2001: The Year Anti-Semitism Raised It's Head
(Originally printed in Hebrew in Yediot Ahronot. Dec. 28, 2001. Sabbath Supplement. P. 10.)
Translated by By Yonatan Silverman
Sever Plocker Mediator
Daddy, is it OK to be anti-Semitic? I don't know how many well-behaved Christian children asked their parents this question on Christmas eve. I don't know how the parents replied. With embarrassment, anger, honesty. I know that it has been given free rein and an atmosphere exists in which anti-Semitism can come out of the closet. Like smallpox, another fatal disease that was considered eradicated to the extent they stopped producing the immunization against it, likewise anti-Semitism this year has made its return. "Since September 11", one British weekly reported to its readers, "open expressions of anti-Semitism merit respectability at London dinner table". Not only in London, also in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin and Toronto. And not exactly from September 11, 2001.
The comeback of anti-Semitism started roughly a year earlier. It spread quietly and penetrated: an American intellectual asked in a long article, how it is possible that I feel now that they are coming to annihilate us. Like my father? It seems to be permissible for adults to be anti-Semitic. It seems to be permissible to exclaim in a loud voice that the Jews are a people who only bring troubles to the world. It seems to be permissible if done politely of course, to ask the Jews to explain why they are murdering the Palestinian people in cold blood. It seems to be permissible between the NASDAQ report and a story on Tora Bora, to note by the way that there is something truthful in the things Bin Laden says ("did you see how noble and elegant he is?") on the source of terror; America really does support Israel and the Jews too much.
The massive Jewish influence on the media, banking, military industries, fashion and the internet in every country in which they only "live" is an established fact that can't be disputed. No? For adults today it seems to be permissible to be anti-Semitic. It seems to be permissible to hug Arab friends who claim that it has been proven beyond a doubt that the terror attack at the twin towers was planned and executed by the Israeli Mossad. A fact: all the Jews fled from there before the attack". It seems to be permissible to print without comment learned articles which examine why the Israeli occupation is worse than the Nazi occupation. It seems to be permissible to shake hands very warmly with a person who explains the blood liable as an ancient Jewish ritual, and pleasantly describes why the Jews, like the apes of evolution, need to become extinct. On one condition: that the polite guest and expert in Mideast history isn't God forbid a vulgar Neo Nazi skinhead but an authentic representative of an authentic Islamic movement.
But it is only permitted to adults to be anti-Semitic. Because only the adults know to behave politely even when they express themselves on the despicable character of Jews. Only the adults adhere to the culture of the exchange of ideas; on one side the opinion that states that the Jews and their tiny wretched country are guilty for all the troubles of the world and on the other give equal time for the opinion that states that the Jews are guilty only for some of the troubles of the world. Only the adults will guard their tongues and will not shout "Out With The Jews", perhaps at a moment of weakness. Until September 11 antisemitism seeped into western speech bit by bit. The generation that remembered Auschwitz and the generation that remembered the generation that remembered Auschwitz seemed sufficiently immune from it. In every city, says Prof. Yehuda Bauer, a Shoah museum opened. But after September 11 the picture changed. Vociferous anti-globalization went out of fashion and polite anti-Semitism became fashionable. Polite: it is still forbidden to be a Neo Nazi, because that is racism, but it is permitted to be anti-Semitic, because this is, as it were, anti-racist. It is understood per se that it is permitted and even respectable to be anti Zionist.
We Thought Antisemitism Was Wiped Out
2001 was not a good year for Jews. It was a good year for antisemites. They rejoiced at the Durban Conference and they rejoiced after September 11. Western anti-Semitism and Muslim anti-Semitism connected and together created a alarming pattern of hate. Is the Jewish people standing face to face with a new anti-Semitism?
Prof. Dina Porat: It is not possible to speak about "a new anti-Semitism" as a phenomenon. It is possible to speak about the return and increasing force of he earlier and ancient anti-Semitism. We thought that anti-Semitism in Europe was wiped out or at least remained in the farthest sidelines. Toward the end of the 20th century we even saw that anti-Semitism was in opposition to the public order, as an inseparable part of the general problem of democracy. Laws were passed against anti-Semitism, there were important achievements that pushed it into a corner. But in 1998 I already saw it coming back again.
And in the last year?
Prof. Porat: Manifestations of anti-Semitism have grown more extreme and more severe. Expressions of hatred for Jews that were considered taboo are returning. Today, speaking against Jews is almost a bon mot. People speak freely about international Jewish schemes and about Israel as the source of all the troubles in the world.
