Now before some of you become so scandalized you start firing off comments and tweets, read what I say carefully: there is anti-Semitism both in Europe and elsewhere. And it is a phenomenon that, given Europe’s ugly history, must be taken seriously. It is right and proper to denounce individual incidents of violence and hate speech where and when they occur. It is right to combat the obscenity of the Euro-right’s political anti-Semitism whether in France, Germany or Hungary.
But there is no pending European Holocaust. Despite hyperbolic claims like this, “these are the worst times since the Nazi era” or this “synagogues are burning again in Germany in the night,” there is not even a serious, widespread attack on the Jewish community in Europe. The rumors of the destruction of European Jewry are vastly overstated.
The question is why articles in mainstream publications are advancing some of these claims; and why Israeli politicians boost them so assiduously. As to the first question: reporters are not historians. They are looking for trends and seeking to be the first to note them. For some reporters any incident that comes in twos or threes becomes a trend. It’s one thing when the trend concerns fashion or social issues. We’re used to such overstatement and when a reporter gets carried away, the stakes aren’t as high. We can assume that readers or other journalist will exercise caution and criticize it mercilessly.
But when the subject is as fraught with historical significance and involves violence and death, past and present, then such exaggeration or overstatement carries heavy consequences. That’s why it’s so important to get things right. To be sure what you write is based on facts and not ideology or sensationalism. Unfortunately, some of our better media sources have fallen prey to this disease. More on this follows.
The most glaring weakness of such analyses is that they either omit entirely or downplay the political context of so-called anti-Semitic actions in Europe. Muslims and Arabs in Europe and elsewhere were not born anti-Semites. Nothing in their religion justifies anti-Semitism. In fact, quite the contrary. Anger and hatred derives from a source. That source is the Israeli-Arab conflict. The anger of European Muslims is not the same as traditional anti-Semitism. It cannot be compared to the Nazi era. No matter what hot-headed protesters may say during rallies when they express their anger and disgust, no one contemplates the wholesale murder or even expulsion of Jews from Europe.
That’s why articles like this one which speak about European anti-Semitism while hardly voicing a word about the context of the current wave which originates in Israel recent devastating assault against Gaza, do a disservice to both European society and journalism itself. We cannot learn much about what is really happening if journalists refuse to understand reality in all its complexity. Other articles like this one do acknowledge that European protests against Israel emanate from the war against Palestine, but they refuse to make any distinction between historical anti-Semitism and contemporary anti-Israelism.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that such ugly rhetoric shouldn’t be condemned and aggressively combated by politicians and other social leaders. But again, it’s important to place these expressions in a historical and political context.
Reporters will take a single statistic such as the rise in emigration by French Jews to Israel without understanding that even if 6,000 leave this year, 500,000 remain. This also omits the reverse side of the coin: there are hundreds of thousands of Israeli emigrants who’ve taken up permanent residence in European cities, especially Berlin. Many of them left Israel because they are disgusted with the endless cycles of war and violence and refused to force this life on their own children.
Why would reporters or European Jews be surprised that social media reflect, or even amplify some of these hatreds? A passage like this one makes me wonder whether the reporter and his subject are either naive or disingenuous:
…Since the start of the conflict in Gaza this summer, many describe social media, especially Facebook, as a swamp of hatred.
“I have friends who are never political and they are posting things about Gaza every day,” said Ms. Frommer, the employee of the nonprofit organization. “It seems like an obsession. Is your obsession because you want to save children, or because you have a problem with Jews?”
The fact that a European Jew would discount the good faith of those who protest the death of Gazan children; and the fact that she wouldn’t understand that apolitical individuals are so shocked by the outrageousness of Israel’s actions that even they are aroused to protest. This should tell her much more about the evil Israel is doing than she allows it to.
The same journalist claimed some Muslim neighborhoods are “no go” zones for Jews, without understanding that similar types of ethnic hostility have been a factor of urban life for centuries. Some of the articles neglect the failure of European countries themselves to integrate poor Arab and Muslim immigrants into their own educational, vocational and employment systems. If Europe’s Muslims are angry at Israel or even at Jews, they are angrier at their host governments for promises unfulfilled.
Why should reporters use a single incident when Muslims patrolled a neighborhood in Germany dressed with signs identifying themselves as “Sharia police,” when ultra-Orthodox Jews in London erected signs exhorting all Jewish women in the neighborhood to walk only on one side of the street, segregated from men. Why is the Muslim example more alarming than the Jewish one?
Current European anti-Israel outbursts which are often conflated with anti-Semitism, are directly related to anger at Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian land, at Israel’s vicious wars and massacres which have cost tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian lives over the decades. Whenever Israel asserts its military might and attacks Palestine or Lebanon, blood flows in the streets of Arab lands and other Arabs are naturally angry about this.
Expecting that every Arab who participates in a protest will understand the sensitive history of the Jews in Europe and adapt their slogans, banners and actions accordingly is far-fetched. Though of course, when those phenomena rear their ugly heads they should be called out.
Gen. David Petraeus once famously conceded that the failure to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict endangers the lives of U.S. military personnel throughout the region by heightening tension and fueling terror attacks. Though the Israel Lobby derided him for expressing views so supposedly hostile to Israel, he never retracted them.
