OVERVIEW

“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews,” said Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in March 1968, in response to a student’s question at Harvard University. “In polite company,” according to Andrew Sullivan in the London Sunday Times, December 2001, “one uses Israel when hesitating to use the word ‘Jew.’” And in March 2003, in an EU-sponsored Brussels conference against antisemitism, European Commission President Romano Prodi deplored “the criticism of Israel inspired by what amounts to antisemitic sentiments and prejudice.” Thus, a civil-rights leader, a journalist and a politician, at different times and in different places, pinpointed the issue at the core of the 2003 antisemitic incidents: the relationship between antisemitism and ‘anti-Israelism’.

In 2003 the Stephen Roth Institute recorded a total of 360 serious incidents worldwide, 30 major attacks (including shootings, knifings, bombings and arson) and 330 major violent incidents (i.e., physical aggression without the use of a weapon and vandalism). This is a considerable increase compared to 2002, which witnessed 311 serious incidents. The five countries with the highest levels of antisemitic incidents were France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and Canada.

In France, according to the SPCJ (Service de Protection de la Communutי Juive), there was a slight decline, from 517 manifestations of antisemitism of all types in 2002 to 503 in 2003. There was a decrease in arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions, down to 9 in 2003 from 29 in 2002, which may indicate that the French government is affording Jewish institutions better protection. However, according to the SPCJ the overall number of violent acts grew to 233 in 2003 (compared to 185 in 2002) of which physical aggression accounted for 100 in 2003 (compared to 75 in 2002). Our records point to 71 serious attacks and major violent incidents. Most notable in France was the increase in physical attacks on pedestrians and in schools.

The same tendency was evident in the United Kingdom: about 90 instances of both verbal and physical abuse were recorded, mostly against students “going about their daily business in public,” to quote the British Community Security Trust, which recorded an increase of 15 percent in violent assaults, from 42 in 2002 to 54 in 2003 (50 according to our records). A high number of desecrations of synagogues – no fewer than 104 (including arson) – during the last three years, was recorded as well.

A disturbing development was recorded in Canada: the number of all types of antisemitic expressions doubled from 2001 to 2003; one-fifth of the 2003 cases, over 100, of both verbal and physical abuse, were directed against individuals, especially students and school children, and 26 cases were recorded as violent. According to B’nai Brith Canada, 2003 was the worst of the past 20 years, and one in which Jews felt that “somehow ‘permission’ has been given for open antagonism toward” them.

Across the border in the United States, the numbers of all antisemitic expressions remained relatively the same for the last 7 years (between 1,500 and 1,600 cases a year). There were 5 major attacks in the USA in 2003, and harassment was recorded in 60 percent of all cases. There was an encouraging decline of 36 percent in incidents on campus, perhaps because of “more effective responsive measures by campus officials and Jewish students,” to quote the 2003 ADL Audit.

The number of violent incidents in Germany, which rose from 19 in 2002 to 34 in 2003, is a surprise because Germany, in view of its past, has stronger checks and balances than most other European countries. However, it should be taken into consideration that the rise was in cemetery desecrations and not in assaults on individuals.

In Russia, the situation remained more or less static, and we experienced the same difficulties in differentiating between criminal and violent antisemitic incidents – 37 cases in 2003.

Despite the importance of monitoring numbers, especially of violent incidents, it must be admitted that such monitoring poses problems and has limitations. First, although the various countries and Jewish agencies paid much closer attention, there is still no common definition, shared by the monitoring bodies worldwide, of a violent act, or even of an antisemitic act. Second, the accuracy of monitoring depends on the relations between the members of each community and the authorities, as well as on modern and democratic means needed for monitoring. Therefore, communities and individuals may find it easier to report to groups and institutions outside their own countries. Third, countries vary in regard to their mentality and traditions: “dirty Jew,” when uttered in the Ukraine, does not generate the offense that it does in France or in the UK. Fourth, the severity of the cases is far more important than the actual numbers, as is the targeting: The bombs that blew up two synagogues in Turkey last November (2003) killed 23 and injured 300, but the incident was considered as one case of a major attack, as were each of the assaults in Morocco. Sometimes, results turn out to be less destructive than the perpetrators meant them to be, but the case should still be regarded as no less severe, in view of its potential results. Similarly, the beating of a Jewish child in the schoolyard could be attributed to regular skirmishes among children and thus classified as a minor case, but the repetitious nature of such occurrences makes them a noticeable phenomenon.

The fact that Jews were specifically targeted and the increased severity of the assaults on individuals and synagogues led to the oft repeated view that “we are back in the 1930s.” Violence, perpetrated mainly by Muslim immigrants in Europe, is coupled with and fueled by the generally hostile sentiments toward Israel and Jews, which originate in the local cultures and express themselves both verbally and visually. Recent examples of such sentiments vehemently expressed were recorded in Spain, Italy, Greece and the Scandinavian countries. Thus, the hostile atmosphere and violence that nourish one another led to the ‘1930s’ comment.

Though fully aware of the severe escalation in antisemitic activity, the record should be set straight and things placed in proportion: Jewish awareness is on a totally different plane. The lessons of the Holocaust have taught Jewish individuals and organizations to be on the alert, but non-Jews are also willing, through education and legislation, to fight bigotry. Therefore, depriving Jews (or any other group) of their civil rights, a major aspect of the 1930s, is no longer possible. The American government has adopted a strong stance against antisemitism, and the Vatican, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, has denounced antisemitism and tried, though not always successfully to implement its revolutionary decisions of 1965. Much of today’s antisemitism originates in radical Muslim circles, yet the Muslim world is vast in geographical scope and in population, ranging from moderates to fanatics, so that it lacks the unity of ideology and regime that characterized the Nazis; last but not least, the State of Israel provides a haven and a center of activity, that, though recently less secure than it was meant to be, was sorely needed in the 1930s.

In one very important respect there is a great difference been the present and the 1930s: awareness and analysis of antisemitism have been fostered by a large number of surveys, polls, conferences and international (or at least European) seminars, many of which are conceived and conducted by non-Jews. One such survey was commissioned by the Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUCM) sponsored by the EU from the Center for the Study of Antisemitism in the Technische Universitהt in Berlin, headed by Prof. Wolfgang Benz. Its results were not published for almost 9 months (March–November 2003), probably because it showed that Muslim and leftist circles, and not necessarily far right ones, were fueling antisemitism while cooperating and inspiring each other, a situation with serious political implications. The EUMC published a counter-survey, which reached us upon concluding this overview and general analysis. It will undoubtedly raise much controversy, since it seems to differ strongly from the former one, regarding the identity of the perpetrators. Underestimating victims’ testimonies, the survey avoids pointing directly at young Muslim immigrants as the main source of violence, and emphasizes the role of the far right while ignoring the extreme left. It is hesitant regarding possible convergence of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and avoids reference to the delegitimation of Israel as a manifestation of antisemitism. Whatever the case, the very debate keeps the issue at center stage.

Polls are conducted in many countries to verify the feelings and attitudes of non-Jews regarding their Jewish countrymen. Conferences range from the Stockholm forum held in January 2000, sponsored by Swedish Prime Minister Gצran Persson (which subsequently met 3 times), through Vienna (June 2003, an OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] conference), Brussels (March 2004, sponsored by the European Commission), and Amsterdam (in April 2003, Anne Frank’s house), to a second larger OSCE conference in Berlin to be held in late April 2004, not to mention many other conferences sponsored by community and academic circles bringing together philosophers, authors and scholars to discuss the ‘new antisemitism’; no such events took place in the 1930s.

The crucial issue emerging from most surveys, analyses and deliberations is the need to define when anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism is actually tainted with antisemitism, which is as follows:

n      when the language, images, and character traits attributed to Israel are imbued with known antisemitic stereotypes;

n      when Israelis and Jews are depicted as a cosmic evil, are blamed for world-wide disasters, and are compared to the Nazis, the ultimate evil;

n      when Israelis and Jews supporting the State of Israel are singled out and attacked, and are treated in a disproportionate manner in relationship to the issue at hand and in comparison to the actions of other nations;

n      when the very right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is de-legitimized;

n      when the Holocaust is distorted and made a political weapon, allegedly misused by the Jews to extort financial support and to make political capital.

            Finally, it can indeed be said that the Middle East has lit the match that kindled the recent fire, but what fuels the fire are the meeting points between the interests of radical Islamists and various factions of the European left and the extreme right. The following is an analysis of those links and their results.

WHEN anti-israelISM BECOMES antisemitism

In the last three years the link between extreme anti-Israel rhetoric and deeds directed against Jewish individuals and communities has become an observable global trend, manifested in two ways: The first blames the Jews for Israel’s actions. “The Jews must pay,” cry Islamists and left- and right-wing extremists, who disregard polarization in the Jewish world regarding Israeli policy. Since Jews and Israel are perceived as a single evil entity, any Jew, even the most anti-Zionist one, has become a potential target. The second is the integration of antisemitic stereotypes and Nazi vocabulary into the anti-Israel campaign. Israel and the Jews are perceived as a world power, an “international lobby,” manipulating and directing global political and military events from behind the scenes. While the Holocaust is still denied, mainly by right-wingers and neo-Nazis, more troubling is distortion of the labeling of the victims and their descendants as Nazis. As the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut wrote, “The memory of the Holocaust is always turned against the Jews.”

