As a feminist, she's particularly outraged that many feminists have muted their criticism of Islamist misogyny, or how others are oblivious to their own self-interests. What could be more ludicrous, she asks, than to see grown men marching against Zionism behind a banner proclaiming "Queers for Palestine." Queer, indeed. If these men lived in an Islamic culture they would be harassed — or worse. Much worse.
Some of the enemies she identifies are familiar. Noam Chomsky, whose anti-Israel and anti-American books are best sellers on campus, catalogs the imperfections of American and Israeli democracies but forgives the total lack of democracy in Islamic countries. Edward Said, the "prestigious" professor of literature at Columbia University, compares the Palestinians under Israeli rule to the plight of the European Jews under the Third Reich.
What has emerged in the past decade is how the new anti-Semitism has become politically and psychologically respectable among western intellectual elites: "The American and European Left have made a marriage in hell with their Islamic terrorist counterparts."
The new anti-Semitism drips into the mainstream with surprising ease. Since she went to print, a popular columnist in The Observer, one of the most popular of Britain's liberal papers, piously announced that he would no longer even read letters to the editor about anti-Semitism if they were signed with Jewish names.
The Chicago Tribune, with several newspapers following its lead, only recently ran a particularly nasty political cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stereotypical hooked nose and the Jewish star sewn on his jacket, staring down with pleasure as President Bush satisfies his greed by paving "the roadmap to peace" with dollar bills. (The Tribune apologized for failing to recognize the anti-Semitic slurs.)
The Belgian affiliate of Oxfam International, organized to fight poverty, posted a cartoon on its Web site depicting a slice of orange dripping with blood-red juice: "Israeli fruit tastes bitter. Say no to the occupation of Palestine. Don't buy any fruit from Israel." The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization," protested on its Web site with a reproduction of a Nazi poster from April 1933: "Germans! Protect yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!"
The new anti-Semitism passes unnoticed among those who should know better. Writes Phyllis Chesler: "In a politically correct, multicultural world, anti-Semitism is the last acceptable prejudice."
Even in America, the land of the free and the home of the bravest.
Along with prejudice against Christianity, firearms, constitutionalists, marriage, white men, husbands of all colors and conservatism.