In truth, Israel can expect all this clamor against it every time it attacks its Arab neighbors. And the worse the carnage and mayhem is, the worse the response will be. I liken it to the political corollary of Newton’s law: for every bad action there will an equal and opposite reaction. Except in this case, the Arab-Muslim response is nowhere near as violent as the Israeli actions which precipitate it.
Yes, Jews have been killed in Europe in the past few years. And such acts have rightfully been condemned, investigated and punished by those in power in Belgium and France, where such attacks occurred. But if you compare the carnage on one side it pales in comparison to the carnage on the other.
It is simply unreasonable for Israel or world Jewry to expect that there will be no blowback from Israel’s actions in the world. Israel may not kill with impunity without paying a price for it. Again, this is not to justify Arab retaliation against Israel. But to regard such acts as originating in some ancient Islam-inspired blood feud is ridiculous.
There is only one way to end the stream of Euro-violence, to end Israel’s spilling of Arab blood in the region. As long as Israel continues its endless wars there, the counter-violent response will continue. Israel must settle the conflict. As long as it does not, it has no right to complain at the response. As the noted scholar of anti-Semitism, Steve Beller writes:
If Israel continues its attitude of defiance of international legal norms and of the wishes of the international community as regards settlements, then this is almost inviting a real resurgence of a form of historical anti-Semitism, together with, ironically, a xenophobia exacerbated by Islamophobia.
Though this is a chilling statement, it reveals just how much is at stake for world Jewry. Continue down the path of absolute pro-Israelism and you risk an attack on not just Israel, but all of us.
It’s an error to label hate or violence directed at Israel as conventional anti-Semitism. It should probably be called anti-Israelism. Beller says:
Calling…hostility to current Israeli policies…and towards the Jewish communities who are usually explicitly…supporting these policies, ‘antisemitism’, or even the relatively recent ‘new antisemitism’…[is] a deliberate attempt by Israel and its supporters to obfuscate the actual political and moral situation, and to smear Israel’s opponents with the guilt of the Holocaust. Let us call these protests ‘anti-Israeli’, ‘anti-Zionist’…but I do not think they have the same causation as historic antisemitism, and it is misleading to continue dragging this term in here.
There will be those who point to the slogans which explicitly ape those of the Nazi era and ask why we shouldn’t call this classic anti-Semitism. The reason is that Israel’s leaders and the Israel Lobby have themselves conflated Israel with the Jewish people. When Bibi shreis that Iran wants to nuke us, he doesn’t say it wants to destroy Israel, he says it wants to destroy the “Jewish people.” When Shimon Peres seeks to dramatize the so-called Iranian nuclear threat he calls an Iranian bomb a “flying Holocaust.” This further reinforces the notion that the Muslim world seeks to exterminate the entire Jewish people.
By deliberately confusing Israel and Jews, pro-Israel forces invite their opponents to do the same. If the Arab world sees Israel speaking on behalf of world Jewry; if they see the Israel Lobby insisting that the single unifying element in Jewish identity is fealty to Israel–then such confusion is understandable. As Beller wrote:
If the leadership of…Jewish communities adopt an approach of complete solidarity with the aggressive foreign policy of Israel, as a sovereign state separate from the countries in which those Jewish communities live, then this is an externalized relationship of conflict…
If Jews wish to end such confusion, they must loudly and deliberately set a border between themselves and Israel. To be a Jew is not to be an Israeli. In saying these things, I’m not asking Jews to abandon their identification with Israel. But there must be a clear distinction between who we are and who they are. And there should be a clear distinction between the foreign policy interests of states like the U.S. and Israel. Contrary to the Israel Lobby mantra, there should be daylight between political leaders and policies of both countries.
It’s not surprising Israel would seek to conflate Zionism and Judaism. It’s a lot harder to attack Israel when you also have to attack all of world Jewry. It’s also a lot harder to attack Israel when it invokes the specter of the Holocaust and its ruinous legacy of anti-Semitism. Israel would much rather force its opponents to defend themselves from such charges so it doesn’t have to explain or defend the bloody pursuit of its own political interests in the region.
When I used the term “hoax” in the post title, I meant to say that the abuse of anti-Semitism by pro-Israel forces constitutes a fraud that must be called out.
The ultimate irony for Herzlian political Zionism is that the creation of Israel has disproven one of the movement’s key tenets: founding a Jewish state was supposed to normalize the Jewish people. It was supposed to empower them as European peoples were empowered by the states in which they held sovereignty. Jewish power would create Jewish security. Unfortunately and tragically, it’s done just the opposite. To be a Jew in the world has never been more dangerous since World War II. Not only are Israelis endangered in their own land, Israel’s intransigent rejection of political compromise (just this week, Bibi Netanyahu called the Arab League peace initiative an artifact of a bygone era), has brought all Jews into the crosshairs. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
The embrace of classical Zionism by Diaspora Jewry has impoverished Jewish life outside Israel. We are left with no independent identity. We have no traditions of our own. We are the shadow and Israel is the sun. All sustenance derives from the source and that source may only be there (in Israel). This denies the richness and success of centuries of Jewish life after the destruction of the Second Temple. We do have valued traditions, rituals, art, culture, music that derives from the genius of Diaspora. This must never be dismissed or devalued. We must cultivate our independence. We must produce separately. We must not be a satellite or extension of anything.