The aim of this essay is to illustrate the link between extreme anti-Israel positions and antisemitism in various countries in 2003. It shows that demonizing and dehumanizing Israel has become the common practice not only of fringe groups but in mainstream rhetoric and discourse, too.

Western Europe

In 2003, identifiable or known Jews, as well as people presumed to be Jewish, were physically assaulted in and near Jewish community centers, in their homes and in the streets. Attackers shouting antisemitic insults threw stones at children leaving Hebrew schools and at worshippers near synagogues. Elderly Jews, women and children, mostly school pupils, were beaten in Lausanne, Antwerp, Vienna, Berlin, London, Lyon and Paris, and Jewish schools and synagogues were firebombed.

 In France, an elderly worshipper was severely beaten on Friday 24 January 2003, after a synagogue service in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, by a man who could not stand, as he told the police, the skullcaps the Jews wear. On 10 April 2003, a young Jewish girl was attacked by four people on her way to high school in Lille. They grabbed her from behind and hit her on the head shouting, “Hitler did not finish what he started, we’ll finish it and you’ll end your life in the crematorium… dirty whore … Jewish whore!” In December, in the UK, a gang of London youths punched, kicked and insulted a 14-year-old girl, calling her “a filthy Jew,” and a rabbi in Birmingham was spat at and punched while he was walking home from synagogue on Shabbat in March, leaving him with a cut face. In Belgium some Jewish youths who were on their way home from school in Brussels on 10 March were attacked by a group of about 30 Arabs who identified them as Jews. When the boys tried to board a train, one of them was caught by six Arab youths who beat him severely. The above are a few examples of the violent attacks perpetrated against Jews in Europe, which have become the main manifestation of antisemitism since the second intifada (uprising) began in September 2000.

 The record of antisemitic violence in 2003 illustrates a correlation between the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rise of antisemitic incidents in western Europe. The suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant and the Israeli retaliation in Syria seem to have been the main reason for the increase in antisemitic incidents in the UK in October which, according to the data of the Community Security Trust of the country’s Jewish community, was the highest for the whole year. In France, too, a large number of antisemitic incidents were perpetrated in October–November, and Germany witnessed a large number of antisemitic incidents in November. However, the notion that “the Jews must pay” relates not only to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the war in Iraq clearly led to an increase of antisemitic incidents in western Europe. The second highest monthly total for 2003 in the UK was recorded in March, when the war began. The influence of the war was especially evident in France, where according to the data of the Service de Protection de la Communautי Juive, the number of acts rose dramatically in March and April. In Belgium the most serious incident took place in March when a firebomb was tossed at the Clinique Synagogue in Brussels.

The increase in incidents during the war in Iraq proves again that the Jews were perceived as the evil force behind the American troops, who were allegedly furthering Israeli interests. One of the most extreme demonstrations of this view was the terrorist attack carried out by a Turkish Islamic group associated with al-Qa`ida on two synagogues in Istanbul, Neve Shalom and Beth Israel, on 15 November, in which 23 people were killed and 300 injured. In Germany four men, allegedly linked to the Islamist terrorist group al-Tawhid, were charged on 30 September 2003, with plotting an attack on the Jewish Museum in Berlin and on a Jewish-owned bar in Dusseldorf.

There is a clear conceptual relationship between the Islamist belief in a malevolent Israeli-Jewish plot and the extreme hostility toward Zionism and Israel manifested in western Europe, not only by representatives of the far left and right, but frequently also by mainstream writers and public figures. Two central antisemitic motifs dating back to Medieval Christian culture can be detected in extreme expressions of anti-Israeli sentiment: dehumanization and demonization. Dehumanization can be clearly seen, for example, in a caricature by Finn Graff, which appeared in the Danish Dagbladet on 19 September 2003. Using the ancient images of the Jew and the pig, he portrayed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a pig excreting on Arabs. A similar motif had appeared on 17 March 2002, on the front page of the Spanish humorist weekly El Jueves, which displayed a caricature of Sharon with a pig’s face, a skullcap, a swastika and an inscription reading, “That wild beast?” On 27 January 2003, Holocaust Day in the UK, the daily Independent ran a cartoon showing Sharon devouring an infant amidst scenes of devastation. The caption read: “What’s wrong? Have you never seen a politician kissing babies before?”

A blatant example of demonizing the Jews and Israel was composer Mikis Theodorakis’ reference to the Middle East conflict in November 2003: he labeled the Jews “the root of all evil.” Antisemitism in Greece has been on the rise since the beginning of the intifada. The media have frequently been accused of antisemitism, with newspapers often publishing stereotypical cartoons and making irrelevant references to someone’s Jewishness. Jews are often described in the Greek language as Israelites, a term used interchangeably with Israeli. According to Panayotis Dimitras, who runs the Greek Helsinki Monitoring Organization, “We don’t have much violence here. What we have much more of is antisemitic hate speech in mainstream media and in mainstream politics.” Two official reports published at the end of 2002 document a serious worsening in attitudes toward Israel and toward Greece’s Jewish community of 5,000. The report of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece accuses the media of intensifying the anti-Israel atmosphere. Israel is portrayed as a Nazi country which attacks “defenseless Palestinians,” while Greek Jewry is described as “apathetic and slothful” for not “taking a stand against the genocide of the Palestinian people by Sharon.” The reports of the Central Board, the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) and the Minority Rights Group all record examples of antisemitic incidents which occurred as a result of the worsening atmosphere. They include several acts of vandalism, including the desecration of the Jewish cemeteries of Ioannina and Macedonia and of Holocaust memorials in Thessaloniki, Eubea and Rhodes. Allegations of a Zionist-Jewish conspiracy and the ancient antisemitic blood libel have also featured in the media campaign against Israel. In April (2003), major newspapers ran a fabricated story alleging that the Israeli military was selling organs removed from dead Palestinians. On 9 October 2003, “Death to the Jews” and “Jews out” were spray-painted on the Holocaust memorial at the site of the Jewish cemetery in Ioannina. In 2002 memorials were desecrated in several locations in Greece.

A popular antisemitic motif in Europe in 2003, prior to and during the war in Iraq, was the accusation that the Jews held dual loyalty, or the allegation that the Jews, regardless of their citizenship, were loyal first and foremost to the interests of the Jewish people, currently dictated by the Sharon government. In an interview to Vanity Fair in May 2003, left-wing British Labour MP Tom Dalyell spoke of the devastating influence of the Jews, who “manipulate the world politic for Israel’s shady interests.” He claimed that Prime Minister Tony Blair was influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers. Jews who do not join the chorus of delegitimizing the State of Israel and resist what Serge Klarsfeld has termed “the pressure to become a political Marranos” may risk being attacked verbally or even physically. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim philosopher, accused several leading French Jewish intellectuals – among them the philosophers Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut – of having betrayed their commitment to the universal ideals of the French Republic for a narrow ”sectarianism [Zionism]” (New York Times, 29 February 2004). Similarly, in 2003, Gretta Duisenburg, wife of European Central Bank President Wim Duisenburg, attacked American Jews, claiming that rich American Jews keep Israel alive and enable the Israelis to oppress the Palestinians.

Although open expressions of Judeophobia are still frowned upon by most of the European media and political יlite, it has become acceptable, says European Parliament member Ilka Schrצder, to criticize Israeli policy with statements such as: “The Jews control the world with their money,” or by hinting at a powerful Jewish lobby in the United States.

One direct result of the demonization of Israel is the effort being made to isolate Israel’s academic community. Campaigns to boycott Israel take many forms, especially Internet petitions which are signed electronically. Responding to a boycott petition originating in France, for example, hundreds of academics around the globe declared that they would not take part in scientific conferences in Israel or review the work of Israeli scientists. When the administrative council of the University of Paris 6 called on the EU to break all ties with Israeli universities, many professors were ready to sign. Often support for academic projects is more readily obtainable if Israelis are not invited to participate. The situation has become so serious that EU Secretary General Walter Schwimmer condemned the isolation of Israeli (and Palestinian) universities, noting that “international university cooperation is one of the cornerstones of modern society.”

The impact of the virulent attacks on Israel in some of the mainstream media in Europe provoked a stormy debate. In an opinion poll conducted by the European Union Commission in Brussels between 8 and 16 October 2003, over 50 percent of 7,500 people polled from 15 European Union countries (500 people from each country) said that the State of Israel posed the most serious threat to world peace. Israel was followed by Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States. According to poll results, the United States is the greatest contributor to instability in the world, together with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Prominent Jewish and Israeli leaders, as well as politicians in Europe and the United States, claimed that the findings indicated an overall, latent antisemitism in Europe instigated by the media demonization of Israel. Some public figures and politicians, however, doubted whether the results showed an increase of European antisemitism. They claimed that the results might be the outcome of poorly worded questions as well as of media coverage of Israel and the selection of news events that focused solely on war and violence.

