval from Hamas, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, American white supremacist David Duke, and the Institute for Historical Review. Michael, George. The Enemy of my Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right''. University Press of Kansas, 2006, p.309.
Michael writes that Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and according to Michael "arguably the most prominent figure in the American extreme right," Michael, George. The Enemy of my Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006, p.189.has been at the forefront of efforts to foster cooperation between the extreme right and the Islamic world, in what Michael calls a "cross-fertilization of rhetoric" against Zionism, Jews, and Israel. Duke presented two lectures in Bahrain in 2002 entitled "The Global Struggle against Zionism," and "Israeli Involvement in September 11," after being invited by the Discover Islam Center, an Islamist group that admired the anti-Semitic rhetoric on Duke's website. Duke's article, "The World's Most Dangerous Terrorist," referring to Ariel Sharon, was published in Arab News, a Saudi newspaper, and he has appeared on al-Jazeera's Without Borders. Michael, George. The Enemy of my Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006, p.161. Duke told Michael: "The ADL issued a protest to Bahrain * 'How can they have a white supremacist in Bahrain?' But the people in Bahrain understand very well that I am not a white supremacist and that I am a European American who wants to preserve my heritage ... but the real danger to all heritages is Jewish supremacism ..." Michael, George. The Enemy of my Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006, p.162.
In November 2005, Duke addressed a rally in Syria, saying "It saddens my heart to tell you that part of my country is occupied by Zionists, just as part of your country, the Golan Heights, is occupied by Zionists. occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government ... It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington D.C. and New York and London and many other capitals of the world. Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom." HaLevi, Ezra. [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=93809 "David Duke in Syria: Zionists Occupy Washington, NY and London", Arutz Sheva, November 29, 2005. The clip can be viewed here. In an interview with Syrian television, Duke said that "Jewish supremacists" are in control of the U.S. government and that "Israel makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate." "American White Supremacist David Duke: Israel Makes the Nazi State Look Very Moderate", interview with David Duke on Syrian television, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), November 25, 2005. The clip can be viewed here.
The anti-Semitic campaign of 1948-1953 against so-called "rootless cosmopolitans," destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the fabrication of the "Doctors' plot," the rise of "Zionology" and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were officially carried out under the banner of "anti-Zionism," but the use of this term could not obscure the anti-Semitic content of these campaigns, and by the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West and domestically. See also: Jackson-Vanik amendment, Refusenik, Pamyat.
Schoenfeld writes that "enemies of the Jewish state have made little distinction between Judaism and Zionism," and that "much of the new antisemitism is spearheaded and endorsed by some Jews," in that the "antisemitic Left in the United States is largely a Jewish contingent." He describes radical activists such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, and Jewish progressives such as Rabbi Michael Lerner, Susannah Heschel, and Marc Ellis, as "preening left-wing Jews," who he says tacitly promote anti-Semitism with their one-sided support of the Palestinians. Jack Fischel writes that the same criticism was made of Tony Judt, when in an article published in The New York Review of Books, he called for an end to Israel as a Jewish homeland. Schoenfeld identifies these ideas as "Jewish self-hatred," writing that it can be explained in "the murky waters of the psychosocial, as individual Jews try to deflect the poisonous arrows coming at their fellow Jews from larger hostile forces." Schoenfeld is particularly critical of the British left, citing the British media's response to the 2002 Battle of Jenin, where Israel was falsely accused of having caused a "massacre" — see below — and the refusal to give grants to Israeli academics attending a British university, even though the academics were associated with the Israeli peace movement.