I despair that this is possible. Throughout the Diaspora, Jewish leaders have thrown in their lot with Israel. I call it the closing of the Diaspora Jewish mind. They have turned Israelism into a religion that displaces Judaism. They have allowed a violent, hateful settlerism to become a legitimate expression of Judaism. They have allowed us to be hijacked in service to a political enterprise rooted in theft, oppression and ethnic cleansing. It is not enough to protest against this. It’s not enough to deliver sermons from pulpits. It’s not enough to “shoot and cry” as Israelis say. There must be action: assertive, even aggressive action. We must take back our religion and expel those who have debased it.
But a single example, is the refusal of mainstream Jewish groups like the Reform movement to dissociate themselves from the Conference of Presidents and its insular pro-Israelism under the leadership of the far-right, Malcolm Hoenlein. When Hoenlein rejects J Street’s membership, no one makes him pay a price. No one leaves the table and starts a new more inclusive entity. If you are timid, if you don’t have the power of your convictions (remember Yeats’ “the best lack all conviction?”), you have only yourself to blame when those who have more energy and conviction outsmart you.
I have no faith in Diaspora Jewish leaders. The Pierre Mendes Frances, Nahum Goldmans and Arthur Hertzberg’s are long gone. In their day, they could stand up to the Kahanes and tell them forcefully: not in my name. And they were believed. In their place, today we have right-wing pro-Israel ciphers like Ronald Lauder or milquetoast moderates like Dennis Ross or Martin Indyk. They have neither powerful convictions, ideas nor stature. They represent the Jewish Organizational Man. They won’t stand up to anyone when it comes to saying: thus far and no farther.
If there are any readers who believe this topic is a critical one, as I do, and have some money tucked away, a few thousand dollars would enable me to organize a public event on the subject which I’d love to do featuring speakers like Steven Beller and Antony Lerman (among others). The event would be videotaped and uploaded to YouTube to create better public awareness of the issues.
NOTE: This week, WBEZ did a radio interview with me about Unit 8200 and the inspiration it could offer to the NSA to expand the surveillance state against us. Give a listen and promote it for me, please.
Many Israelis and Israel-supporters know exactly what is going on, how hateful Israeli actions are, etc., and merely hew to the hasbara line. (We are shocked, shiocked, at all this resurgent and baseless-in-fact anti-semitism.)
Others believe the fairy-tales about Jews returning (rather than invading) their (rather than Palestinians’) homeland in 1900-1948, the fairy-tales (or ogre-tales) which justify 100:1 Palestinian:Israeli casualties in conflict, Israeli use of phosphorus bombs, the wholly-illegal settlement program, the multi-year dreadful siege of Gaza, etc., etc. ad naus (and I mean ad naus) — and, because they believe this misbegotten drivel, they cannot believe that any (other) right-minded person would not also believe it. And, thus, such people, not believing that any right-minded person (say a European) could possibly find anything to complain of in Israel’s pristine (and indeed God-given) seizure-of-Palestine-and-all-that-that-entails (1945-present);– such innocent drinkers-of-the-coolaid, such true-believers, can see no reason for European anti-Israeli (or even anti-Jewish) actions or statements OTHER than pure, unmotivated hatred of Jews generally, aka anti-semitism.
I’d add to this that NYT (see: its article on European anti-semitism linked to above), having made it an invariable policy and practice to hide the complicity of big-money American Jews in USA’s support for Israel and Israeli “security” (and, importantly and not at all the same thing, USA’s both-before-and-after-the-fact support for Israel’s crimes such as the post-1967 settlements project and attacks on Gaza) to say nothing of the (also big-money-mediated) broad synagogual uncritical support for Israel);– that NYT sees no reason for anyone to see Jews generally (rather than merely Israeli Jews) as actors and malefactors in the crimes I’ve referred to. So Jews are, in effect, invited by NYT and by their own leaders to believe that their own hands are clean (w.r.t. Israeli crimes) even though they’ve done all they can to support not merely Israel but its long-term criminal projects (non-return of 1948 refugees, settlements project since 1967) and its repeated short-term crimes (Gaza).
So, I’d imagine that there are people with hard-wired hatred of Jews out there, who mostly keep quiet in this post-holocaust era and who “let go” when they seem to get ‘permission” to let go from all ther other non-hatred-beset people, the ethical people, the normal people, who see what israel is done and denounce Israel for it. And these anti-semites come out of their closets a bit.
Happily, we’re seeing a bit more criticism of Isrfaeli crimes from Jews in USA and Europe these days, and such criticism shoudl have the beneficial effects of [1] encouraging other Jews and others generally to react ethically to Israel and [2] to make clear what was hidden, namely, that it is not true that all Jews support Israel and its horrible projects and that anti-Zionism (in any of its many flavors) is not the same thing as anti-semitism.
Richard, a fine essay. I couldn’t agree more.
I want to echo Arie–very good essay.