The most extreme expression of the demonization of Israel is its equation with Nazi Germany, which became, after the onset of the al-Aqsa intifada, one of the central themes of anti-Israel propaganda. Jews living in Israel are perceived as the incarnation of Nazi mentality and ideology. The key motif here is a kind of Holocaust inversion in which the Israelis are the Nazis and the Palestinians become their victims, the new Jews. Thus, those who support Israel, namely Jews, are the Nazis’ accomplices. The most common allegation is to accuse the Jews of “doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to you.” The worst crimes of antisemites in the past – racism, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide, indiscriminate slaughter, crimes against humanity – are now attributed to Jews and the State of Israel. Again, this equation is not only used by the political margins of western European, but has become a legitimate claim in European public discourse. In the UK in early June 2003, MPs Oona King (Labor) and Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrats) compared the living conditions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to those of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in World War II.

Demonizing Israel has been adopted by some extreme right politicians as part of their antisemitic weltanschauung. In an interview broadcast on al-Jazira TV, Jצrg Haider accused the Israeli army of war crimes while declaring that Palestinians had a right to “resist occupation by all means possible.” In another interview with the Austrian weekly Profil, he referred to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon as a “war criminal.” Another example is a leaflet produced by former member of the FP?, Wolfgang Fr?hlich, which included the text: “When will the Muslim world understand that Jewish land robbery in the Middle East and their barbaric genocide against the Palestinians are always excused with the lie about gas chambers and the Holocaust?” [author’s italics]. Gerd Honsik, another Austrian right-winger, claimed that “the Israeli settlement policy in Palestine is a racist policy of ethnic cleansing and annexation, exactly like the deportation of 15 million ethnic Germans after 1945.” In Germany, in particular, activists of the neo-Nazi NPD, who support the Islamists’ struggle against Israel and the United States, have established relations with Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was banned by the German authorities on 15 January 2003.

On 9 September 2003 the Munich police seized large quantities of explosives, firearms and grenades prepared by the neo-Nazi Kameradschaft Sd, for an attack during a ceremony to dedicate a new synagogue on the anniversary of Reichskristallnacht, 9 November. German President Rau and many other notables were to have attended the event. It is reasonable to assume that these planned right-wing attacks were inspired by Islamist terror.

While right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis tend more toward classical antisemitism, the demonization and Nazification of Israel has become the banner of their enemies on the political left – environmentalists, pacifists, anarchists, anti-globalists and socialists. Alain Finkielkraut has warned against what he terms a new “Islamo-progressive” alliance, in which the political left tolerates anti-Zionism:

“There is a consistent Nazification of the Jewish state: the memory of the Holocaust is always turned against the Jews. Anti-racism has become the contemporary key to understanding the world. In post-nationalist Europe, it’s the Jews now who are called racist in their stubborn adherence to a territorial sovereignty Europe has only just renounced and the Palestinians whom the left certifies as kosher. Of course, Sharon is an extraordinary alibi” (New York Times, 29 February 2004).

The only solution to the Middle East conflict, according to the extreme left, is the end of the Jewish state. According to leading Austrian activist of the leftist AIK (Anti-imperialist Coordination) Wilhelm Langthaler, “The destruction of Zionism and the so-called state of Israel is the only way to achieve justice,” since Israel is “the worst dictatorship in the world… an apartheid regime worse than the one that existed in South Africa.” In Norway, in addition to neo-Nazi publications, the weekly Friheten (Freedom), the newspaper of the Norwegian Communist Party (Norges Kommunistiske Parti), is the most active purveyor of classical antisemitic motifs. Reports on Israel and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan abound with antisemitic elements and describe the Jews as the secret rulers of the world, economic usurpers, and citizens disloyal to the state of Norway.

Some members of left-wing groups and organizations are aware that their frequent anti-Zionist statements might be understood or interpreted as antisemitism. A Danish left-wing group, Global Rodder (Global Roots), which delegitimizes the Jewish state, puts it this way: “Global Roots is a decidedly anti-Zionist network, and the concern expressed by German comrades about the risk of anti-Zionism slipping into antisemitism is thus of importance to us: Everyone on the left should of course fight antisemitism wherever it is encountered.”

Early in July 2003, Pilar Rahola, a Roman Catholic leftist legislator from Barcelona, a center of anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism, began a campaign against antisemitism there. At her first public appearance before the Jewish community in Madrid, she used the phrase: “I accuse,” reminiscent of Emile Zola’s defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in France. She charged her colleagues on the left with hiding their antisemitism behind what they called anti-Zionism.

Eastern Europe

Trends in the former Communist states of central and south-east Europe differ somewhat from the ‘new antisemitism’ and other post-9/11 tendencies manifested in western Europe. In the ‘New Europe’ (the former Communist states about to join the EU), in contrast to the ‘Old Europe’ (the present EU members) there is no significant Muslim/Arab population capable of exerting political influence or of becoming an electoral factor. Furthermore, the Communist legacy of “friendship” with the Third World is perceived as negative and there is little sympathy today for the post-colonial Muslim states. In fact, following the collapse of the Communist regimes, thousands of students and other visitors from Arab and Muslim states who remained were not welcomed by the new authorities and public opinion was against them. They were the visual leftovers of an era of artificial ties of “friendship and solidarity” dictated by Soviet foreign policy interests. In general, pro-Palestinian sentiments in the former Communist states focus on humanitarian issues: the plight of the population, the results of Israeli rule and the impasse of the conflict. The east European media is often less critical of Israel than some of the major western media outlets, and overall condemnation of Israel is rare, due mostly to the special relationship between Israel and the former Communist states. Thus, mainstream public opinion does not link criticism of Israel with the delegitimization of the Jewish state, and hence, that major feature of the ‘new antisemitism’ is less evident there than in the West.

There are, however, small, local fringe pro-Arab and Muslim groups and publications. For example, in Hungary the periodical al-Fikrah (The Thought), published since 1999 and devoted to “Islamic cultural and family issues,” is strongly anti-Israel. At the same time, it is careful to include Muslims in Hungary as “a part of Europe,” condemning extremism and fundamentalism and rejecting theories of a “clash of civilizations” (see no. 7, July 2002). Likewise, the head of the 5,000 strong Muslim community in Slovakia stated in an interview that “Muslims in Slovakia work for positive integration” (Slovak Spectator, 1 March 2004), and stressed that Muslims there are “educated, while in the West they are ‘workers’.”

A second factor which differentiates the former Communist countries from the West is the pro-American position of the governments, shown on the eve of the war in Iraq and since its outbreak in March 2003. Although cracks have appeared in public opinion, with voices criticizing pro-American governmental attitudes and opposing the continuing occupation of Iraq, the regimes have maintained a strong pro-American line, including participation in the coalition forces. Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic have contributed to the coalition forces and have suffered some casualties. Participation in the coalition forces was and is a symbol of their political maturity and ability to contribute to the war against terror outside their borders. However, as new EU members, branded by some Western allies as “European Americans,” they will have to withstand strong criticism by other EU members. Since in general positions in the East are less critical toward the United States, there are almost no accusations of American-Israeli interests harming world peace.

Unlike some western societies, east Europeans have neither a “colonial hangover” nor a guilty conscience over colonial wars. On the contrary, they perceive themselves as victims of a colonial regime, that of Soviet-led communism. Thus, they tend less to identify Zionism as “a western colonial project.”

A third and major factor in limiting the emergence of the ‘new antisemitism’ is the special relationship between Israel and the former Communist states. Haunted by the specter of the Holocaust and at the same time pressed by nationalist and right-wing elements seeking to rehabilitate wartime leaders and whitewash crimes committed by the local population, the various governments have been careful to foster relations with Israel. The result is increasing cooperation with Israel on preserving the Jewish legacy, and teaching and learning about the Jewish past and the Holocaust in the respective countries. The interests of these countries will ensure that special relations with Israel are maintained even after they join the EU.

Has the ‘new antisemitism’ penetrated the former Communist states? The answer appears to be that ‘old’ forms of antisemitism are more evident than ‘new’ ones, or a combination of the two. As indicated in the various countries’ yearly reports, the extreme right continues to spread antisemitic, ultra-nationalist ideas, but with fewer links to the Arab-Israeli conflict than in the West. In the discourse of the Hungarian MIEP (Justice and Life Party), Israel is portrayed in terms that fit the ‘new antisemitism’, but tied to more traditional stereotypes of Jewish financial interests in the region, Israeli-Jewish penetration of local economies, and the Jewish role in globalization. On 8 September 2003, for example, the MIEP organ Magyar Forum published a letter to the Israeli embassy couched in antisemitic language, complaining that the Jews and Israel were seeking to take over Hungary. In a sense, the antisemitism of east Europeans is ‘inverted’: it tends to focus on the alleged harm caused to them by Jewish interests and not what it does to others [the Palestinians/Arabs]. East European antisemitism also touches on property restitution, the rehabilitation of fascist rulers and their ideas (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania), and relations between ‘neighbors’ during the Holocaust (Poland). These issues also serve to keep the area’s antisemitic activities on a different plane from that in the West.

