On July 2005, the media reported the brutal assault on two Yeshiva
students in Kiev, perpetrated by a dozen skinheads. On the same day
the newly elected pope, Benedictus XVI, gave a sermon in Cologne
where, addressing an exceptionally large audience, he denounced the
recent increase in anti-Semitism. Together, the two sides of this
coin demonstrate today's dual and parallel processes -
anti-Semitism and the response it evokes: the intensification of
the various anti-Semitic expressions and the growing readiness of
both Jewish and non-Jewish bodies to confront it.
Anti-Semitism has always been a product of problems and anxieties
in given societies and periods of time. Yet with globalization,
anti-Semitism has become increasingly connected not only to
national or local societies but to the international arena as
well.
Taking into consideration the claim that there is indeed a new
anti-Semitism, starting as of late 2000, originating in circles and
regions different from before, aiming at different targets, and
using other verbal and visual tactics, the question to be asked is
whether the image of the Jew has changed as well and, if it did, in
what way? Second, are the current events in the Middle East the
source of this new anti-Semitism, or are they the match that sets
the fire but the woods lay elsewhere? Let us examine the
relationship between Middle Eastern events and the anti-Semitism
manifested in other regions of the world.
The New Anti-Semitism
The recent wave of anti-Semitic expressions that started in the
late 1990s and intensified with the beginning of the second
intifada was soon labeled the "New Anti-Semitism." It indeed has a
number of new features: the main target has shifted from the
desecration of cemeteries to the use of arson against synagogues,
and to physical attacks against persons. This last development is
both insulting and worrying, because most individuals who
perpetrate it act sporadically and on the spur of the moment. Such
channels of activity make it more difficult for the victims and the
policemen to identify the perpetrators and bring them to
justice.
The origin of violence has changed as well: the 1970s and 1980s
witnessed activities of European extreme left and right, while the
late 1990s brought about violence carried out mostly by young
Muslims, either immigrants or second generation of newcomers to
Europe. The extreme right is still active, though in a different
format, more loosely organized in "leaderless cells." Thus like the
young Muslims, they are harder to follow and catch. Another
disturbing development is the growth in contacts between radical
Muslim circles and the extreme right regarding anti-Semitism,
though ideologically and ethnically they are in sharp dispute - the
far right opposes open door immigration policies and dreams about a
homogeneous white Christian society. Verbal, visual and digital
expressions of anti-Semitism and stereotypes originate in local
societies, academic circles, media, administration, and public
opinion . Yet Muslim violence and local expressions cannot be dealt
with separately. They feed on each other, since verbal expressions,
especially those coming from or financed by Arab and Muslim
countries, create a permissive atmosphere in which violence thrives
and goes mostly unidentified and unpunished. Violence escalates the
norms of hostility that the public accepts and grows accustomed
to.
The geographic and political focus has shifted as well. The Soviet
Union, that orchestrated, with the support of Arab and Third World
countries, the UN attack on Zionism as if it equals racism, has
collapsed. The initiative for anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist
activities is no longer part of governments' agenda. It comes from
the field, or various fields, rather than from above. Black Africa
and the Far East embrace mentalities, tribal and ethnic traditions
and agendas in which anti-Semitism plays no role. In Latin America
few cases of violence have occurred, the most notable ones being
the two explosions in the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community
buildings in Buenos Aires. East European and former Soviet Union
countries have their own reasons for a low level of anti-Semitic
activity: their poor economy does not attract immigrants, either
Muslims or others; their ticket for a much-desired entry into the
EU or NATO and other international and, especially, European
organizations, is the proper keeping of a high level of human
rights. "We are part of Europe," declared the young new Ukrainian
president. Many in these Eastern European administrations are
convinced - a deeply rooted anti-Semitic perception in itself -
that the road to the wealthy pockets of Uncle Sam passes through
alleged Jewish influence in the U.S.A. Unlike Western Europe, they
are not undergoing a phase of post-colonialism or post-nationalism.
Recently, after decades of Soviet indoctrination, they have
discovered the Holocaust and their active part in it; and, finally,
after decades of long and brutal deprivation of human rights they
are not easily impressed with similar accusations against Israel
and its Jewish supporters. Still there is now increasing violence
and virulent propaganda against Jews in Russia and the Ukraine. And
it remains to be seen if and when the level of anti-Semitism will
change in the ten countries newly accepted into the EU.