I appreciated how you zeroed in on the Frommer quote–I saw that too. Basically what Frommer and the writer of the article seem to be saying is that moral outrage about Israel’s killing in Gaza is suspicious on its face–anyone who denounced Israeli war crimes should be considered a suspect anti-semite until they can prove their innocence. This is actually a type of racism in itself–the implication is that Palestinians aren’t important enough to deserve these feelings and anyone who does express anger over what has been done to them can’t possibly think Palestinians matter–no, it must really be a cover for anti-semitism.
There is real anti-semitism in the world, but the deliberate conflation of anti-semitism with anger at Israel is both racist in itself (racist against Palestinians) and makes it harder to tackle the anti-semitism problem.
You are deluding yourself. The call to gas the Jews at Arab/ Muslim protests and the hatred towards Jews in Muslim neighbourhoods in Europe is not just because they object to Israel’s policies, but because the do not recognize Israel’s right to exist in any way. They (rightly) see the Jews as having invaded and taken their land away from them. They are reminded of this each time a war erupts and see you in Seattle as having taken their land away from them just as much.
eric: pro-Palestine people truly motivated by the recent history (1945-present) of Israel-in-Palestine may well not accept Israel at all; why should they? Has Israel allowed the refugees of 1948 and thereafter to return to their homes? Has Israel recognized the illegality of the settlement project and, acordingly, if rather late, removed all the settlers and demolished the wall and the settlements? No, Israel has not, and so the “crimes” of Israel 9for those who see Israeli behavior as criminal) are not merely the recent war-crimes (or merely recent warfare) in Gaza-2014, but the entire history.
But wishing to erase Israel is not the same as wishing to kill all the Jews of Israel or of the entire world. These are different things.
The Europeans who are “crying wolf” are seeking to confound the two.
As to seeing Richard in Seattle as part of the Zionist project, well, some people will think that all Jews are responsible for Zionism (because, after all, the voices of the anti-Zionist Jews has been very, very hard to hear). Just as BDS seeks to collectively annoy all of Israel so as to persuade (all of) Israel to correct its behavior, so might some people wish to annoy all Jews for Zionism’s wrongs in order to motivate all Jews to join the fight to reform Israel. A few innocent folks always get swept up in drag-nets when “action” is taken agaisnt large groups of people.
How many Iraqi civilians did the USA kill in “collateral damage” during its (unwarranted, illegal, stupid, and vicious) war against Saddam Hussein? In a world that allows “collateral damage”, why should I and Richard and other Jews who criticize Israel be spared?
“…object to Israel policies” is identical with not recognizing Israel “right to exist.” The offending policies are precisely those which formed the state. Objecting to such policies is tantamount to objecting to Zionism and therefore the state of Israel as it exists today. Nothing anti-semitic about this. Carrying this to hating Jews in general is not so racist either as Israel does have the political support of world Jewry and one is not compelled to find out whether this one or that one stands on Zionism because overall Jewry has and continues to support Zionist Israel. As for generalizing culpability — The US was at war with Germany, all Germans, not just Nazis. All Germans were responsible for their political leadership just like Israelis in general are responsible for Israel’s leadership and it is fair, in both cases, to say “Germans did this” or “Israelis do this” and “Jews do this” and holding such groups each liable for the behavior of its agents. Accordingly, Muslims as you describe are not guilty of racialist generalization but a political generalization that Jews bear responsibility for Israel and Israel’s “right to exist” is tantamount to Palestine’s “right to disappear.” If calling for Israel to change (get rid of Zionism) is racism, then calling for Israel’s right to exist is also racist as it extinguishes Palestine and Palestinians.
One thing that we do not see today that was prevalent in the 1930’s, is the blaming of Jews for problems by those in political power. Far from it, we now see immediate and profuse apologies when any event that may be seen to be anti-Semitic occurs. There is no comparison with the past.
Another factor always in play is the desire of miscreants to attract attention. If you are a young tough who was wants to carry out some vandalism to get attention (and win cred from your buddies) would you, for example, spray graffiti on a bus station or a synagogue? And what symbol might you pick for the synagogue even without knowing a thing about history or Judaism?
“..we now see immediate and profuse apologies when any event that may be seen to be anti-Semitic occurs.”
Funny how these new apologies coincide with the rise of Jewish independence and military power.
@ Fred: So we need Israel’s IDF Goliath decimating Palestinians regularly in order to get the world to apologize for anti-Semitism. Sounds like an excellent plan to me. I sleep better at night knowing this.
Fred, the pro-Israel lobby has quite different weapons than the IDF, didn’t you know that? It works with dollars not bullets.
Yeah sure, the only reason why we Europeans try to curtail our inborn Jew-hatred now and then is because we fear retaliation from the fearless Israeli military.
The sad thing is; Israeli society seems to foster this sick and bigoted world-view.
No.
You Europeans are turning your backs and ignoring anti-Semitism because you fear retaliation against you from the people who are attacking Europe’s Jews.
Eventually, the chickens will come to home to roost.
If that’s what you think then what the hell does “the rise of Jewish independence and military power” have to do with anything?
Geez, what nonsense….