Both the small extreme left and the spectrum running from the populist right to the extreme right link Jewish-Israeli interests to the dangers of globalization which, according to their worldview, is connected to joint American-Israeli interests, and it is into this context that the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the territories fit. For example, on the occasion of the anniversary of the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, groups of neo-Nazis demonstrating throughout the Czech Republic shouted “Death to Israel.”

Commonwealth of Independent States

While Vladimir Putin’s administration and the governments of other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) maintain good relations with Israel, anti-Zionism and the demonization of the State of Israel are promoted by three ideological camps: Communists and extreme nationalists, who incorporate anti-Zionism into their antisemitic beliefs, and Islamists, who have increased their activities in the last two to three years in the CIS states.

The Communist Party, headed by Gennadi Zyuganov, received 13 percent of the vote in the Duma elections held on 7 December 2003, and is the main opposition party. Its leaders are known for their antisemitism and willingness to use it as a political weapon. The tactic of cloaking antisemitism with extreme anti-Zionism continues a long tradition of the Communist regime. Prior to the 2003 election, the party chose as its number two candidate the former Krasnodar Krai governor Nikolai Kondratenko, who has voiced his antisemitic views on a number of occasions. On 14 November 2003, a Volgograd newspaper reported that Kondratenko had held a series of meetings with Communist activists, regional officials, representatives of the media and students from the Volgograd Agricultural Academy, during which he blamed the Jews for virtually all Russia’s problems as well as for Soviet and post-Soviet crimes. The Communist newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiia (Soviet Russia) publishes pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel articles that often contain antisemitic references. Zyuganov himself has also made antisemitic remarks. In an interview given to the September–October 2003 edition (nos. 75-76) of the Russian Orthodox publication Rus’ Pravoslavnaya, Zyuganov warned of the Zionization of Russia. One of the main causes of Russia’s problems today, he said, was the Zionization of the authorities and the mass media. Extreme anti-Zionist comments were also made by other Duma representatives. Upon his return from Iraq with 27 other deputies, mostly Communist Party members, on 5 March 2003, State Duma Deputy Ivan Aparin praised Iraq and claimed that world Zionism was responsible for the war that was about to break out there. He spoke about the just struggle of the Iraqi leadership, who were “passionate patriots,” and against Israeli, American, and British hegemony.

Another major source of extreme anti-Zionism in the Russian Duma is the Rodina (Motherland) National-Patriotic bloc, which received 9 percent of the votes in the last election. It was founded on 14 September 2003 in Moscow. In an interview published by the Krasnodar regional newspaper Kuban’ Segodnya (Kuban Today) on 8 February 2003, party activist and State Deputy Oleg Mashchenko referred to the alleged role of Israel and Zionism in the imminent war in Iraq. The United States, he stated, did not understand that it was acting according to a foreign, unseen order. The main enemy of the peoples of Russia and other states was Zionism. In his opinion, “Jews are just as much hostages to Zionism as the Germans were to fascism… Zionism is a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times worse than fascism.” Zionism, he concluded, is an indiscernible, “centuries-old trend that aims at world domination” through world government.

Another party activist is General Igor Rodionov, former minister of defense under Yeltsin. Before his election in 2003, he promised to “demand that the Jewish people condemn Zionism and return what they have stolen from Russia,” and “ask forgiveness from the Russian people for the crimes committed by terrorists and extremists of Jewish extraction” (Gazeta, 13 July 2003). In the August 2003 issue of the monthly newspaper Patriot Mari-el, General Rodionov wrote that in order to save Russia, there had to be a struggle against “international Zionism as an intelligence gathering system acting on the basis of the postulates of Judaism.” He also called on Russians to “throw off the occupation of the Zionist regime.” An article posted on Rodina’s website entitled “The Axis of Washington-Tel Aviv-Istanbul and Others,” by Dr. Natalya Narochnitskaya, who writes about conspiracy theories, claimed that the Mossad and the CIA were behind Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel.

In the minds of Russian Communists and extreme nationalists, Zionism is a synonym for Jewish world power. On 30 March 2003, members of the extreme right NDPR (National Sovereign Party of Russia) demonstrated in front of the offices of Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi, who is of Jewish origin. They protested against the alleged growing control of Zionism over Russian culture. At the end of October 2003 in Ekaterinburg, after a long silence on Jewish issues, LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) leader Vladimir Zhirinovski, who received 11 percent of the vote in the 2003 election, publicly agreed with the comments made by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad at the Islamic Conference Organization summit to the effect that Jews ruled the world. He also claimed that the media, which portrayed Islam negatively, was controlled by Jews, and that the major banks and international corporations in Russia as well as in other countries were run by Jews; in fact, he said, Jews had taken over the world.

The last few years have witnessed an increase in Islamic power in the CIS and in antisemitic tendencies among the Muslim population of Russia. The growth in Islamic power became more noticeable after 9/11. Russian Muslims are convinced that the West has declared war on Islam, and that behind the West stands an even more aggressive world Zionism. Local Islamist organizations, particularly in Central Asia, have incorporated the anti-Zionism and antisemitism of their Middle Eastern mentors into the propaganda spread by local leaders and the press, and have even expressed willingness to fight alongside the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Palestine. At the end of March 2002 Russian-appointed Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, who has become head of the Chechen rebels, published a proclamation accusing the Israeli Mossad of cooperating with the Russians in the hostilities in northern Caucasus. The proclamation called for war against global Zionism and announced the dispatch of volunteers to help the Palestinian Authority. Leader of Vozrozhdeniye (Revival), the Muslim party in Russia, Geidar Gamal, who is a prominent figure in the anti-globalization movement in the Russian Federation and the ideologist of intellectual Islam in Russia, disseminates articles on his website depicting Israel as ugly and Zionism as racist, and claims that Israel does not have the right to exist. Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party for Liberation) is a Sunni religious party, founded in 1953 in Jerusalem. The party’s aim is to return all Muslims to the Islamic way of life and to spread Islam throughout the world through jihad. The party has representatives in the Arab countries and in western Europe. It appeared in Uzbekistan in 1995 and in the past few years has spread throughout the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia. In the course of July 2003, Hizb ut-Tahrir disseminated antisemitic pamphlets in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and put posters up throughout the city. The pamphlets accused the Arab states of betraying the Palestinian people and of surrendering them into the “hands of the bloodthirsty Jews.”

USA

The notion that Israel and influential Jews in America were trying to push the United States into a war in Iraq was quite often discussed in American mainstream papers. This allegation was also made in a speech of American Congressman Rep. James Moran, who accused the American Jewish community of promoting the war (see ASW 2002/3). However, in contrast to western Europe, the demonization of Israel and the depiction of American Jews as diabolic accomplices are generally not part of the mainstream. It should be noted that the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) allegations (see below) coincided with the appearance of such charges in the general media, particularly in February.

In 2003 the State of Israel was often targeted by antisemitic extremist groups in the United States. Israel was perceived as dictating American foreign policy, and in this context American Jews themselves were seen as controlling the Bush administration, leading to further antisemitic statements. One of the main voices in such allegations was Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the NOI. In the past year Farrakhan and activists of other radical black groups have blamed the war in Iraq on Zionists and Jewish interests, and used the issue to introduce other antisemitic beliefs about Jewish control of the media and the Jewish role in secularization of the United States.

Farrakhan’s annual NOI Saviors’ Day speech, given on 23 February 2003, included several attacks on the Jewish community and Israel. Farrakhan blamed the war in Iraq on “the warmongers in [Bush’s] administration, the poor Israeli Zionists” who “have literally gotten America’s foreign policy to protect Israel.” The Final Call, NOI’s weekly newspaper, printed articles on the USS Liberty conspiracy (alleging that during the 1967 Six Day War Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty, an American intelligence-gathering vessel, and that the American government concealed the truth) and the role of Jewish neo-conservatives in American foreign policy during 2003. Similar attacks on Israel and its Jewish supporters in America appeared in the speeches of Malik Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, a racist, antisemitic Black Nationalist group. Shabazz’s efforts focused on the Million Youth March, held in Brooklyn, New York, on 6 September 2003. During the march, Shabazz made inflammatory comments and denounced Israel: “Palestine you know originally belonged to Black people... That land has been occupied by the Zionist devils.”

Prior to the march, on 3 July, Shabazz went to Morristown, New Jersey, to voice support for Amiri Baraka, New Jersey’s poet laureate. Baraka was sharply criticized for his poem “Somebody Blew Up America,” which repeated the myth that 4,000 ”Israelis” stayed home from work at the World Trade Center on 11 September, thereby suggesting that Jews and Israel had foreknowledge of the attacks. During the news conference, Shabazz said the Panthers supported Baraka “100 percent” and welcomed proof that Jews and Israel knew about the attacks in advance. “If 3,000 people perished in the World Trade Center attacks and the Jewish population is 10 percent, you show me records of 300 Jewish people dying in the World Trade Center,” Shabazz said. “We’re daring anyone to dispute its truth. They got their people out.”