The centers of today's anti-Semitic expressions are Western Europe
and North America, most notably France, Belgium, the UK and Canada,
followed to a lesser degree by Germany and the U.S. Here the shift
is fully demonstrated - Western democracies rather than
totalitarian or despotic regimes are producing anti-Semitism. This
is a painful development, since democracies and their values have
always been a beacon for Jews and for Zionism. The belief that
these values are indeed equally applied to everyone was the basis
for the hope Jews nourished to become a people accepted in the
family of mankind, either as communities or as individuals, and a
nation or a state equal to many other nations and states. Moreover,
today it is mainly the European left, and not only the radical
left, that fosters hostile attitudes towards Israel, often
expressed in anti-Semitic and discriminatory terms. The Labor and
leftist side of the Israeli and Jewish map find this development
very hard to swallow, after a long history of Jewish initiative and
innovation in leftist movements since the 19th century, and given
the self-image of Israel as a socialist state in its first decades
and a welfare state later.
This brings us to one more major characteristic of the "New
Anti-Semitism." For the first time in the long history of
anti-Semitism which was born and fostered in Christian Europe,
there is another major player in the arena - Middle Eastern Arab
Islam. Radical Muslim propaganda deliberately blurs the distinction
between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The purpose behind this
tactic is clear: the Arab world wages a war against the State of
Israel. It uses old and even primitive motifs that European society
is familiar with - Protocols of the Elders of Zion, blood libel,
etc - not against the Jews as individuals or communities but
against the state. The result is also clear: the state in its
entirety is portrayed as a Jewish state in a negative meaning, as a
group bearing the characteristics allegedly portraying the Jewish
people: cruelty, lust for blood and murder, treachery and greed,
exploitation of manpower and resources, all in the service of the
vile intention to dominate the world. The true nature of the
relations between Israel and the Jewish communities abroad is
completely twisted, and every form of anti-Semitism can be thus
disguised as anti-Zionism. The very existence of a Jewish people is
denied, and Zionism is accused of having invented it, much as other
national movements invented their national identity, especially in
the 19th century. Thus the clear alleged conclusion: such a state
has no right to exist; moreover it is a constant danger to peace
and stability in the world. Israel among the nations has become the
Jew among people.
Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism
In the wake of this blurring of the picture, how can one know that
anti-Zionism has crossed the lines and become anti-Semitism? First,
let us distinguish between genuine criticism that refers to a given
policy at a certain time and place and anti-Zionism. Then, let us
first bear in mind that anti-Zionism, to the extent that it is
directed against the very existence of Zionism as a national
movement or against the existence of a state based on the Zionist
idea or a Jewish people most of which supports it, is in any case
discrimination against the Jewish people and an attempt to deny it
the elementary right granted to every tiny island in the Pacific
Ocean. And then let us turn to the following categories:
anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism when the known classic
anti-Semitic stereotypes keep being repeated and used in the
vocabulary and the portrayal of images; when the hideous
unforgivable comparison to the Nazi regime is brought up; when the
Holocaust is distorted and turned into a political weapon, claiming
it is used to blackmail economic or financial support, or denied
and declared an invention of the wild cruel Jewish imagination;
when the very right of the Jews to have a state is being
undermined, and sometimes, though to a lesser extent, even their
very existence as individuals or as a group; when criticism of
Israel, and what is called its Jewish supporters is out of
proportion to reality or to criticism of other nations. This
singling out reaches the absurd when Libya, Iran, Sudan, Saudi
Arabia, for instance, complain about the violation of human rights,
though it should be remembered that Israel, as a democracy, is
judged according to higher standards; when the alleged character
traits of the people are being projected on the state; and,
finally, when the Jewish people and state are depicted as a cosmic
source of all evil, from the fall of the Twin Towers to the death
of Princess Diana, from the spreading of HIV to even the Tsunami -
evil incarnate.
Not only Jewish or Israeli researchers and intellectuals bring up
these criteria. The Webster's Third New International dictionary of
1966, defines anti-Semitism as hostility toward Jews and as
"opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of
Israel." A year later, Martin Luther King Jr. declared: "when
people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - this is God's own
truth." And more recently, the report on European anti-Semitism
published by Prof. Wolfgang Benz of the Berliner Technische
Universitat and his team in 2003 stated most of the aforementioned
parameters; a year later Romano Prodi, president of the EU
commission, denounced "criticism against Israel, inspired by what
seems to be anti-Semitic feelings and prejudices. President Bush's
special envoy for anti-Semitism and Holocaust issues reached the
same conclusions and published them on the last day of 2004; and
during the 60-year commemorations, standing in the snow of
Auschwitz, Prof. Wladislaw Bartoszewski, former inmate of the camp
and former Polish minister of foreign affairs, spoke about the
cynical hiding of anti-Semitism behind anti-Zionism.
