Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.
Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens — there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant — that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.
More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt.
Our report sent a shock wave through the British government. Tony Blair called us in and told his staff to fan out throughout government departments and produce answers to the problems we outlined. To Britain’s credit, the Blair administration produced a formal government response setting out tough new guidelines for the police to investigate anti-Semitic attacks and for universities to stop anti-Jewish ideology from taking root on campuses. Britain’s Foreign Office has been told to protest to Arab states that allow anti-Jewish broadcasts.
Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent.
Is this a mark of the success of terrorism?
I would summarise the situation here in Europe as follows:
1) Terrorist acts by Muslims bring fear of Islam.
2) But to express that fear is called Islamophobic, or racist, or oppressive, etc.
3) Therefore many Europeans compensate for their fear by condemning all religion, but especially their own historic Christianity. This is the ‘We have been just as bad’ response.
4) If Christians complain that it is a long time since the Crusades, etc, they have the Iraq war thrown in their face, which is attributed to, among other things, the evangelical Christianity of George W. Bush.
Of course the Iraq war is far more complex; Shiites and Sunnis kill each other in large numbers without any involvement by the West; there is nothing in Christian history to compare with the ceaseless army of suicide bombers; and Christ never commanded his followers to kill. But all this is ignored. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have the added complication of being blamed for every Israeli transgression (Muslims, of course, are not blamed for any Palestinian/Iranian/etc transgression).
Terry, you forget that Jews are also blamed for every Jihadi transgression, since it is somehow Israel’s fault and therefore their fault.
Excellent article. Read the comments–MacShane’s get proven correct over and over again.
What is the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the USA? I suspect that it is similar here as in Europe, but flies under the radar screen. I read reports of racist incidents in Eastern Germany, for example, but I think that the Germans are so incredibly vigilant about all of this, in order to keep from disintegrating back into National Socialism. (Among European nations, the Germans are even standing out in favor of maintaining a strong Euro, remembering the currency crisis of the 1920s that led to the Nazis taking over.)
According to an Anti-Defamation League survey in 2002, it’s also increasing in the U.S. You can see more
here (I hope this works). The figure was especially high for blacks and for Hispanics who were not born in the U.S. Seventeen percent for the U.S. overall.
Sadly, every such cry is taken at face value. I guess when one remembers the horrors of World War II it is good to be alert, however, as has been observed by Norman Finkelstein, who considers this particular source as less than credible, these announcements of increased anti-Semitism seem to arise quite when criticism of Israel is in the wind. As much as I abhor anti-Semitism, I abhor with equal intensity the treatment by Israelis of the Palestinians in their midst. Folks might appreciate this article by Finkelstein that appears in Counterpunch entitled [url=http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein09122006.html]The Dream Philosophy of Paranoids.[/url]
Norman Finkelstein??? The anti-Semites favorite Jew? You have got to be kidding.
Actually, I sense he is the Jew that those who believe Israel can do no wrong enjoy excoriating. I believe the term you would employ is “self-hating” Jew, correct? I appreciate that ANYONE critical of Israel must be either an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew. Leaves little room for dispassionate discussion it seems…
Remember that there is alot of criticism of Israeli government policies by Israelis themselves; folk who I presume are Jewish (but may not be)…
Actually, Visitor, he’s a fraud and a pseudo-scholar not far off from the standards of David Irving. He’s been spoken of favorably in such high-class Internet establishment as Stormfront and Rense.com, and his book The Holocaust Industry, in a review by David Greenberg of Columbia, a well-known critic of Israel and writer for left-wing Slate, was called “a hate-filled screed” filled with “pseudo-scholarship, extreme anti-Israel ideology and—there is no way around it—anti-Semitism.” (Check out his review at Beliefnet for more.)
The truth is that bringing Finkelstein into this conversation is nothing more than another bit of proof for MacShane’s argument (unless you’re in the US, in which case it’s more proof for Sherri’s contention above.
Visitor, do you also abhor the treatment of Israelis by Palestinians? The launching of the intifada and the horror of the suicidal murderers is to their eternal discredit. I say this with awareness that the Israeli government has from time to time made errors and done wrong things.
Actually, Katherine and David, I understand that these discussions invariably devolve into accusations and counter accusations about who is most justified in their suffering and who is at fault for the misery witnessed in the region. I’ve participated in those discussions in the past and came to realize that like a black hole, they will suck up all the energy that one has available without light ever being emitted. You may enjoy such conversations, but I’d rather not engage in them further. I apologize for contributing to this forum. Now I’ll leave it for you to defend Israel in the face of Palestinian perfidy and the horrible anti-Semitism perpetrated by all of us mean-spirited folk. I’d prefer to take a literal as well as metaphorical hike… good day all.
A quick Google of Mr. Finkelstein finds this from the Guardian:
“His prospects seemed bleak, so when radical Islamist Aminah McCloud – a follower of Louis Farrakhan – helped him land a job at DePaul, a school that Mr Finkelstein describes as “a third-rate Catholic university”, he accepted “exile.”
His prospects did not improve when he wrote a screed against Holocaust survivors called The Holocaust Industry. The scholar whose work on the Holocaust was the “stimulus” for this volume, University of Chicago professor Peter Novick, warned: “No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites … Such an examination reveals that many of those assertions are pure invention.”
Nor was he helped when New York Times reviewer Prof Omer Bartov, an authority on genocide, characterised his book as “a novel variation on the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion … brimming with indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics … indecent … juvenile, self-righteous, arrogant and stupid.”
Another reviewer noted that he had formed his own “Holocaust industry.” I think I know how to value this “source.”
RE: “tually, Katherine and David, I understand that these discussions invariably devolve into accusations and counter accusations about who is most justified in their suffering and who is at fault for the misery witnessed in the region.”
That may be so, but what I noticed in this blog thread was that Visitor’s representative “scholar’s” reputation, Finkelstein, was simply demolished by informed commenters.
Thanks, all.
Aye, seemed more that when “Visitor” saw he was outgunned he took his ball and went home.
The truth can be really annoying when you’re trying to score points, eh, Visitor?
I think we know why he only “visits”.