The Nation of Aztlan, is a small California-based, virulently antisemitic Latino group that, via its website and e-mailings, repeatedly attacks Israel and the Jews for being at the root of almost every evil in the world, including the Middle East conflict, and blames Zionists for the war in Iraq, 9/11, and the “heartless, wanton murder of innocent Palestinians.” In 2003 and through the beginning of 2004, Hector Carreon, editor of its publication La Voz de Aztlan, continued to hold the Jews and Israel responsible for every event that negatively affected the Mexican community in the United States. In regard to the war on terror, Carreon wrote that while the dangers the world faced appeared to come from Islamic terrorists, “our experience has been different. We fear Zionist terrorists more. They have been trying to take away our constitutional right of freedom of political expression through acts of terrorism.” On 13 November he wrote that the large Mexican-American population in Los Angeles might become the indirect victims of a justified mass biological or nuclear attack upon the city that targeted the area’s Zionists. La Voz de Aztlan claims that the Jews controlled the American government and the media. Following United States Congressman James Moran’s comment that if it had not been for “the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this,” Ernesto Cienfuegos, another editor, joined the chorus blaming the Jews for the American war in Iraq. Cienfuegos wrote, “It is the Jews, however, that are orchestrating the varied interests involved in pushing the war” so that Israel can take over the entire Middle East and have an opportunity to “implement an ‘ethnic cleansing program’ in Palestine.” La Voz de Aztlan’s website has links to a page containing a petition to stop American aid to Israel and supporting the prosecution of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for crimes against humanity.

As in the previous two years, the divestment campaign remained the major focus of anti-Israel campus groups. By evoking the anti-South African apartheid campaign of the 1980s, the divestment movement attempts to denigrate Israel and supporters of Israel, while enlisting students conscious of human rights and the rights of indigenous people and of the effects of globalization to join the pro-Palestinian pro-intifada camp.

This campaign – widely known as the Palestinian Solidarity Movement (PSM) – was formed and is supported by a coalition of mostly far left and radical Muslim groups (student and non-student) who refute the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Any support for Israel is considered support for racism and apartheid, and all students who defend Israel are considered racist supporters of oppression. Some proponents have gone further and distributed antisemitic literature. Yet, in the 2003/4 school year there were fewer reported cases of the use of Holocaust imagery and antisemitic stereotyping at anti-Israel campus events. The organizers of these campaigns have striven to avoid controversy and accusations of antisemitism, which they believe are unfair.

However, an attempt to similarly tone down their political message, and to distance the solidarity movement from the more heinous acts of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians, did not succeed because from the start, the movement was highly supportive of the Palestinian intifada and dismissive of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Furthermore, the movement relied on its radical message to attract attention and encourage supporters to act.

Two separate divestment conferences were held in 2003. The first was on 10-12 October at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and the second on 7-9 November at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The Rutgers conference, which was held off-campus, was hosted by the New Jersey (NJ) Solidarity/Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical leftist group led by Charlotte Kates, a law student at Rutgers. NJ Solidarity wants the movement to continue advocating an uncompromising and unapologetic line supporting the intifada, and “an end to the Jewish state.” Groups endorsing the conference included Al-Awda, a movement that calls for the destruction of Israel (its motto is “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”); Islamic Association for Palestine, an antisemitic organization which, according to the FBI, coordinates its activities directly with Hamas terrorists; Free Palestine Alliance (FPA); International Action Center and its affiliated ANSWER; Muslim Student Association – National; and Students for Justice in Palestine.

The conference at Ohio State University reflected the trend in the anti-Israel movement to use Jews and Israelis as speakers, in order to prove that the movement is not antisemitic. “Many of the conference organizers are Jewish, so those claims [that the PSM conference in Ohio State University promoted antisemitism] are just absurd,” said Nahla Saleh. Indeed, two prominent anti-Zionist Jewish activists are associated with the CJP (Committee for Justice in Palestine), the group that hosted the conference: Joseph Levine, faculty adviser to the CJP, and Ora Wise of Jews against the Occupation.

Groups that endorsed the Ohio conference included: Al-Awda Chicago; AWARE, a NJ-NY activist forum which claims that support for Israel is support for “racism, apartheid and terror;” and SUSTAIN (Stop US Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now), a coalition of student and non-student activists that sees the divestment campaign as part of a ”global intifada.” Yoshie Furuhashi, a CJP activist who feels that PSM should oppose suicide bombings, stated that Israel’s Law of Return, which allows Jews to immigrate to the country, is “the practice of Jewish supremacy, much like white supremacy in US and South African histories.”

Several anti-Israel organizations have argued that “Israelization of the United States” has occurred. This new spin on the claim that America is controlled by Israel is more palatable than that of a conspiratorial cabal that directs events. According to this argument, America’s special relations with Israel have enabled Israel’s political culture and values to seep into its political system, causing America to abandon its civil rights foundation and adopt a militaristic approach in foreign policy. First, they contend, the United States neglected its own interests for the sake of those of a foreign country, Israel. Second, America abandoned its core values. The Patriot Act, enacted after 9/11, and the occupation of Iraq, are manifestations of the results of this process, which now affect the world’s entire Muslim population, rather than just the Palestinians.

On 20 February, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) spokesman Ibrahim Hooper suggested on MSNBC that US investigations of terrorism were politically driven by support for Israel. He stated: “The entire controversy began with the attack dogs of the pro-Israel lobby going after Sami Al-Arian [see below], the Holy Land Foundation [and] other groups in the United States... The [pro-Israel lobby] wanted to shut them down because they oppose the occupation in Palestine.”

On 27 June, Marwan Bishara, a lecturer at the American University of Paris, published an op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune, titled “The Israelization of American Policy: Fighting Fire with Fire,” in which he wrote: “Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington has internalized Israel’s claustrophobic view of a world full of hatred and terrorism.” In an article he published in the US-based Internet publication, Palestine Chronicle, Bishara asks, “Why, then, does Washington mimic worldwide the worst of Israel’s chutzpah and, for lack of a better word, plagiarize Israeli doctrine and policy?”

The US Campaign to End the Israel Occupation, an influential Palestinian support organization, uses the “Israelization” argument to protest the occupation of Iraq, which it compares to Israeli control of Palestinian areas. A flier the UCEIC put out in preparation for a large anti-war protest planned for March 2004 claims that “increasingly, the two occupations are coming to resemble each other, as the occupiers actively collaborate to put down indigenous resistance.”

Following the September 11 attacks, Muslim American organizations found themselves forced to take a stand on terrorism. Some organizations, which in the past had avoided condemning terrorist attacks, began doing so. However, many organizations differentiate between al-Qa`ida-style terrorism and the terrorist campaign waged by Palestinian organizations against Israel: organizations that condemned al-Qa`ida did not criticize Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist organizations. Furthermore, they argued that fighting those organizations was carried out on Israel’s behalf, and was in fact counterproductive to the effort to neutralize the terrorist threat to America.

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who is considered a moderate in Washington, told The Washington Post (8 May 2003) that “by criminalizing attempts to send money to Hizballah or to support it, the FBI is confusing and alienating people here who could be allies in the war on terrorism.” The Post article also interviewed Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn, Michigan paper, Arab American News, who said: “Mr. Bush believes Hizballah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions are terrorists, but we believe they are freedom fighters.”

CAIR’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter issued a press release in December 2002 condemning the arrest of four Dallas residents who were accused by the US of dealing with Hamas terrorists, saying “One is left wondering whether these arrest orders were issued from Tel Aviv or from Washington, DC!”

In February 2003 Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor, was arrested on suspicion that he had served as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. For supporters of Al-Arian, the arrest proved that the US was doing Israel’s bidding and was, in effect, helping it to suppress the Palestinians. The tactic of Israel’s supporters, they claimed, was to unfairly equate the intifada with al-Qa`ida’s international terrorist campaign. Anti-Israel advocacy groups sought to portray Al-Arian as a symbol of the Palestinians’ just fight against Israel, and of freedom of speech, and his arrest as irrelevant to the war on terror.

On an MSNBC program, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper suggested that the arrest of Sami Al-Arian was part of the “Israelization” of “American policy and procedures,” and argued that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was not a terrorist organization in the way al-Qa`ida was. When asked “Are they the same?” Hooper replied: “Well, obviously, I’m not going to support some tactics of the Islamic Jihad, but they’re in a world apart from al-Qa`ida. They’ve never threatened anyone outside of Israel and the occupied territory.... they oppose the occupation in Palestine.”

Following his arrest, Sami Al-Arian compared himself to Jesus, stating that he, too, “was persecuted by his contemporaries.” Al-Arian’s teenage daughter delivered her father’s statement outside the courtroom: “I’m being crucified because of who I am, a stateless Palestinian, an Arab and a Muslim, and because I’m outspoken in defending Palestinian rights.” Al-Arian also asserted that he lives by Patrick Henry’s famous call to arms: “Give me liberty or give me death!” He also went on a prolonged hunger strike. The implication is clear and well calculated: Al-Arian embodies both the aspirations of the indigenous Palestinian people fighting for their land and the true spirit of American freedom; on the other hand, those who have betrayed these ideals are the American authorities which are crucifying another revolutionary (Al-Arian as Jesus) on behalf of the Jews.

