From JPost.com
Although their justifications shift over time, the patterns of antisemitism have remained the same for centuries, if not millennia: It’s the same set of ideas.
FELIX KLEIN (2nd R) attends an international gathering on combating antisemitism in Berlin last January.
(photo credit: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES)
A sentiment often heard in debates about Israel and the Middle East conflict is “I’m not antisemitic, I’m just anti-Zionist.” But what I hear when people say this is “I’m not antisemitic, I’m just antisemitic.” Yes, you read that correctly. I’m firmly convinced that anti-Zionism isn’t the “new” antisemitism because anti-Zionism is just plain antisemitism. It’s nothing innovative or particularly novel; it’s just the same old anti-Jewish hatred in a new guise.
First of all, yes, it is true that in the history of Zionism there was a discourse within the Jewish community that included voices of opposition to the project of establishing a national home for the Jewish people. Anti-Zionist Jewish voices exist today, too. But at least since the Shoah – which was not the decisive factor in the founding of Israel but nonetheless starkly demonstrated the need for a protected space for Jewish people – these voices have been marginalized.
What they often have in common today is a broader affinity for extreme positions. Many of them either occupy the leftmost extreme of the political spectrum or are religious fundamentalists. In any event, such positions are found very rarely, if at all, in the Jewish mainstream anywhere on Earth. Not all Jews are explicit Zionists, but very few are hostile to the notion of a Jewish and democratic Israel.