Prof. Dan Dinar: There is a certain fundamental and symbolic event regarding continuing anti-Semitism in Europe: the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the wall fell, a wave of anti-Semitism broke out from the south of France to Scandinavia, from west to east.
How come? What is the connection between the fall of the wall and anti-Semitism?
Prof. Dinar: In one instant we encounter a new phenomenon, globalization. People are losing their compass, they do not understand what is happening. A worldwide stock market, a new form of money, no borders. Concepts like country, nationality, everything is in doubt. They are looking for the ones who are guilty for this new situation and they find the Jews. The peasantry in Poland is afraid that their country's participation in the European Union will destroy their livelihoods. And they respond to this danger in a "natural" way: the European Union they say is the Jews. The European Union is depicted as a Jewish scheme whose purpose is the destruction of the whole class of peasants in eastern Europe generally and Poland in particular. It is very similar to developments in Europe in the decades of the 70s and 80s in the 19th century.
The Jews are returning as the symbol of evil?
Prof. Dinar: In the age of globalization the Jews are again becoming a symbol. And not only Jews. Outside of the United States we are witnessing a much wider phenomenon: anti-Americanism, which is connected to anti-Semitism and resembles it in more than a few elements. I would define anti-Americanism as second rate anti-Semitism.
From reading certain newspapers in the west I get the impression that now it is permitted to say the following: the state of Israel is the last creation of western colonialism and therefore it will disappear from the map as all the other colonies disappeared. The time has come to solve "the Israeli problem" by erasing the Jewish state.
Prof. Dinar: 1947 is a symbol for us, the year in which the United Nations recognized our right to a state. But the Israeli/Palestinian question remained open. It was only swalloed up in another event that occurred in 1947 - the start of the Cold War. Until 1989 the Cold War impressed itself on the whole world. Since then there is no more Cold War and the conflicts that weren't really solved 61 years ago are erupting. One of them is the conflict between us and the Palestinians. Another is the conflict in Kashmir, and there are others. They are therefore perceived as outgrowths of the colonial past".
To what extent is the new wave of anti-Semitism dangerous?
Prof. Shlomo Ben Ami: There is anti-Semitism that isn't for political purposes, it is only in the mind. I know a country where a strong anti-Semitism prevails which does no harm to anyone. This is Spain. Spanish anti-Semitism does not kill Jews, does not close their shops, does not smash their display windows, essentially it does nothing to them. The anti-Semitism is deeply rooted in Spanish Catholicism, it is practically a norm. It is called harmless anti-Semitism". Doesn't it do harm? Under certain conditions - an economic crisis, the appearance of a charismatic political demagogue, the dilemma of globalization - it is liable to turn into lethal anti-Semitism.
The Cause Of The Third World War
Prof. Robert Wistrich: The situation of the Jews in France today is the most severe since the Second World War. I talk with people there, and hear things that I never heard. Since September 2000 in France there have been dozens of attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions. The Jews feel threatened: the Muslim community in France numbers at least 5 million people. The intellectual discourse is hostile towards Israel and public opinion is anti-Semitic. In England one of the well known publicists asked already whether the establishment of the state of Israel wasn't really a mistake that needs to be fixed now. It is a danger to world peace, it is the cause for the third world war. The idea that the state of Israel was born in sin is finding many supporters. I see this as a very severe matter.
Prof. Yehuda Bauer: I suggest distinguishing between the non Islamic world and the Muslim world. In the west anti-Semitism remains, in my opinion, a marginal matter. Now it is is more widespread and acceptable in various circles, and is causing much uneasiness, but not more than that. There aren't anti-Semitic parties in the west that ones needs to watch out for. There isn't official anti-Semitism. It isn't like that in the Muslim world. Within the Muslim world a new phenomenon is developing which isn't penetrating the consciousness of the non Islamic public. It also does not resemble the "old" Arab anti-Semitism, about which much has been written. I am speaking about totalitarian Muslim Fundamentalism, which longs for global rule as did communism and Nazism. The aim is to destroy the old, the civilization of "the Jews and infidels", as Bin Laden said, and to erect on its ruins an absolute Islamic regime. The Jews are perceived as perverse, as the hard core of the world against which Muslim Fundamentalism is fighting. Jews and Israel - there is no distinction. This Muslim threat against us uses the unmistakable language of genocide, of annihilation. ###
Submitted December 25, 2009
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Yonatan Silverman is a professional Hebrew to English translator living in Tel Aviv. He also edits and publishes an electronic mail newsletter called SARTABA.
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