Anti-Israel rhetoric among extreme right-wing groups in the US accelerated dramatically during 2003. Although focusing on current events such as Israel, the Middle East crisis, the war in Iraq and 9/11 conspiracy theories, across the entire spectrum of extremist groups there was an underlying continuation of classic themes of Jewish totalitarian power and of Jews striving to manipulate and control world events for their own benefit. Israel itself is seen as the exemplar of all things wrong with Jews throughout the ages.

The real problem in today’s world, they say, is Israel, Israeli omnipotence, and by implication, the Jews. In January, Free American, a right-wing anti-government publication, noted, “But what if, unknown to most people, the world’s power יlite were using Israel to advance their New World Order? What if Israel’s role were to colonize the Middle East, and to become the seat of the World Religion.” Other extremists wrote that Israel was committing genocide using US weapons and supplies, that Mossad killing teams were invading the West, and that Israel was developing a “genetic bomb” targeted at Arabs. Regarding the Iraq war, a common sentiment, voiced by Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, was that Israel was the problematic country in the Middle East, not Iraq. He wrote in March that many of the world’s difficulties could be solved if the “United States would only bomb Israel instead of Iraq.” Media Bypass, a right-wing publication with conspiracy overtones, wrote in April that “Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that refuses to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities, and that stands in defiance of more than 60 United Nations resolutions.”

Israel was perceived as being the driving force behind the Iraq war, and also as being the country that truly gained from the war. American Free Press (17 Feb.) felt that “Israel is clamoring for war and is the one country that stands to gain anything from any US invasion of Iraq.” Media Bypass noted in April that “the principal beneficiary of the war against Iraq will be Israel.” The Truth at Last (no. 44, Summer) wrote that the fact that “Bush declared war on Iraq on the Jewish feast of Purim” demonstrated that the war was not for America, but for Israel. The author describes outbursts of joy in synagogues on 14 March as Bush stated he was determined to rid Iraq of Saddam Husayn.” The anti-Israel website of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke stated, on 21 March, that “the war in Iraq is surely not a war for America, but one for Israel. It is a terrible betrayal of all our fighting men.” Criminal Politics (March 2003), a conspiracy magazine, wrote that President Bush had funded Saddam Husayn’s endeavors to kill Arabs in the Middle East in order “to solve Israel’s population imbalance.” In May, America’s Promise Newsletter, a Christian Identity publication, claimed that the main reason for the war was “because Iraq is one of the main suppliers of weapons for the Palestinian people in their war against Israeli aggression.” It also added that “this conflict is only for the purpose of creating a final resolution of the Palestinian-Jewish conflict. To do this, it will be arranged to transfer the Palestinians to a new home in Iraq.”

While one can argue that the more Israel is identified with the power of the United States, and the United States is increasingly hated worldwide, the more Israel is also abhorred and identified as powerful. Conversely right-wing extremists often believe Zionists and associated groups control the United States government and its policies. In March Media Bypass wrote: “U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been hijacked by some neocons who have strong allegiance to Israel’s extremists.... some reportedly having Israeli citizenship in addition to their American one.” Sometimes specific political figures are implicated, such as Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice Michael Chertoff, who was allegedly responsible for releasing members of an Israeli spy ring in the United States after 9/11, and prosecuted several White supremacist leaders. In May the Nationalist Times also railed against the Christian Right as a political power, dubbed the “Zionist-fundamentalist Christian coalition.” American Free Press claimed in September that “topping the fundamentalists’ Christian political wish list is the sovereignty and supremacy of Israel in the Holy Land.” Further, Chronicles, a paleo-Conservative magazine, wrote in February that, “the friends of Israel in the policymaking community in Washington... are contemplating a thorough reconstruction of the Middle Eastern political architecture.” American Free Press concluded on 1 September that there was a “broad-ranging campaign by ‘neo-conservative’ imperialist-minded elements to destabilize the entire Arab world.”

Two years after the 9/11 attacks on America, conspiracy theories claiming that the attacks were actually carried out by Israelis and Jews continue to abound, uniting American far right extremists and white supremacists and elements within the Arab and Muslim world. This theory is a modern manifestation of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion. September 11 conspiracies have led to the proliferation of similar theories about other global disasters. For example, some conspiracy theorists claim Israel was implicated in the destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia and suggest that shuttle astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon was actually a ”spy” for Israel. September 11 conspiracies have spawned an entire industry that includes antisemitic books, pamphlets, videotapes, websites and speakers.

Speaking at the Islamic Conference Organization summit on 16 October 2003, Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad of Malaysia told the assembly of leaders of 57 nations that Jews “rule the world by proxy” and “get others to fight and die for them.” He called for a “final victory” by the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, whom, he said, “cannot be defeated by a few million Jews.” The response to these remarks by America’s extreme right – united in their belief that Jews exercise power by proxy – was almost immediate. On the popular extreme right website Stormfront, visitors were encouraged from the day of the speech to call the Malaysian embassy (the number was provided) and express support for Mahathir. The web forum sponsored by the hate music label Resistance Records, owned by the virulently antisemitic neo-Nazi National Alliance, also encouraged visitors to call. The National Alliance said that Mahathir’s comments “certainly sound like a good idea. Many Aryans through the National Alliance have been organizing to free our people from being the Jews’ proxies.” Antisemitic web journalist Alex Linder said “we are going to have to kill the Jews controlling the country.”

Latin America

The dynamic of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and specifically the period which began with the onset of the second (al-Aqsa) intifada, had a major impact on the mass media in Latin American countries, where antisemitic stereotypes were mingled with anti-Zionist and anti-Israel positions. Nevertheless, the picture is not homogeneous: in some countries, such as Brazil and Venezuela, this tendency has been central and in others, such as Argentina, it has been more marginal. That may be because in Argentina, with its long history of antisemitism and its antisemitic image, an attempt has been made to curb antisemitism in general and anti-Zionist and anti-Israel attacks in particular. To be an antisemite in Argentina, especially since the bombing of the AMIA in 1994, is considered politically incorrect.

In countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Uruguay, whose histories are less stained by antisemitism, anti-Israel positions in the media have frequently been mixed with common antisemitic stereotypes, especially since the outbreak of the second intifada. Moreover, left-wing demonization of Israel is often linked to traditional anti-Americanism (historically, the US is perceived as the principle enemy of Latin American countries), particularly among intellectuals in those countries.

Reportage and analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Argentina in 2003 in the press (Clarםn, Pבgina 12 and La Naciףn) varied according to the publication’s orientation. La Naciףn had the most balanced coverage and Pבgina 12 demonstrated the most anti-Israel position. The latter, whose discourse tends to represent the traditional left, consistently portrayed the Palestinians as exploited, dominated and weak, while Israel was perceived as the conqueror and oppressor, an associate of the United States and its representative in the region. The position of Clarםn, the most important newspaper in the country, was somewhere in the middle. Most media information about the Middle East was characterized by a lack of historical accuracy. While the antagonism of the extreme right toward Israel reflected its antisemitic beliefs, the Middle East conflict was portrayed in the press of small far left parties, such as Partido Comunista (Community Party), the Partido Obrero (Working Class Party) and Partido Trabajador Socialista (Socialist Working Party), in a simplified fashion by associating Israel with the United States and imperialism, and presenting the Palestinians as symbolizing the struggle of the Third World against colonialism and as defenders of the interests of the universal proletariat.

Antisemitic motifs are mixed only infrequently with anti-Israel positions in Islamic circles in Argentina due to the good relations cultivated between the Jewish DAIA leadership and Arab leaders, represented by the local FEARAB. Both organizations are part of INADI (Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminacion, la Xenofobia y el Racismo: The National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism), an official government organ created in the late 1990s.

In contrast, anti-Israel attitudes in Brazil are more widespread and aggressive in the mass media in general, and in the left-wing press in particular. Right-wing organizations and publications were less vocal in 2003.

According to the National Federation of Journalists, 70 percent of professionals in Brazil voted for the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party), the party currently in power, which is very critical of the United States. As an ally of the United States, Israel and its policies are seen as reflecting American interests, and thus automatically serving American imperialist ambitions. Intellectuals are highly critical of Israel, but reject accusations of antisemitism on the grounds that as progressive people they oppose the employment of color, religion or sex in political debate. Nevertheless, they freely make comparisons between Zionism and Nazism, between the Israeli army and the Wehrmacht, and between Sharon and Hitler. Israel is always the aggressor and any defensive measures taken by Israel against terrorism are seen as mere excuses.

One of the most popular caricaturists in Rio de Janeiro is Carlos Latuff, who publishes his cartoons in Vapt-Vupt, the journal of the Workers’ Syndicate of the Federal Fluminense University (in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro). Directed against globalization, the United States and Israel, his portrayal of Prime Minister Sharon is reminiscent of the antisemitic caricatures of Philip Ruprecht (Fips) in Julius Streicher's Der Strmer.