The Israeli elite are playing a very dangerous game of poker, and they are using lots of different cards. But in the end if they lay down these cards, and the cards don’t align in the right way, then they can expect to lose so so much. This is because they have chosen a combative approach to most things; to criticism when they encounter it; toward the Palestinians especially and tragically; toward their neighbours in the middle east. There seems to be no long term goal here other than, what, Greater Israel? Is that even a possibility? Would not such a thing be the catalyst for a war the likes of which we haven’t seen in our life times (or mine)? Israel stand to lose so much; the Israeli elite has put themselves in such an all-or-nothing position. I’m from Ireland, and I think the interest in Israel and what’s going on over there transcends questions of anti-semitism. It is about peace, in our day. There is a real sense that there is sooo much at stake, for all sorts of different reasons. It will be a tragedy for the Jewish people if they see this happen, and some warmonger says it happened in their name.
Australia has more than its fair share of right wing shock jocks and columnists and the brilliant left wing commentator Mike Carlton, who worked until recently for the Fairfax press, is an exception. He was one of the few in the MSM who launched a blistering attack on Israel’s slaughtering of Gazan civilians, particularly children. He wrote an article that started as follows:
“The images from Gaza are searing, a gallery of death and horror. A dishevelled Palestinian man cries out in agony, his blood-soaked little brother dead in his arms. On a filthy hospital bed a boy of perhaps five or six screams for his father, his head and body lacerated by shrapnel. A teenage girl lies on a torn stretcher, her limbs awry, her face and torso blackened like a burnt steak. Mourners weep over a family of 18 men, women and children laid side by side in bloodied shrouds. Four boys of a fishing family named Bakr, all less than 12 years old, are killed on a beach by rockets from Israeli aircraft.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/israels-rank-and-rotten-fruit-is-being-called-fascism-20140724-zwd2t.html#ixzz3EVJuRopO
Carlton on Gaza SMH 260714
Carlton got the usual barrage of abuse for his pains (“Nazi slime” was one epithet used) and lost his temper with a few of his correspondents. He told them to get f.cked, not an uncommon recommendation in Australia. His employer wanted to suspend him for this and Carlton resigned.
Not everyone resorted to abuse. Here is for instance Philip Dalidakis, who presents himself as a commentator for Sky News and ABC News. He started his piece (in Crikey) this way:
“Israel is a small and isolated western democracy surrounded by undemocratic states and terrorist-controlled territories. Israel is not beyond criticism, nor do I lightly accuse people of anti-Semitism. It is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel, but it is if you don’t hold other regimes and conflicts to the same standard.”
in Crikey 20914
This argument is often encountered and thoroughly false. Why? For two main reasons:
1.Israel presents itself as part of the Western world (the only democracy in the Middle East etc.). This self image is by and large accepted by the Western world. It enjoys several advantages in consequence: in preferential trade deals, in the supply of advanced weaponry, in intelligence sharing etc. But if it is part of the West it is more open to critique (within the West) than an Asian or African country mistreating minorities. This is not because what happens there is necessarily less awful but because we have less responsibility for it.
2. .In addition: the evil of Israel’s actions has to be brought to the fore more forcefully than is the case with evil elsewhere, even within the Western world, because Israel has, as no other transgressing nation, a world wide claque that seeks to defend it, to cover up its crimes and to tell us, in short, that black is white. What the Singhalese did to the Tamils in Sri Lanka is a horrific crime but there has been no battalion of defenders in Western parliaments and media telling us that the Singhalese were quite justified in doing it. Otherwise with Israel. The deception practiced in its defence is an outrage in itself. People gag at this mendacious stuff being rammed down their throats. Critique is a natural and necessary reaction to it.
So Richard you blame this http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4575231,00.html on the Gaza war?
@ ben: This reminds me of the Philip Roth story from Goodbye Columbus in which the narrator talks about his mother who looks through the names of all plane crash victims for Jewish names. If there are Jewish names, it’s bad for the Jews. If there aren’t, it’s good for the Jews and she’s relieved. Is that how you look at the world? Counting tweets and which ones are published and which deleted? It’s really that important to you?
European soccer is the repository for racists, anti-Semites and haters of all stripes and varieties. Looking to such a sport as a real barometer of whether anti-Semitism is sweeping Europe is like finding a tick on a dog and declaring an epidemic.
The soccer angle is an interesting one, even though it invariably descends into racism and violence. This is on both sides. There are some clubs that support Israel, and others that support Palestine, much like in the Northern Irish conflict. Teams who are bitter rivals will usually divide themselves politically along the lines of fascism vs socialism. So, in Scotland you have Celtic vs Rangers. Celtic (catholic) is considered socialist in its political views. They would be waving the Palestinian flag, in support of a repressed people. Rangers (protestant) would be waving the Israeli flags. And you can bet that Rangers fans would have horrible things to say about the Palestinians, cos that’s football for you! I wouldn’t read too much into these political alignments – a lot of the time I get the feeling it’s just one side trying to get the better of the other. Except, there are two things that I’ve noticed recently:
1. Clubs with fans who wave Palestinian flags are getting fined for displaying politically. We have a tiny club called Dundalk united that got fined 18k! I don’t think the club makes that in a year! I have heard of the police getting involved on other occasions. On the other hand, no fine for Ajax when they did this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/football-why-tottenham-and-ajax-fans-have-a-jewish-identity-a-926095.html . You’ll notice how the article below the picture questions certain clubs affiliations with Israel (and I would question certain other clubs affiliations with Palestine – it’s all about antagonising the other side).
