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August 11, 2005

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism, in fact, often seems the rule rather than the exception in international relations. It was only days before the 2001 attacks when the United Nations held a shameful conference in Durban, South Africa.

Ironically named the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, it let anti-Semitism all hang out. The conference itself condemned the Middle East's only democracy, calling Israel a "racist, apartheid state" — not surprising in an atmosphere where Jewish nationalism itself has long been considered a form of racism.

However enlightened we may believe we are, ignorance and hate flourishes in our day. As Phyllis Chesler, author of The New Anti-Semitism, has argued, "Many people still believe that the Jews run the media, control the banks, killed Christ, seek world domination, and have ears everywhere." And today, add to that a global reach — where "Jew hatred is being mass-produced." When that hate finds its way into the mainstream consciousness, it might as well be true.

In 2002, for instance, it was widely reported that Israel had perpetrated a massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. The British Guardian editorialized that Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The Jenin atrocity, however, never happened, even according to a U.N. investigation. But people believe that it did to this day—again, the damage had already been done.

Instead of being unacceptable — as it should be — all too often anti-Semitism is tolerated by civilized people who should be repulsed and outraged by it. That it is a centuries-old bias often makes it somewhat "dog bites man" — which is all the more reason to condemn it clearly and loudly and often. And it doesn't help the cause of good versus evil when the prime minister of Britain speaks on the floor of the House of Commons after the London bombing, and, in listing nations that have also fallen victim to Islamic terrorism, leaves out Israel (where bus bombings have long been a reality, not a fear).

You don't have to be anti-Semitic to be part of the problem. Consciously or not, what is not said by a prime minister and what is erroneously reported by a wire service are all symptoms of a malignant societal tumor.

"Where’s the Outrage? Anti-Semitism cannot be tolerated. But, of course, it is." by Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online, July 27, 2005

Posted at August 11, 2005 01:30 PM | Categories: Bigotry

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