The demonization of Israel is particularly strong in the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSTU). Its organ, Marxismo Vivo, accused Israel of “perpetrating a real genocide of the Palestinian people, who are being exploited by the imperialism of North America and its Zionist ally,” and labeled Israel “a fascist and racist state, and therefore a Nazi state.” One of PSTU’s leaders is Joseph Weil, a Jew, who delegitimized the right of Israel to exist in an article entitled: “Israel, Five Decades of Looting and Ethnic Cleansing” (Marxismo Vivo 3).

Hora do Povo, the organ of the Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista do Brazil), edited by Clovis Monteiro Neto, justifies Palestinian terrorism. One of its journalists, Antonio Pimenta, further claimed that the government of Israel was financing Hamas and that Sharon was clearly a Nazi.

When Rabbi H. Sobel from Sao Paulo wrote that a Brazilian criminal who killed a young Jewish woman, Liana Friedenbach, deserved the death penalty (which does not exist in Brazil), Marilene Felinto, a writer and journalist in the left-wing Caros Amigos, claimed that Rabbi Sobel had asked for the death penalty only because the girl was Jewish. “Of course, the rabbi is demanding the execution of lower class Brazilians. He thinks that this country is a kind of Israel, and that most Brazilians from the lower classes are a form of Palestinians that can be eliminated from the face of the earth.” The editor of Caros Amigos, Jose Arbex Jr., branded Israel “a biblical and illegitimate state” (estado biblico e ilicito) and said that it and the future Palestine should be an Arab state. Another journalist from the same publication, the Palestinian Georges Bourdoukan, considered Israel, in an article published in December 2003, an “artificial state,” a “strange corpus” in the Middle East, “whose vocation is the destruction of the Arab states.” He alleged that Anne Frank’s diary was a forgery, that Palestinian children were being assassinated so that their organs might be removed, that Israel was created by Nazis, that Israel was the biggest concentration camp in the world and that Zionism had turned out to be worse than Nazism

The insertion of antisemitic motifs into the demonization of Israel can be seen in the writings of another leftist journalist, Roberto Gonחalvez. In an article entitled “The Palestinian Drama,” published in Vale Paraibano (in the state of Paraiba) in September 2003, he claimed that the word judiar was a common synonym of the verbs “to harm” or ”to torture.” During the Holocaust, he asserted, rich Jews could escape, and all the pictures of concentration camps showed only poor Jews. Referring to the power of the Jews, financial and otherwise, he alleged that the American government, whether Democratic or Republican, was subservient to Jewish orders. Linking the fate of the Jews to the birth of the Middle East conflict, Gonחalvez wrote: “To accommodate the Jews who lost their financial power in World War II, the State of Israel was founded in the Arab territories.” The scenes on TV, he said, “show the Israeli army fighting against poor Palestinian farmers.” Their actions, he claimed, “were worse than the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews, who were so harmed by Nazism; now the Jews have become worse than their old Nazi persecutors.”

In a lecture delivered by Nobel prize-winning Portugese author Josי Saramago in Sao Paulo in October 2003 at the opening session of the First Congress of Education, he said that the Jewish people had not learned anything from the Holocaust and that “the Jewish people don’t deserve the sympathy of the world any more because of their suffering, since they were perpetrating the same crimes against the Palestinians.” He added: “To live as a victim of the Holocaust and hope everything they do against others will be pardoned is offensive.” In response, the president of the Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro Osias Wurman wrote in the leading newspaper O Globo (14 Oct. 2003) that Saramago’s words did not take reality into account: “We prefer to live without the sympathy of Saramago, but to live,” he concluded. The same issue of O Globo also printed the reply of Israeli Ambassador Daniel Gazit, who said that Saramago was wrong and that the Jews had learned from the Holocaust “that nobody will ever kill Jews again as did Hitler and the Spanish and Portuguese inquisition, or as now, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others.”

In Uruguay, the mingling of antisemitic motifs with political issues is becoming more common in both mainstream and leftist circles. Journalist Gustavo Calandra, for example, in an article entitled “What Nobody Said about the War in Iraq,” published in the journal Polםticamente Incorrecto (Politically Incorrect) of the group Juventud por el Resurgir Nacionalista (Nationalist Resurgent Youth), wrote of “usurers without a homeland” hiding behind the American people. He added that Osama bin Ladin was “a rabbi who was helped by the CIA,” and that “a Zionist leadership is ruling the US.” He was brought to trial following a complaint lodged by Congressman Nahum Bergstein, who is of Jewish origin, but was declared not guilty because, under the freedom of the press law, the article had “an informative character,” and the journalist had “wanted to impart his conclusions and his investigations” and “did not intend to incite hatred or contempt of the Jewish community.”

In Venezuela demonization of Israel was particularly strong prior to and during the war in Iraq. The newspaper El Nacional published an anti-American article on 17 August 2003 claiming that Bush had begun “to accept the arguments long used by the Jewish Sanhedrin of the Pentagon to try and convince him [to act] against Saddam Husayn. That was done in order to link American interests to those of Israel, with the objective of persuading him to depose Saddam Husayn by attacking Iraq.”

During an anti-war demonstration on 20 March 2003, people held placards with anti-Israel slogans, which said, for example, “No to the war in Iraq. No to the massacre of Palestinian children” (El Nacional, 21 March 2003). Following another anti-war rally on 29 March, demonstrators scrawled graffiti on and threw stones at the Tiferet Israel synagogue (El Nacional; El Universal, 30 March).

On 25 March in the city of Mariperez another group protesting the war in Iraq drew antisemitic graffiti, such as “Cursed Jews,” “Fascist murderers of the Palestinian people,” and a swastika equated with the Magen David (Star of David), on the walls of the Jewish community building Asociacion israelita de Venezuela. It was signed by several left-wing groups, such as Coordinadora Simon Bolivar. The rally had been organized by the journal Proceso and by the leftist university group Utopy.

Israel is demonized in particular by politicians associated with the leftist Chavez coalition. On the program “In Confidence” (En Confianza), screened by Venezolana Television” on 28 March, Congressman Tarek William Saab accused Prime Minister Sharon of being a war criminal. On 6 April he compared “the massacre” perpetrated by the United States in Iraq to that committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

As part of the demonization of Israel, analogies were made between the Palestinian suffering and the Holocaust. Journalist Luis Anival Gomez, for example, entitled an article published on 21 April in the left-wing newspaper Tal Cual, “The Arab Auschwitz.”

Diario Vea, a new newspaper launched in September 2003, is edited by Guillermo Garcia Ponce, a left-wing supporter of President Hugo Chavez. On 11 September it published an article by “Revista Tricontinental” entitled “A License to Kill,” which denounced Bush who was helping that “bloody Zionist Israeli regime.” In another article in the same issue, J. Ubaldo wrote of “the barbarism committed by the various bloody, genocidal and inhuman Zionist governments.”

The Arab Public Discourse

Anti-Israel positions in Europe were not considered antisemitic by the Arab world, which accused Israel of using the charge of antisemitism to mute criticism of its policies toward the Palestinians. Although a discussion of European antisemitism is not a completely new phenomenon in the Arab discourse on Zionism and Israel, references to “the Jews and the world” or “Europe and the Jewish destiny” in this context have not been common in recent years. Moreover, European anti-Israel views were perceived as opening new opportunities for the Arabs to promote their own, and particularly the Palestinian, cause.

Most writers chose to ignore violent attacks on Jews and concentrate on written or verbal criticism of Israel as manifested in European newspaper articles, public demonstrations, academic protests and opinion polls. By doing so, they in fact evaded the most conspicuous aspect of the new antisemitism in Europe in which Muslim extremists play a major role, and could thus attribute anti-Israel positions in Europe solely to Israel’s deeds against the Palestinians. What has been happening in Europe, wrote Lebanese Shi`i spiritual leader Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, signifies the failure of the brainwashing campaign of the pro-Israel or Jewish-controlled media to deceive Europeans (al-Safir, 6 Nov.). “Antisemitism or the victory of justice?” wondered Egyptian thinker al-Sayyid Yasin in the Egyptian mainstream daily al-Ahram. The charge of antisemitism, he claimed, was leveled at anyone who criticized Israel, “that racist state,” and antisemitism had become a synonym for anti-Zionism (al-Ahram, 6 Nov). The real question should be, wrote Palestinian writer Isma`il Dabaj in his discussion of “The Israeli Discourse and Antisemitism,” “why they hate Israel and not why they hate the Jews.” Does criticism of American policies mean anti-Protestantism when 80 percent of Americans are Protestants he asked (al-Mustaqbal, 4 Dec.).