Those who argue in favor of the centrality of the left to the new anti-Semitism say that anti-Zionism may function as a proxy for anti-Semitism, allowing a socially acceptable opposition to the Israeli state to be espoused, rather than a socially unacceptable religious or ethnic hatred. At the same time, genuine grievances against Israel stemming from the Arab-Israeli conflict may become anti-Semitic in character and may manifest themselves as hostility toward Jews in general. Daniel Lazare wrote, in a paraphrase of August Bebel, that: "Anti-Semitism is the anti-Zionism of fools ...," an allusion to Bebel's famous remark, "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools." (Lazare, Daniel. "The Chosen People", The Nation, December 19, 2005, p.36, accessed January 8, 2005.) Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has said: "The harsh but un-deniable truth is this: what some like to call anti-Zionism is, in reality, anti-Semitism — always, everywhere, and for all time ... Therefore, anti-Zionism is not a politically legitimate point of view but rather an expression of bigotry and hatred." (Klug, Brian. "The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism". The Nation, February 2, 2004) Foxman argues that it is anti-Semitic to criticize the occupation by the Jews of the West Bank if one does not also criticize the "Indian Hindus and their occupation of Muslim Kashmir." (Foxman, Abraham H. New Excuses, Old Hatred: Worldwide Anti-Semitism In Wake Of 9/11. Speech given before the ADL's Executive Committee, Palm Beach, Florida, February 8, 2002, accessed January 3, 2006) The Euston Manifesto, an April 2006 declaration of principles initiated by a group of left-wing British academics, journalists, and activists, states that: "Anti-Zionism" has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the Left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups. Amongst educated and affluent people are to be found individuals unembarrassed to claim that the Iraq war was fought on behalf of Jewish interests, or to make other 'polite' and subtle allusions to the harmful effect of Jewish influence in international or national politics — remarks of a kind that for more than fifty years after the Holocaust no one would have been able to make without publicly disgracing themselves. "The Euston Manifesto", March 29, 2006.
French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin commissioned a report on racism and anti-Semitism in France, published in October 2004, from Jean-Christophe Rufin, president of Action Against Hunger and former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières, in which Rufin challenges the perception that the new anti-Semitism in France comes exclusively from North African immigrant communities and the far right. "French concern about race attacks", BBC News, October 2004. "France: International Religious Freedom Report 2005", U.S. Department of State. Rufin writes that "*he new anti-Semitism appears more heterogeneous," and identifies what he calls a new and "subtle" form of anti-Semitism in "radical anti-Zionism" as expressed by far-left and anti-globalization groups, in which criticism of Jews and Israel is used as a pretext to "legitimize the armed Palestinian conflict." Rufin, Jean-Christophe. "Chantier sur la lutte contre le racisms et l'antisemitisme," October 19, 2004. Bryant, Elizabeth. "France stung by new report on anti-Semitism," United Press International, October 20, 2004. Rufin recommended criminalizing what he describes as unfounded criticism of Israel by calling it racist or labeling it as an apartheid state. He also recommended video surveillance of Jewish cemeteries; clearer statistical databases that allow domestic and international comparisons of anti-Semitic attacks; and heightened vigilance of Internet sites. (Rufin, Jean-Christophe. "Chantier sur la lutte contre le racisms et l'antisemitisme," October 19, 2004) Norman G. Finkelstein, a vocal critic of the concept of new anti-Semitism, described the recommendation to criminalize certain criticisms of Israel as "truly terrifying", reflecting "a totalitarian cast of mind" with an "attendant stigmatizing of dissent as a disease that must be wiped out by the state." (Norman G. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005, p. 49) British writer Tariq Ali has argued against the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, writing that the campaign against "the supposed new 'anti-semitism'" in modern Europe is in effect a "cynical ploy on the part of the Israeli Government to seal off the Zionist state from any criticism of its regular and consistent brutality against the Palestinians." Ali, Tariq. "Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and Palestine", Counterpunch, March 4, 2004, first published in il manifesto, February 26, 2004. Ali argues that the new anti-Semitism is, in fact, "Zionist blackmail," and that Israel, far from being a victim, is "the strongest state in the region. It possesses real, not imaginary, weapons of mass destruction. It possesses more tanks and bomber jets and pilots than the rest of the Arab world put together. To say that the Zionist state is threatened by any Arab country is pure demagogy." Beaumont, Peter. "The new anti-semitism?", The Observer, February 17, 2002.
Earl Raab, founding director of the Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University writes that "is a new surge of antisemitism in the world, and much prejudice against Israel is driven by such antisemitism," but argues that "charges of antisemitism based on anti-Israel remarks alone have proven to lack credibility in most circles," and that "a grave educational misdirection is imbedded in formulations suggesting that if we somehow get rid of antisemitism, we will get rid of anti-Israelism." Prejudice against Israel, he writes, while it may be a "serious breach of morality and good sense," is not the same as anti-Semitism. [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_4_51/ai_106730943 Earl Raab, "Antisemitism, anti-Israelism, anti-Americanism", Judaism, Fall 2002.
