The New Israelophobes

The Jerusalem Post ^ | March 2, 2004 | Robert Wistrich

[quidnunc]

A recent Jewish Chronicle survey revealed a troubling rise in anti-Jewish prejudice in Britain. Nearly one in five people polled believed the Holocaust was "exaggerated." A similar number believed Jews have too much influence and do not want a Jewish prime minister.

The Community Security Trust (CST) has also just released its own figures on anti-Semitic incidents in 2003, which are equally disturbing. They show a rise of 15% in assaults and an increase of 31% in damage to Jewish property since the previous year. The total number of anti-Jewish acts (375) was the second highest since record keeping began in 1984.

The figures confirm what has been apparent for some time — anti-Semitism is growing in Britain.

But it is a different virus from the one that prevailed 60 years ago. The emerging multi-cultural society of Britain will not tolerate sieg heils and discredited racist mythology. Nor is this a replay of the traditional anti-Semitism with which I grew up in Britain, with its idiosyncratic mix of aristocratic hauteur, bourgeois snobbery and working-class dislike of "bloody foreigners."

The new-look prejudice is more in tune with the "anti-racist," progressive zeitgeist of the early 21st century.

One of the more distinctive manifestations of this pathology is the sudden convergence of militant Islamists and the hard Left. Islamists may fundamentally disagree with radical Trotskyists about feminism, homosexuality or secularism, but they share an anti-Western, anti-globalist and anti-Zionist agenda. Moreover, opposition to Tony Blair's war in Iraq as well as commitment to the Palestinian cause has helped bring together these strange bedfellows.

Anti-Semitism in Britain has also been fuelled by the one-sided reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the BBC and some of the quality British press.

-snip-

[VaBthang4]

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the time...

Libertarian = Israelophobe

[mgist]

Libertarian's are not Israelphobes, the American hard left and liberal Europeans are. I really can not understand people like Abe Foxman and others who worship the ideology that hates them. According to David Horowitz dislike of Jews by the left started ages ago. But some people refuse to take off their rose colored glasses.

[westerfield]

Libertarians like Ron Paul may be against foreign aid or "entangling alliances" with other nations, but it would be a misnomer to label him an "Israelophobe".

[montag813]

Nearly one in five people polled believed the Holocaust was "exaggerated."

Sounds like Hutton Gibson would be a shoo-in for MP.

[VOA]

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the time...

Many academicians with tenure = Israelophobes

and I know more than a few...it blew me away the first time I heard one of these
liberal Democrats b-tching about the Israelis.

I was thankful to hear Victor Davis Hanson (columnist at National Review Online)
say that about 90% of tenured faculty hates Israel and maybe 90% of their
students support/are neutral about Israel.

[TheSpottedOwl]

What the heck is going on over there?

[veronica]

What the heck is going on over there?

ISLAM...and leftism.

[TheSpottedOwl]

They're taking over Europe.

[Luhwind_23]

What's been doing on the past 2000 years? They haven't changed, and you shouldn't expect them to.

[Alouette]

Rest of article:

In April 2002 the IDF's operations in Jenin produced mushrooming tales of mass murders, common graves, summary executions and war crimes. The Guardian authoritatively proclaimed that "Jenin already has that aura of infamy that attaches to a crime of especial notoriety." The Times spoke of "killing fields." The Evening Standard talked about "massacre and a cover-up of genocide."

Since then the hyperbole has diminished, but the pro-Palestinian trend continues to be dominant in the media and public opinion. It results in a downplaying of the suffering of Israeli victims of terror attacks and intolerable double standards in Britain regarding the security fence.

AT THE same time the sinister image of a clique of wealthy Jews secretly seeking to manipulate the global agenda for their own interests has also begun to spread its poison. So, too, has the absurd contention that Blair's government joined an American war in Iraq to protect Zionist interests.

This new variation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – which sees the war in Iraq as an American Jewish neoconservative and Likudist conspiracy – has gained popularity on Labor's Left and even in the liberal mainstream. It is, of course, an article of faith among radical British Muslims and neo-Nazis.

The anti-globalist wing of the British Left can barely disguise its antipathy toward Anglo Jews, who are not only too pro-Israel and professionally successful but a detested symbol of free-market capitalism.

Hard-line leftists like Scottish MP and former Saddam groupie George Galloway have always distrusted Blair's well-known links to prominent Jewish businessmen and fundraisers. The prominence of Jews on the Conservative Party's front bench will doubtless give them new opportunities to revive well-worn stereotypes about greedy Jewish financiers.

The progressive mania of solidarity with the Palestinians has done much over the past 30 years to push the British Left into its chronic anti-imperialism of fools – one in which Israel becomes an ersatz America. As I discovered on a recent visit to Britain, it has become impossible in such circles to discuss an issue like Israel's security fence except as an "apartheid barrier" or a manifestation of the "racist" ideology of Zionism.

Anti-Semitism and loathing for Israel is no longer merely a phenomenon of marginal extremists. Last December an ugly caricature of Ariel Sharon devouring the flesh of a Palestinian baby won first prize in the British Political Cartoon's Annual Competition for 2003. It would not have looked out of place in Der St rmer – a mark of how far a section of liberal-Left opinion has begun to cross all red lines.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to regard The Independent, The Guardian, the New Statesman or the BBC as deliberately anti-Semitic. The truth is more complex. Elite opinion in Britain subjectively sees itself as anti-anti-Semitic as long as the threat comes from the far Right.

It is genuinely enraged at some Israeli actions, and not always mistaken. But when the defamation of Zionism claims to be progressive or is Palestinian in origin, a strange schizophrenia emerges in which almost everything is permitted under the mask of criticizing Israel.

The new Israelophobes insist that they are true humanists and some even claim to love the Jews, but their compassion appears to be highly selective. Perhaps the time has come to bring a bombed-out Jerusalem bus to the streets of London to jolt the sleeping British conscience.

The writer is professor of European history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior research associate at the Shalem Center.

[Alouette]

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[Celtjew Libertarian]

Libertarian = Israelophobe

Not entirely....

[yonif]

The figures confirm what has been apparent for some time — anti-Semitism is growing in Britain.

[Salem]

"One of the more distinctive manifestations of this pathology is the sudden convergence of militant Islamists and the hard Left."

A growing trend Daniel Pipes addressed in his recent New York Sun article Defund Middle East Studies. It didn't raise much of a response at the FR thread posted on it, but there is legislation in the wings to deal with the leftist hegemony on University campuses in America, to counter this growing trend, and of course the main impetus behind Daniel Pipes' project CampusWatch.org.




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[tubavil]

One of the more distinctive manifestations of this pathology is the sudden convergence of militant Islamists and the hard Left.

Now there's a shock.

arabrat wouldn't have half the success he does without the support of the Israeli left.

Neutralize leftist pig slime and save Jewish lives: Israel, America, Europe, or anywhere else.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[cookcounty]

"I was thankful to hear Victor Davis Hanson (columnist at National Review Online) say that about 90% of tenured faculty hates Israel and maybe 90% of their students support/are neutral about Israel."

I never tire of reminding my kids that their grandpa with his 8th-grade education was more broadly educated than most of their PhD-boasting profs.

[cookcounty]

It's on the one hand disheartening to see all the anti-Israel anti-Jewish attitudes of professors on US campuses.

Then again, it's encouraging to see that most students have little respect for the hateful views of their "superiors."

[lainde]

bttt