2. Not always, but the clubs that associate themselves with fascism also associate themselves with Israel. I wouldn’t read too much into it again, it’s all about annoying the other side. But it all seems to hinge on how the Israelis are treating the Palestinians.
I have found myself thinking about Irish struggle against the English: their mismanagement of the country; their racist attitude toward the “inferior” Irish that led to their inadequate response during the Great Famine, our country’s national trauma. It’s very emotive over here. This conflict is a proxy for so much!
I always thought that of all people the Jewish people and the Irish share a lot in common. And I suppose that’s part of it – nobody wants to see Israel continue along this path, for its own sake as much as anything else.
@ Conor Tobin: I lived in Ireland for seven months in 1983 and have had a great love and appreciation for Ireland, its history, culture & music. The Irish struggle has many echoes of Jewish history. And Ireland has always been a place that was hospitable to Jews except for some nastiness back in 1903, and the priest who provoked it was summoned back to Rome or sent away from Limerick, where he’d fomented trouble. The Irish may be proud of their history and struggle just as the Jews may. Of course, there are sins and mistakes made by each of them as well. But the ledger is overwhelmingly positive.
There are so many things wrong with Ireland I don’t know where to begin! Nobody’s perfect; I do think it is a form of patriotism to critically question your government’s actions, to strive to make your country a better place. In fact, I see no higher form of patriotism. Of course, this seems to be harder in Israel than in other places. Look what happened to Rabin! Ireland has a long history of self-flagellation! I’m not saying this is always a good thing, but there is a time when it’s needed.
Conor: There is something similar here in the Netherlands: Ajax (Amsterdam) waves Israeli flags, Feyenoord (Rotterdam) starts shouting anti Jewish slogans. There is no such shouting, by the way, against Israeli teams, just against Ajax: Fake anti-Semites vs. fake Jews. It is totally ridiculous.
@ Richard…
No I dont count tweets and such… but i had just read the article before reading your article and thought it was interesting that one of the deleted tweets did use the hashtag #gaza after an antisemetic tweet.
Though as you pointed out soccer is full of racists… Its like European culture is supposed to be all enlightened and stuff butt as soon as the proverbial rock breaks the waters surface you get to see all the nasty and terrible things they actually think but would never say in public. Its amazing how much “cojones” one gets when posting on the internet.
As you said Arab/Muslim dislike of Jews stems from the connection of Jews and Israel but i feel that Europeans just don’t like Jews period and this is due to systemic racism passed down via bigotry and liable… I am afraid that the Euro Muslim is buying into this hate due to the actions of Israel and social medias obsession if covering the conflict. (I had read that there are more associated press correspondents in Jerusalem then there are for all the sub Saharan African countries combined).
Arab/Muslim dislike of Jews predated the formation of Israel and stemmed from the Arabs perception that Jews were a weak, non-martial peoples.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XlxCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=Rob+Roy+on+the+Nile+Jews&source=bl&ots=zNR3DTVHpq&sig=jxyF99ylezRYi8LolFIX9uYLq2w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QXAoVJ_QNLPGsQSvyYL4Cg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Rob%20Roy%20on%20the%20Nile%20Jews&f=false
An anecdote about Arabs from the mouth of a British colonialist. Terribly convincing.
Ben, just as a reminder, Europe (not the EU) has over fifty countries with together over 700 million people. They all have their own historical background and most of them have a language they don’t share with any other country. Generalisations about Europeans this or Europeans that are therefore particularly misplaced.
“Its like European culture is supposed to be all enlightened and stuff”
Hey man, who told you that ‘and stuff’? It’s like, maybe you got some issues, you know?
” i feel that Europeans just don’t like Jews period”
Funny. I ‘feel’ that you are very young and ignorant, and that you should get your ‘butt’ (was that a spelling mistake you made there?) out of the US and visit and preferably live for a while in some other countries before spouting nonsense like that. But… I fear that your stupidity may be ‘systemic’! (And probably ‘passed down via bigotry and liable’….)
Man, that ‘systemic’ you put in there really cracked me up!
Cheers!
Ben there probably are a lot of foreign correspondents in Israel but that doesn’t mean that we get reliably informed on what is going on there. This is partly due to self censorship by the news organs they serve and partly to the intimidation they experience in their environment. I thought that in the recent conflict Al Jazeera came closest to giving us a half way reliable picture. Therefore such a Yahoo as Avigdor Lieberman is all in favor of banning it from Israel. His comparison of this broadcaster with “Der Stürmer” is particularly heinous.
See this article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/world/middleeast/foreign-correspondents-in-israel-are-targets-of-intimidation.html
Funny the Algemeiner only reports intimidation by Hamas.
The situation, especially since Gaza this Summer, does compel every Jew to declare one way or another. Thank you for yours above and the link to Antony Lerman’s April 2014 of Beller and then debate between Beller and Rabinovici on the current page. Long reads but very worthwhile.
The only hoax here is this article declaring that anti-Semitism in Europe is a hoax.
It is in fact rampant, and threatening to bubble over or possibly erupt in a wave that has not been seen since the 1930’s, and with that in mind we are talking less than a century ago.