Peter Beaumont, writing in The Observer, argues that, although proponents of the concept of the new anti-Semitism agree that it appeared to start, or gain momentum, around the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, they refuse to accept that anti-Israel or anti-Zionist feeling may be a justifiably critical response to Israel's handling of the uprising. He writes that "Israel's brutal response to the often equally reprehensible anti-Israeli Palestinian violence of the intifada has produced one of the most vigorous media critiques of Israel's policies in the European media in a generation. The reply to this criticism, say those most vocal in reporting the existence of the new anti-Semitism, particularly in the Israeli press, is devastating in its simplicity: criticise Israel, and you are an anti-Semite just as surely as if you were throwing paint at a synagogue in Paris." Israel cannot be declared out of bounds, writes Beaumont, for fear of invoking Europe's "last great taboo — the fear of being declared an anti-Semite."
Jeffrey Goldberg, Middle East correspondent of The New Yorker, writes that those who repudiate the conspiracy theories may nevertheless blame Israel for "creating an atmosphere of despair which leads to terrorism." Goldberg, Jeffrey. "Behind Mubarak," in Rosenbaum, Ron (ed). Those who forget the past: The Question of Anti-Semitism, Random House 2004, p 541.
Proponents argue that one of the political arenas in which these new political alliances produce new anti-Semitism is on university campuses, particularly in Europe, but also in North America, where Jewish student organizations clash with left-wing pro-Palestinian groups and Muslim groups.
Luciana Berger, a Jewish student in the United Kingdom, who was National Executive Committee member of the British National Union of Students (NUS) and co-convener of the NUS Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism Campaign, resigned after anti-Semitic leaflets were distributed at an NUS conference. Curtis, Polly. "Jewish NUS officials resign over anti-semitism row", The Guardian, April 12, 2005. Accessed 7 Jan 2006. She told The Guardian that "serious complaints were lodged about anti-Semitic comments made by an NUS member in a public meeting. These complaints were ignored, with no official response or action. A few months ago, when it was (incorrectly) rumoured that I, a Jewish student, was standing for the NUS presidency, anti-Semitic whispers rocked the NUS. And NEC members failed to condemn a comment made recently at the SOAS Students' Union in London that burning down a synagogue is a rational act. Berger, Luciana. "Why I had to resign", The Guardian, April 15, 2005. Accessed January 7, 2006. In September 2005, an independent report commissioned in the wake of the resignations, after clearing the NUS of allegations of anti-Semitism, concluded "Having looked at the background to the incidents there were clearly occasions when matters could have been dealt with more quickly, or more efficiently, but do not demonstrate apathy to anti-semitism." (Curtis, Polly. "NUS launches anti-semitism inquiry", The Guardian, May 20, 2005. Accessed January 7, 2006) The report from human relations consultant Marco Henry criticized the NUS as being slow to react to criticism and said that it should develop procedures for dealing with allegations of discrimination. (Curtis, Polly. NUS cleared of anti-semitism claims. The Guardian, September 20, 2005. Accessed January 7, 2006.)
Violent incidents have been recorded by the Anti-Defamation League (ALD) on college campuses across the U.S. Anti-Defamation League, "Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Events on Campus", May 14, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006. An April 9, 2002 pro-Palestinian rally by the Muslim Student Association at San Francisco State University resurrected the 900-year old blood libel — that Jews slaughter gentile children and use their blood to bake matzos for Passover — when the students displayed posters bearing a picture of soup cans reading "Made in Israel" on the label, and listing the contents as "Palestinian Children Meat," and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as the manufacturer. The can carried an image of a baby with its stomach sliced open, and the words "slaughtered according to Jewish Rites under American license." Letter from SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan to California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed, SFSU website, July 25, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006. Richman, Josh. "ADL: Antisemitic Incidents Soar in N. California", The Forward, April 4, 2003, accessed January 9, 2006.