Several motifs emerged in these articles:

·        Israel and the international Zionist lobby have exploited the September 11 events and the weapon of antisemitism to stem any criticism of Israel’s “terrorist acts against the Palestinian people.” Moreover, they have succeeded in convincing American public opinion that a link exists between antisemitism and anti-Americanism. Hence, whoever disagrees with American policies is anti-American and whoever opposes Israeli policies is an antisemite, claimed Egyptian writer `Abd al-`Aziz Hammuda in the mainstream daily al-Ahram (6 May). Israel has utilized Jewish history and Jewish persecutions in the service of politics and the US since September 11, and mobilized history and religion to promote its war on terrorism (al-Jazira, 2 Nov.; al-Bayan, 1 Dec.). In response to Israel’s negative image in Europe, Sharon was accused by Ashraf al-`Ushri in the Egyptian mainstream weekly al-Ahram al-`Arabi of trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States by insisting on a link between European antisemitism and anti-American sentiments which appeared in the EU opinion poll (see above) (al-Ahram al-`Arabi, 22 Nov.). The London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-`Arabi, on the other hand, thought the poll’s results confirmed the link. They represent, said the editorial, a frank and open condemnation of Israel’s policies, “which are generally terrorist in nature,” and of the United States which supported those policies. It accused the US of waging a war on Iraq and the entire Islamic nation in order to crown Israel as the undisputed regional superpower (al-Quds al-`Arabi, 4 Nov.).

• The real antisemites are members of the Israeli government. Their vision and actions are guided by hatred of Arabs and a genocidal urge. Bearing in mind that antisemitism was originally a European phenomenon, it might be said that Arab hatred of Israel is no worse or more repugnant than Israel’s hatred of the Arabs (al-Ahram, 6 May). When Israeli Minister Avigdor Liberman was quoted as saying that “Damascus and Beirut should be burnt,” he was not accused of “being anti-humanity” or of violating international laws, said an editorial in al-Ahram al-`Arabi (25 Oct.). Israel uses crude Nazi methods, the same ones over which it has been hounding the world since the end of World War II and instilling feelings of guilt for international indifference during the Nazi persecution of the Jews (al-Ahram, 6 May). To counter-balance Israeli accusations, a new Arab organization was set up, Arabs against Discrimination, by a group of intellectuals and journalists at the end of December 2003. Chief editor of the Egyptian al-Ahram Ibrahim Nafi`, who was personally exposed to the charge of antisemitism by Jewish organizations in France, following the publication of an article by `Adil Hammuda on the Jewish blood libel in October 2000 (see ASW 2000/1; 2002/3), was the driving force behind it. The organization launched a website, which surveys alleged Israeli cases of racism (al-Ahram Weekly, 20 Nov., 1 Jan. 2004).

• The accusation of antisemitism is represented as a ploy, a political weapon reserved uniquely for the Jews. “Any criticism of Israel or the slightest accusation even against its ‘crazy’ PM Ariel Sharon is not allowed and is considered antisemitism,” wrote As`ad Haydar from Paris in the Lebanese daily al-Mustaqbal. He defended the ideas raised in the book “Is It Permissible to Criticize Israel?” published in France by the director of the Institute of International Studies, Pascal Bonifas, which caused an uproar and led to his resignation from the French Socialist Party (al-Mustaqbal, 23 July). Western denunciations of the statements of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad at the Islamic Conference Organization summit on 16 October derived from fear, asserted Ahmad `Amrani in the Emirates’ daily al-Bayan. Mahathir’s reference to Jewish power over the world despite the loss of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust was just stating well-known facts and saying aloud what others thought, he added. However, as a result of a Jewish capitalist monopoly of all international, economic, commercial and financial sectors, a small Jewish minority controlled the US administration as well as the entire world, and no politician could afford to criticize Jewish influence (al-Bayan, 21 Oct.). “A whole culture of antisemitism developed,” explained Paul Shauul, continuing the discussion of European and Jewish reactions to Mahathir’s words. “It’s either agreement with Israel on all issues and deeds, or being classified in the category of racism as an opponent of the Jewish race – God’s chosen people.” That is the culture one has to embrace completely in order to belong to the “civilized world,” he concluded (al-Mustaqbal, 25 Oct.). Other articles considered the accusation of antisemitism as “Jewish terrorism of the media” or “intellectual terrorism,” which caused “a mental block” and a paralysis of logical thinking where Israel was concerned (al-Hayat, 24 May; al-Jazira, 2 Nov.; al-Ahram Weekly, 20 Nov.).

• Some of the arguments in response to Israeli and western accusations of antisemitism were intertwined with motifs of Holocaust denial. Israel claimed that Mahathir’s statement “was an insult to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust,” wrote `Amrani in the above-mentioned article, but “this historically doubtful Nazi Holocaust is a Jewish robbery document, and denial of it… is considered in the West a criminal offense even if doubts are based on pure scientific data” (al-Bayan, 21 Oct.). Paul Shauul also referred to the Holocaust, which he claimed was part and parcel of the “total antisemitic culture.” It had been added to “the historical racial holy shrine… turning the victims into a new fence between Israel and the world, particularly the Arabs, instead of being a humanitarian bridge. And beware not to touch this ‘shrine’ – its numbers or its chronicles” (al-Mustaqbal, 25 Oct.; see also al-Jazira, 2 Nov.). Referring to the EU poll, Fadlallah opined that it would contribute “to breaking Israel’s image as a victim that it has been careful to cultivate and implant in western consciousness in general, and in European consciousness in particular” (al-Safir, 6 Nov.). How could 60 percent of Europeans be antisemitic? asked Palestinian writer Muhammad Khalid al-Az`ar. Every state is judged by its deeds except Israel, which continues to cultivate the notion of the “Jewish victim” in order to perpetuate guilt feelings, he added (al-Bayan, 1 Dec.).

• Certain commentators attempted to draw a line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Egyptian Islamist scholar Muhammad `Amara, for instance, was quoted on Qatari satellite TV al-Jazira as contending that Mahathir’s statements criticized Zionism but not Judaism (al-Jazira, 2 Nov.). Khalid al-Az`ar asserted that the Zionist discourse had created the link between international Judaism and Israel, and was responsible for misrepresenting the European opinion poll and interpreting it as antisemitic. Israel, he added, is not the best guarantee for the security of the Jews (al-Bayan, 1 Dec.). With its insistence on putting the Jews and Sharon’s government policies in one basket, the Zionist movement placed the burden of its crimes against the Arabs on the Jews, claimed Arab Israeli MK Muhammad Baraka (al-Bayan, 1 Dec.).

Another group of writers, albeit smaller, acknowledged the existence of antisemitism in the Arab discourse and deplored it, suggesting nevertheless that Israel’s crimes were its cause. Jihad al-Khazin, author of a regular column in the independent daily al-Hayat, said on 15 May, “I do not justify antisemitism in the East or in the West, but I know its reasons, the most important one being the existence of a Nazi government in Israel that kills and destroys every day and creates new enemies for the Jews around the world. Every Israeli crime exposed to the world against a Palestinian or an American, a British or an Irish peace activist or an olive tree aroused more anger against the Jews and not only against Israel. Israel’s crimes are responsible for the antisemitic wave in the East and the West. Israel’s supporters won’t be able to stop antisemitism. It will stop only when Israeli crimes against the Palestinians stop, and will intensify when they intensify. The descendants of Nazi victims have created a Nazi government in Israel, and everyone pays the price” (al-Hayat, 15 May).

Ahmad `Amrani also believed that “a political revolution against the Jews” was taking place in Europe. The 400 cases of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in France in 2003, the targeting of the Jewish synagogue in Istanbul in mid-November, statements against Jews in Germany and the results of the EU opinion poll were part of a new European trend, he claimed. It seemed as if “the European street” was “waiting for a sign to express hidden feelings toward the Jews,” against their excessive influence and political exploitation. The Palestinian intifada was merely a trigger for the eruption of European sentiments against the Jews. In the near future, he predicted, the traditional parties, which had been the ruling power since the end of World War II, would be replaced by new parties representing new generations, whose agenda would be headed by a campaign to defeat Jewish influence. For those younger generations, added Khalid al-Az`ar, Europe’s antisemitic past was less compelling (al-Bayan, 19 Nov., 1, 7 Dec.).

There would seem to be a general consensus among writers and commentators that “Europe’s conscience is circumventing the predicament of antisemitism,” and that the Arabs should take advantage of this (al-Ahram al-`Arabi, 22 Nov.). In an article entitled “The European Intifada and Arab Silence,” Muhammad Habbusha complained in al-Ahram al-`Arabi that the Arabs did little to exploit the new mood in Europe for promoting awareness of their cause and of Israel’s actions (al-Ahram al-`Arabi, 15 Nov.). Fadlallah also felt that “something has really begun to change in the West in general, and in some European states in particular,” and added that Arabs and Muslims should devote serious attention to the situation (al-Safir, 6 Nov.). The European poll posed a problem for Israel, agreed Muhammad Baraka, yet the problem was not the “mirror [the poll] but he who stands in front of it” (al-Bayan, 1 Dec.). Arab Israeli MK Azmi Bishara, on the other hand, wished to free the Palestinian question from its entanglement with the Jewish question and the global attention it attracted. That could be handled only by rejecting antisemitism as well as the alleged use of antisemitism by Israel to silence any voice raised against its policies and practices, and by insisting that Israel “is not immune to the charge of racism,” he concluded (al-Ahram Weekly, 4 Dec.).