The most worrying dynamic in Europe today is not the explicit vitriol directed against Jews by radical Muslim groups or far-right parties, but the new culture of accommodation to anti-Semitism. We can see the emergence of a slightly embarrassed ‘see nothing, hear nothing’ attitude that shows far too much ‘understanding’ towards expressions of anti-Semitism. Typically, the response to anti-Jewish prejudice is to argue that it is not anti-Semitic, just anti-Israeli. Sometimes even politically correct adherents to the creeds of diversity and anti-racism manage to switch off when it comes to confronting anti-Jewish comments.
What does it mean to be anti-Zionist? Given that Zionism means supporting a Jewish homeland, does being anti-Zionist mean that one does not favor the establishment - or the continued existence - of a Jewish homeland? Just asking.
Fifty years ago Andre Schwarz-Bart published what I consider to be one of the great novels of the 20th century, "The Last of the Just," about the European persecution of Jews throughout the previous millennium. Well into the novel there is this telling sentence: "On November 11, 1938, over ten thousand Jews were greeted with the customary courtesies at Buchenwald alone while a loudspeaker proclaimed, 'Any Jew desiring to hang himself is requested to be kind enough to put a piece of paper bearing his name into his mouth, so that we can tell who he was.'" The world loves to kill Jews, but Europeans historically have done it with a certain brio.
ReplyDeleteYes, Roger, I fear that the Palestinians have provided the Europeans with what they were looking for: a justification for returning to their default position regarding Jews.
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