A month later, according to the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, a pro-Israel rally held by 30 Jewish students saw pro-Palestinian students, armed with whistles and bull horns, corner the Jewish students, spit on them, and shout: "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job," "Fuck the Jews," "Get out or we will kill you," "Die racist pigs," and "Go back to Russia, Jews." "The Battle for the American Campus", Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, August 1, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006. In covering the story about the campus unrest at SFSU, journalist Camille T. Taiara, a writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian blamed pro-Israeli demonstrators for trying to suppress opposition to the policies of the Israeli government. (Taiara, Camille T. State of unrest. San Francisco Bay Guardian, July 10, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006) A cinder block was thrown through the glass doors of UC Berkeley's Hillel building on Passover; two Orthodox Jews were beaten one block from the UC Berkeley campus; anti-Zionist graffiti appeared on the sidewalks, garbage cans and buildings nearby; students emerging from the university's synagogue were egged; and death threats were received. Supporters of David Duke have allegedly distributed flyers protesting "Israeli genocide" on the University of California at San Diego campus, and Holocaust denier Bradley R. Smith ran an opinion piece in the Berkeley student newspaper condemning Israel's "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians.
Laurie Zoloth, former director of the Jewish Studies Program at San Francisco State University, has written of her distress at having to walk across campus every day past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters equating Zionism with racism and Jews with Nazis, turning the campus into a "Weimar Republic with brownshirts you cannot control." Zoloth, Laurie. "Fear and Loathing at San Francisco State" in Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004, pp. 1-3. Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism at New York University, has written how two students of his wondered whether it was true that 4,000 Jews had failed to show up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. "The worst crackpot notions that circulate around the Middle East are also roaming around America," he writes, "and if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. Students!" Gitlin, Todd. "The Rough Beast Returns" in Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004, p. 264.
In Canada, a September 2002 speech by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University in Montreal had to be cancelled after protestors smashed furniture and windows before it began. Manfred Gerstenfeld writes that the situation at Concordia was so tense that the university had to impose a three-month moratorium on all Middle East related events in 2002, and a Montreal judge issued an injunction against a lecture by left-wing parliamentarian Svend Robinson. An advertisement in the Globe and Mail on December 17, 2002, signed by 100 people, said that Canadian Jewish students are so traumatized by on-campus anti-Semitism that they dare not speak out in support of Israel or Judaism. Gerstenfeld, Manfred. "The Academic Boycott Against Israel", Jewish Political Studies Review 15:3-4 (Fall 2003).
In France, Patrick Klugman, President of the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), wrote in Le Figaro:
On some university campuses like Nanterre, Villetaneuse and Jussieu, the climate has become very difficult for Jews. In the name of the Palestinian cause, they are castigated as if they were Israeli soldiers! We hear "death to the Jews" during demonstrations which are supposed to defend the Palestinian cause. Last April, our office was the target of a Molotov cocktail. As a condition for condemning this attack, the lecturers demanded that the UEJF declare a principled position against Israel!
Gerstenfeld offers as an example the case of Mona Baker, an Egyptian professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester in England, who in July 2002 removed two Israeli academics — Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University, a former chair of Amnesty International, Israel; and Professor Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University — from the editorial boards of the journals The Translator and Translation Study Abstract that Baker and her husband edit and publish. Goldenberg, Suzanne. "Israeli boycott divides academics", The Guardian, July 8, 2002.
Gerstenfeld writes that Baker offered to allow the academics to remain on the board only on condition that they leave and severe all ties with Israel. He argues that this is a well-known anti-Semitic motif, whereby a Jew could remain a university professor only if he converted, or in this case, severed ties with his own state. Gerstenfeld, Manfred. "Anti-Semitic Motifs in Anti-Israelism," Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, no. 2, 1 November 2002. "The Architecture of Bigotry," Policy Dispatch, no. 80, Institute of the World Jewish Congress, June 2002.
The general idea of an academic boycott against Israelis first emerged on April 06, 2002 in an open letter to The Guardian initiated by Stephen and Hilary Rose, lecturers in biology at the Open University and social policy at Bradford University, respectively, who called for a moratorium on all cultural and research links with Israel. The open letter had gained 700 signatories until the Mona Baker case — who was herself a signatory — caused several leading academics to distance themselves from it, including Richard Dawkins and Sir Colin Blakemore of Oxford University.
