The ugly return of anti-Semitism
September 1, 2014 -- Updated 1532 GMT (2332 HKT)
Source: CNN
Editor's note: Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is the author of the new book "Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- On Sunday, there was a rally in London to protest something I never thought would need protesting in modern Britain: the rise of anti-Semitism.
The rally was in reaction
to a series of strange, unsettling incidents that took place during the
recent demonstrations against Israeli military actions in Gaza. In one
case, the manager of a supermarket in London decided to take
all the kosher food off the shelves. He apparently feared that
demonstrators outside might trash the shop; one member of the staff
reportedly said, "We support free Gaza." The supermarket chain called it
"an isolated decision ... in a very challenging situation."
Isolated it may have
been, but it is part of a bigger picture. There have always been people
in the West who disagree with aspects of Israeli foreign policy and
there has always been a peace movement ready to protest Israel's
actions. But what has made the 2014 protests different is the growing
conflation of Israel in particular with Jews in general.
Timothy Stanley
Not all kosher food comes
from Israel, not all Jews who eat it agree with the assault on Gaza.
Yet such an important distinction between state and racial identity has
begun to erode. The result: a return of low-level anti-Semitism to
public life.
Of course, some of it has never gone away. Just two years after the end of the Second World War, there were anti-Semitic riots across Britain. Europe has an insidious history of Holocaust denial, and even a multicultural haven like New York has seen racial tensions flare.
But in 2014, anti-Semitism went global all at once. In July, an anti-Israeli demonstration in Paris broke into racist rioting: Jewish-owned shops and synagogues were targeted. In Berlin, they were chanting: "Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone."
In New York, just last week, a Jewish couple were roughed up by thugs waving Palestinian flags, according to the New York Post. In my native Britain, anti-Semitic attacks have risen and we've seen the return of old prejudices on anti-war marches.
It's important to stress
that these are -- like the kosher food disappearance -- "isolated"
incidents that do not indict everyone in the peace movement. But they
are making Jewish communities which once felt safe suddenly feel
threatened. Emigration to Israel by French Jews jumped 70% in 2013 and will likely be even higher this year.
At the beginning of the Gaza operation, Times columnist Hugo Rifkind wrote in The Spectator that he was uncomfortable with Israel's policies. One month later, after the protests, he wrote in The Times
that he felt "uncomfortable to be a Jew." There is a creeping sense of
sickness in all of this. Like a virus that starts with an itch in the
back of your throat -- that you suspect could be something dormant about
to break through.
Part of the reason is
genuine, understandable anger at what has happened in Gaza. But while
that might explain fury at the Israeli state, it does not explain
attacks on Jews overseas. After all, a state does not speak for all its
citizens, let alone its ethnic diaspora.
In Die Welt newspaper, one Jewish German wrote,
"Jewish students get anti-Zionist hate mail when Israel responds to
rocket attacks by Hamas. The loudest part of supporters of Palestine has
lost all sense and gives all the guilt to anyone who wears a skullcap
or a Star of David." He added: "For Jews, the danger comes not long only
from the right."
That is a big part of
the problem. Anti-Semitism has historically been associated with the far
right, parties of which have capitalized upon the Credit Crunch and
done well in recent European elections. The recession has drawn some
back into narrow-minded nationalism, and even the blood and soil
politics of the 1930s.
The most striking examples of this are the virulently racist Jobbik movement in Hungary or the more subtly racist Front National in France. But anti-Semitism has also been allowed, even invited, to enter the left, too.
The peace movement has been reinvigorated by Muslim immigration to Europe, and aspects of the left have made alliances with people who make spurious claims to be Muslim community leaders.
In reality, those
leaders do not speak for the vast, vast majority of Muslims who
understand the distinction between Israeli policy and Jews. But the
influence of this particular brand of Islamic extremism is being felt on
the marches -- as the Parisian riots attest.
At the same time,
left-wing critics of Western foreign policy have often flirted with the
notion that there is an unholy alliance of America and Israel making all
the decisions. Or even that Israel is in fact directing what the United
States does through a conspiracy of lobbyists, capital and media. I
encountered this firsthand when I did a TV debate with a leader of the
Stop the War Coalition in London last week. I was told that the West was
only supporting the Kurds against ISIS in northern Iraq because of
American and Israeli oil interests. I laughed. I could think of no more
fitting response.
That experience caps
several years of noticing a quiet perversion of peace movement politics
taking place. On a personal note, I am anti-interventionist (borderline
pacifist) and happily marched with the Stop the War Coalition against
the Iraq War in 2003. But when working as a lecturer a few years later, I
quit my labor union when it signed on to a boycott of Israeli
academics. And I've witnessed a strange slide within the anti-war
movement toward a variety of politics that leaves a bitter taste in the
mouth.
Obviously, I'm concerned
about a rise of a socially acceptable anti-Semitism that threatens the
well-being of those Jewish friends that I know and love. But I also
despair that the European peace movement has allowed this situation to
develop without stopping even to think about it.
The tolerance that some
on the left are showing toward anti-Semitism threatens to delegitimize
fair and reasonable criticism of Israeli policy. They have allowed a
potentially noble cause to be infiltrated by people without a shred of
nobility. They need to put their house in order before it collapses down
on all of us.
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