Predating that, the history of the Jews in Europe is well known and well published with entire communities dealing with forced migrations, conversions, torture, torment and annihilation dating back to the times of the Roman Empire.
Say what you will about this round being attributed to Israel. That is the hoax. The fact is that 15 million Jews of the world are an easier target than 1.5 billion Arabs.
@ Amiran Cohen: Leave it to the hasbara brigade to misunderstand my post. I never said there was no anti-Semitism in Europe. I said that the uses that were made of that anti-Semitism were a fraud. The fraud or hoax is the exploitation of anti-Semitism for political purposes that advance the interests of this Israeli regime. I did say that the level & significance of Euro anti-Semitism is vastly exaggerated. But I never said the phenomenon itself was a hoax. But then again subtlety was never a virtue of the Hasbara apparatus.
While we talk about anti-Semitism, let’s talk about another form of anti-Semitism, or Islamophobia. Why not acknowledge the hate directed at Muslims in Israel & Palestine by Israeli Jews? Why not mention the cemetery & mosque desecrations. Why not focus on the beatings & killings by homicidal Jews aiming to create their own jihad against Islam and Muslims. Why not acknowledge the religious & ethnic prejudice suffered by Palestinian Muslims, Christians? I’ll tell you why–because you and your fellow hasbarists are hypocrites.
But do keep writing such nonsense. It only further strengthens the impression of reasonable readers that your views are bankrupt.
I think you mean, ‘ 1.5 billion Muslims’, not Arabs.
From the prestigious journal The Economist:
Yet, worrying as such changes are, they may not be a signal for Jews to pack up and leave. To state the obvious, anti-Semitism in Europe is not sponsored by governments, and there are no organised pogroms or Nuremberg laws. Berlin boasts the world’s fastest-growing Jewish community. Jews are free to stay or leave. Moving to Israel may fulfil a religious, cultural or political need for many Jews, but it is not safer than staying in Europe.
…
The European political model may be fraying, but it still tries to maintain open and tolerant societies. The EU, though in need of reform, seeks the same across the continent. Such ideals are worth defending, including the right to dissent and to criticise Israel. The protection of Jews is an important test of Europe’s democracy, as is the treatment of other law-abiding minorities, including Muslims. Should the spirit of tolerance ever disappear, Jews may not be the only ones to leave Europe.
Read more:
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21603489-jews-are-unnerved-europe-not-sinking-violent-anti-semitism-guns-and-ballot-boxes
There is an old Zulu saying that goes, the greatest waterfall started with a single drop.
Maybe not time for Jews to pack up and leave but we’ve been there before. We know how it starts and we don’t like how it ends.
The difference this time around is that the Jews today are not the shtettle yids of history. We will not go quietly into the night.
@ Amiran Cohen: You apparently know more about Zulu cultural wisdom than you do about Euro-anti-Semitism. The greatest Israeli paranoia begins “with a single drop” as well, turning into a veritable waterfall of self-delusion.
You haven’t been anywhere near “there’ before. You don’t know how it ‘starts or ends.’ You only have your own political prejudices which insist on turning the world into a nightmare when the real nightmare is right there at home staring you in the face.
There are no more shtetl Jews anywhere in the world. That’s another one of the historical delusions you harbor. There are Diaspora Jews doing pretty well for themselves on the whole and, on the whole, rejecting aliyah. And there are the Israeli Jews making a mess of their nation & their lives through their stubbornness. Thanks but no thanks for that as a model for identity among the world’s Jews.
No, you won’t go quietly. You’ll go with a bang & take the rest of the region with you. How reassuring I’m sure to the rest of us.
Richard, it’s absurd to argue that the only way to curb violence against Jews around the world is for Israel to change its policies. My right to live safely as a Jew has nothing to do with what the Israel does or doesn’t do. When Jews are targeted as Jews, that’s antisemitism. More and more European Jews report feeling increasingly uncomfortable identifying openly as Jews. That’s antisemitism. It would be one thing if violence against Jews in Europe were new, but it’s not. Today, the justification is Israel. In the last century, it was something else. In the century before that, something else still. What makes you think it would end, even if Israel gave in to its detractors and ceased to exist?
Apart from the Nazi occupation, there was no violence against Jews in many European countries for many, many centuries, or hardly ever… Please stop generalizing the negative examples that are also there.
Elisabeth, that’s fair. I’ll clarify that I’m referring to several specific countries with historically large Jewish communities (Russia, Poland, Germany, France, among others).
Thanks djf. Discrimination and negative feelings towards Jews and other religious minorities in some circles were, and are, and sadly enough will probably always be there in many if not all countries. But as to violence, condoned, or at least not effectively stopped by the authorities, against Jews in Gemany and France prior to the Nazi era and after the Middle ages, I will have to do some research into that. (I am not saying it wasn’t there, I just have to seek out more information, as I had the impression it was marginal if there at all. But I may be wrong.)
@ Elisabeth: Let’s not forget the Spanish Inquisition & the Crusades. Tens of thousands of Jews were killed in each one. Also, if you count Russia & Ukraine as European, you’d have to add pogroms as well.
Richard, please read the specific context of my comment and the ones by djf again. I count the crusades as the Middle ages. You are right about the Spanish Inquisition being after that, but the question was about France and Germany after the Middle Ages and before Nazism.