In 2005, the main British university lecturers' union, the Association of University Teachers (AUT) voted in favor of a boycott "Academics back Israeli boycotts", BBC News, 22 April 2005, accessed January 7, 2006. Curtis, Polly & Taylor, Matthew. "Second opinion". The Guardian, May 24, 2005, accessed January 7, 2006. at the behest of nearly 60 Palestinian groups. "Palestinian call", British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, accessed January 7, 2006. The proposal stated that Israeli academics who "opposed ... their state's colonial and racist policies" would be exempt. The motions called for a boycott of the University of Haifa, over the alleged mistreatment of Ilan Pappé, and of Bar-Ilan University, for awarding degrees to students from the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel. The proposal was overturned at an AUT emergency conference on May 26, 2005. Kimmerling, Baruch. "A boycott all the way", Ha'aretz, May 17, 2005, accessed January 7, 2006. In May 2006, members of NATFHE drafted a similar proposal, voting to Israeli academic institutions and even Israeli lecturers who did not publicly dissociate themselves from their government's policies."Lecturers back boycott of Israeli academics", The Guardian, May 30, 2006. The resolution was dismissed by AUT, as "fraught with difficulties and dangers", and was not binding on the newly formed University and College Union, a merger of the two separate instructors' unions. A May 30 press release declared that, "AUT does not endorse this policy and is strongly advising its members not to implement it."
A cartoon in The Independent depicted Ariel Sharon, who was prime minister of Israel at the time, sitting among bombed houses eating a baby, while helicopters and tanks buzzed 'Vote Sharon'. The cartoon, Online copy of the Dave Brown cartoon of Ariel Sharon as Goya - Saturno devorando a su hijo.jpg, accessed January 7, 2006. drawn by Dave Brown and based on the painting Goya - Saturno devorando a su hijo.jpg by Francisco Goya, sparked a wave of protests from Jewish human rights groups, with Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, writing that it conjured up "the horrific medieval anti-Semitic Blood Libel and is more in keeping with the tradition of the Nazi paper Der Stürmer". Cooper, Abraham. SWC: "The Independent's Sharon Cartoon in Tradition of 'Der Stürmer' and Conjures Up 'Blood Libel' Canard". January 30, 2003, accessed January 9, 2006. The Independent's editor and the cartoonist, supported by the British Press Complaints Commission, denied that the cartoon was anti-Semitic and claimed it was just "anti-Sharon." Byrne, Ciar. Independent cartoon cleared of anti-semitism. May 22, 2003, accessed January 7, 2006. The British Press Complaints Commission ruled against the complaints on the grounds that the same Goya painting had been adapted to attack non-Jewish politicians. (Byrne, Ciar. "Independent cartoon cleared of anti-semitism". May 22, 2003, accessed January 7, 2006.) The cartoon was selected as Cartoon Of The Year 2003 by the Political Cartoon Society. (cartoonist wins award for Sharon cartoon, Indymedia UK, November 27, 2003, accessed January 7, 2006.)
The report contains major incidents, trends and actions taken around the world in the period between July 1, 2003 and December 15, 2004.
On April 28, 2004, at the OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism in Berlin, then United States Secretary of State Colin Powell explained, "It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel, but the line is crossed when Israel or its leaders are demonized or vilified, for example by the use of Nazi symbols and racist caricatures." "Anti-Semitism Shall Have No Place Among Us," Powell Says, posted April 29, 2004. U.S. Department of State, accessed January 9, 2006.
On September 13, 2004, the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) established for the first time that it is the policy of OCR to investigate claims of anti-Semitic harassment at institutions that receive federal educational funding. U.S. Department of Education. Letter of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education for Enforcement Kenneth L. Marcus, Delegated the Authority of Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights, September 13, 2004. Accessed March 6 2006. OCR continued to clarify and publicize this new approach throughout 2004. Letter to Sid Groeneman by Kenneth L. Marcus. Accessed March 6, 2006.
In September 2004, The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, a part of the Council of Europe, called on its member nations to "ensure that criminal law in the field of combating racism covers anti-Semitism" and to penalize intentional acts of public incitement to violence, hatred or discrimination, public insults and defamation, threats against a person or group, and the expression of anti-Semitic ideologies. It urged member nations to "prosecute people who deny, trivialize or justify the Holocaust". The report said it was Europe's "duty to remember the past by remaining vigilant and actively opposing any manifestations of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance... Anti-Semitism is not a phenomenon of the past and... the slogan 'never again' is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago."
Matas argues that statements are made within the UN that would not be tolerated within any democratic parliament, citing the example of the Palestinian representative to the UN Human Rights Commission who, in an echo of the traditional blood libel, claimed in 1997 that Israeli doctors had injected Palestinian children with the AIDS virus. Congressman Steve Chabot told the U.S. House of Representatives in 2005 that the commission took "several months to correct in its record a statement by the Syrian ambassador that Jews allegedly had killed non-Jewish children to make unleavened bread for Passover. House Passes Chabot’s Bipartisan United Nations Reform Amendment, June 17, 2005. Accessed March 6, 2006.
Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian legal scholar and human rights activist, addressed the UN as a representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, on the matter of alleged unequal treatment of Israel:
At the UN, the language of human rights is hijacked not only to discriminate but to demonize the Jewish target. More than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the commission over 40 years have been directed at Israel. But there has never been a single resolution about the decades-long repression of the civil and political rights of 1.3 billion people in China, or the million female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia kept as virtual slaves, or the virulent racism which has brought 600,000 people to the brink of starvation in Zimbabwe. Every year, UN bodies are required to produce at least 25 reports on alleged human rights violations by Israel, but not one on an Iranian criminal justice system which mandates punishments like crucifixion, stoning and cross-amputation of right hand and left foot. This is not legitimate critique of states with equal or worse human rights records. It is demonization of the Jewish state... Bayefsky, Anne. One Small Step, Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2004, accessed 9 Jan 2006.
In the early years of its existence, the Human Rights Commission focused only on themes. When it shifted its focus to countries, it targeted only South Africa and Israel, and for six years, from 1969 until 1975 when Chile was added, those two countries were the only two the Commission would consider. For the last 40 years, almost 30 percent of country-specific resolutions and 15 percent of the Commission's time has been directed against Israel. Bayefsky, Anne. "The UN and the Jews", Commentary Magazine, February 2004 During its annual six-week session in 2002, the Commission spent half its time on Israel, more than it spent on all the other countries in the world combined.
Matas argues that the "invective against Israel by far exceeds the language used against other countries with much worse violations." For example, in 1989, a Commission resolution about alleged human-rights abuses in Israel "noted with several disapproval," using phrases like "strongly condemns," "deplores," "inhuman treatment," "terror," and "flagrant violation of human rights," while in the same year, a resolution against Guatemala, at the height of its civil war when disappearance and arbitrary execution were common, noted only that the Commission was "seriously concerned," and one against Iran, also in 1989 during the reign of the Ayatollah Khomeini, warranted only "deep concern."
The General Assembly is also criticized for its focus on Israel. There are currently around 250 Security Council resolutions and 1,000 General Assembly resolutions on Israel. Of the ten emergency special sessions the Assembly has held, six have been about Israel, and the tenth session, opened in 1997, was reconvened 13 times between then and August 2004.
Kofi Annan has called the 1975 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism, not repealed until 1991, "lamentable," saying that "its negative resonance even today is difficult to overestimate," and on June 21, 2004, Annan told a seminar on anti-Semitism: "It is hard to believe that 60 years after the tragedy of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is once again rearing its head. But it is clear that we are witnessing an alarming resurgence of these phenomena in new forms and manifestations. This time the world must not, cannot, be silent." He asked UN member states to adopt a resolution to fight anti-Semitism, and stated that the Commission on Human Rights must study and expose anti-Semitism in the same way that it fights bias against Muslims. Annan asked: "Are not Jews entitled to the same degree of concern and protection?" Annan, Kofi. "Opening Remarks at DPI Seminar on anti-Semitism", The UN Chronicle, accessed March 6, 2006.
In 2005, the United States Congress passed by a vote of 405 to 2 the United Nations Reform Act of 2005, United Nations Reform Act of 2005, Sec. 114. Anti-Semitism and the United Nations, Library of Congress, accessed March 6, 2006 which insists that the United Nations must:
In 1988, there was much publicity when it was discovered that there were several known anti-Semites in high positions in the Republican Party. The New Republic argued in an editorial that the discovery of "seven aging Eastern European fascists in the Republican apparatus" really wasn't the threat it was made out to be. Their form of anti-Semitism was merely traditional bigotry without an agenda. The New Republic saw a greater threat in the anti-Semitism of the left, which had a salient agenda: "the delegitimization of the Jewish national movement".
In his book Necessary IllusionsChomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions. Online in HTML form. Accessed 9 Jan 2006. and subsequent writings, Chomsky saw this as an example of how the real anti-Semitism was ignored while criticism of Israel was vilified. This was his conclusion:
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Antisemitismus nach 1945 | אנטישמיות מודרנית | Panibagong anti-Semitismo
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