Summing up the answers to our first question regarding "New
Anti-Semitism," today anti-Semitism is indeed expressed in new
forms, arenas and tactics, but it is using the same old and
primitive motifs; and despite the exacerbation of the image of the
Jew, its intensified condemnation and denunciation and the
political use made of it, the image has remained basically the
same.
The Role of the Middle East
The second question concerns the role of the Middle East in the
increase of anti-Semitism. There is little doubt that the waves of
violence against Jews are closely connected to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the media bringing into every
living room the picture of Israeli tanks confronting Palestinian
youngsters further establishes the cruel image of an Israeli Jew.
Taking a deeper look at the international political, social and
economic scenes, one indeed realizes how they serve as a background
for the anti-Semitic waves. They become fertile background when
atmosphere correlates with Muslim interests, and administrations
adopt policies that take into consideration oil resources and
money, Muslim electoral capacity and UN voting.
The socioeconomic dimension is combined with the political one:
European anti-Semitic motivation feeds on strong anti-American
feelings, increased by the disintegration of the Eastern bloc which
made the U.S. the strongest power in the world, allegedly
disregarding Europe, "the Old World" as a factor in world politics.
The U.S. is also the engine behind the globalization of world
economy, a process that created privatization and unemployment that
has impoverished so many in the poor southern hemisphere and
enriched the northern industrial rich countries. Globalization,
that brought about the waves of immigrants flooding these
countries, has created the most acute of today's problems,
especially in Europe: the aging industrial countries need the
cheap, unskilled working hands, but then they face multitudes that
need healthcare, education, and civil rights that threaten the
original cultures and traditions. The newcomers sharpen the inner
disputes between the local parties regarding the duties of
democracies, and strengthen the extremists on the right as well as
on the left.
Anti-American feelings and anti-globalization movements serve as a
meeting point with radical Islam that depicts the U.S. as the "Big
Satan," the embodiment of the modern, cosmopolitan, industrial
West, which runs counter to Islamic views. Israel, as a modern
democratic state, is the "Small Satan," the Trojan horse that
carries the West into the heart of the Muslim world. European
leftists and radical Muslims connect the American domination with
Jewish wealth, and the globalization with giant corporations,
international money and Jewish magnates who ostensibly control the
stock exchanges and the world markets. The Arab countries, mostly
underdeveloped and destitute, looking for factors to blame for
their situation, are the source of millions of immigrants - 20
million Muslim immigrants in Western and Central Europe by the end
of 2004. The questions of the rights, status and wages of the
immigrants serve as a focal point of activity for hundreds of
organizations, mostly non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
involved in human-rights activity.
Let us try to portray one such activist: he or she is a staunch
liberal, a pacifist, loathes every use of power, even if used for
self-defense, as at least fascist, automatically justifies the
underdog, struggles against economic exploitation, definitely an
anti-racist; s/he remembers with great pain and regrets the sins of
European countries as colonialist powers; s/he dreams about a
non-national world, about a united Europe devoid of the evils of
nationalism. Thus, in today's atmosphere, s/he turns against
Israel, depicting it as a last colonial outpost and as an
unnecessary fulfillment of national desires, and against Jews at
the forefront of American power. He or she has more guilt feelings
towards the millions of Muslims who have not integrated into the
host societies than towards Jews in the wake of the Holocaust. He
or she cannot express anxieties regarding growing Muslim influence
or presence lest s/he be labeled a politically non-correct racist,
and fosters a one-sided picture, in which s/he is bound to be only
on the Arab-Palestinian side.
One more meeting point is the use of the memory of the Holocaust:
the comparison of Israel to the Nazi regime is convenient to both
Europeans and Palestinians. It minimizes the dimensions of the
Holocaust, for it is clear even to those who make it that nothing
of the kind is taking place, with gas chambers and mass
annihilation. The comparison creates a kind of balance of account
closing, between European countries which collaborated with the
Nazis and the Jewish people. It can negate the right of the Jewish
people to restore lost properties looted in the Holocaust, because
Israel and its Jewish supporters have allegedly sinned as well.
And, most importantly, it serves to reject Israel's legitimacy, for
the Nazi regime had no right to exist, and neither does
Israel.
Some Cautious Optimism
This brings us back to our starting point: anti-Semitism is on the
rise and there are new responses to it. Those who carry out
anti-Semitic activities and those who respond are different groups
within the same countries, and the impact of recent responses of
governments and organizations to the level of anti-Semitism is not
yet felt. Let us entertain just a small amount of cautious
optimism. Just as anti-Semitism is nourished by an array of
international developments and interests, so is the reaction
against it.