Israel’s violence against the Palestinians precipitates violence against Jews. Since Israeli leadership (Netanyahu) claims Israel represents the Jewish people and Judaism, and to the extent that Israel’s behavior gets Jewish support here and elsewhere you cannot easily separate out the real anti-Semite, from the protester against Israel’s policies. Jews everywhere are vulnerable. People feel uncomfortable identifying as Jews because of the reasonable, though uninformed, assumption that Jews and Judaism are represented by Israel. And then they hear Netanyahu confirm that! If the policies change completely, (somehow), in a more moral and ethical/just direction, then there is no cause for rage against Israel other than what may be perhaps a real and irrational (or traditional) anti-Semitism. It was the Gaza War that brought those demonstrations in the streets around the world. The debate on Antony Lehman’s website about this is very good.
@ djf:
Look, in theory you’re right. The two should be entirely separate and in the best of all possibly worlds they would be. But that’s not the world we live in. In THIS world, Arabs & Muslims accept Zio propaganda which conflates Jews with Israelis & accept what it says at face value. So you are blamed. If you or other Diaspora leaders also buy into this meme & substitute Israel for Judaism as your primary form of Jewish identity, then you too are aiding & abetting.
Saying Jews are targeted as Jews is a vast oversimplification of what’s happening. In a very small number of cases magnified by you & the media, Jews are seen as substitutes for Israelis. That’s not classical anti-Semitism.
“More and more Jews” is another one of those meaningless, scientifically invalid tropes used by the media. It signifies nothing.
No one is saying Israel should ‘cease to exist’ & the fact that you would articulate this fraudulent statement tells us everything we need to know about your own ideological prejudices. Your ignorance & willful blindness to nuance is pitiful. If it were just a phenomenon confined to you it would be one thing. But the problem is this blindness affects everything concerning Israel. It poisons perspective, offers a warped view of reality and leads to the psychopathology that is contemporary Israel.
I can’t bear continuing such a discussion with you. You’re hopeless. So you’re done in this thread. Move on.
It’s amazing how quick you are to accuse me of fraud, ignorance, willful blindness, and deem any further discussion “hopeless.” Your claim to know “everything we need to know about [my] own ideological prejudices” based on three words in my comment is ridiculous.
In fact, a standard position among anti-Zionists is that Israel’s founding was premised on colonialism and Palestinian oppression, and that it should cease to exist. How have you never come across that position?
@ djf: I base my judgment of you on “three words??” Are you daft? You’ve been commenting here for years; or did you think I wouldn’t realize that?
It is NOT a standard position among anti-Zionists that Israel should “cease to exist.” That’s a monster you’ve made in your own mind. Some anti-Zionists believe that & just as many would be fine if Israel continued as long as it became a true democracy and empowered all citizens. Anti Zionists also generally favor one state that would incorporate all Palestinians in Israel itself & the Territories. Even this does not preclude the existence of Israel.
I agree with the essence of this article, but I’m not sure of one statement:
‘Muslims and Arabs in Europe and elsewhere were not born anti-Semites. Nothing in their religion justifies anti-Semitism.’
My extremely superficial skimming of the Koran did note at least one and possibly more derogatory statements towards Jews. This Wikipedia article gives a far more complex overview of the matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism
I think Israeli atrocities contribute towards anti-semitism, and to some extent even justify anti-semitism (in diaspora communities that cheer Israel on) but I think there is also some tradition of it within Islam. That being said, there is also ugly and discriminating talk about the non-Jew in Torah…
@ Merlynn: I agree that my statement was slightly too emphatic. There are quotations you can lift from various sources if you wish to document such attitudes among Muslims. But there are equally disturbing statements about Islam (Ishmael & Hagar, for one) in the Torah. My point was that the overwhelming preponderance is overall either neutral or positive toward Jews.
Meanwhile:
Muslim hate crime ‘rises 65% in London’
http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/10/muslim-hate-crime-rises-65-in-london/
I wonder, if the Hasbarats have anything to do with it.
@ David T: To clarify, this refers to hate crimes AGAINST Muslims.
As an American I have developed a strong distaste for the Israel lobby role of dragging my country into the Balkanization of the Middle East. It is not just crimes in Gaza, but Syria and Iraq and the military-industrial-surveillance deep state looting that goes on. I am forced to watch the Zionist neo-cons (I see this as interchangeable) endlessly push that agenda and profit by it. Mainstream media spews out the neo-con Israeli agenda around the clock with no checks or balances.
I am 63 years old and have never had a anti-semantic bone in my body. Alas, and sadly, that has changed for me.
Before the Netherlands were attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany my sister and I were briefly members of Macabbi in Amsterdam. That youth organization was almost 100% run by German Jewish emigres. Polish youngsters such as my sister’s friend Bob Sinzhain were shunned. My sister and I were told that we were especially welcome because our ancestors were Sephardic Jews. There was clearly a lot of “antisemitism” among these Jews in Holland. My sister and I left Macabbi in disgust.
“It is right to combat the obscenity of the Euro-right’s political anti-Semitism whether in France, Germany or Hungary.” But when the anti-Semitism emanates from Islamist or leftist circles, we apologize for it or explain it away.