-Caveat Lector- > July 17, 2002, L.A. Times > > COMMENTARY > Call It What It Is: a Global Surge of Anti-Semitism > > Amid blindness to hate crimes, something familiar and > sinister is arising. > > By YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI > > Yossi Klein Halevi, the Israel correspondent for the New > Republic and a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report, > is the author of "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: > A Jew's Search for Hope" > > > JERUSALEM -- For more than a year, French Jews have been > targets of hundreds of violent attacks, initiated mostly > by Muslim immigrants. Synagogues have been burned, > cemeteries desecrated and Jews beaten on the streets. > Yet the French government continues to deny that France > has an anti-Semitism problem. > > This week, the denial syndrome spread to Toronto, where > skinheads stabbed to death a Jew outside a kosher pizza > shop. Despite the fact that the ultra-Orthodox victim was > easily identifiable as a Jew, Toronto police quickly > announced that the attack didn't appear to be a hate crime. > > The chances of a murderous skinhead wandering around an > ultra-Orthodox neighborhood without premeditated intent > to kill are about as likely as an armed Muslim fanatic > who just happens to open fire at a counter of Israel's > national airline. The inability of law enforcement > agencies to discern a motive in the July 4 shooting into > a crowd of Jews at Los Angeles International Airport by > a Muslim extremist who hated Jews and accused Israel of > deliberately infecting Arabs with AIDS is hardly an > isolated example of stupidity and self-deception. It's > part of a worldwide pattern of denial in response to > increasingly lethal Jew-hatred. > > This week's sentencing in Karachi of the killers of > Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is a reminder > of how the pattern of self-deception works. Just before > he was decapitated, his kidnappers forced him to tell > the video camera, "I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew." > Yet the media's coverage of Pearl's execution focused on > Pearl the American journalist, as if his Jewishness were > incidental to his murder. > > For the last two years, the Arab world has become > increasingly dominated by government-incited Jew-hatred. > Holocaust denial is now mainstream, even among Arab > intellectuals. > > The official press from Egypt to Saudi Arabia--to say > nothing of Syria and Iraq--publishes the most vile and > discredited anti-Semitic slanders, like the medieval > libel accusing Jews of using blood for ritual observance. > > Yet little notice has been paid by the world to the > astonishing phenomenon of a great civilization debasing > itself with hatred and lies. Why the tendency to > downplay Jew-hatred? > > Partly, perhaps, because decent people find the prospect > of the return of anti-Semitism, a mere half-century > after Auschwitz, an unbearable thought. > > Many Jews share that reluctance to face the new reality. > We want to believe that the Holocaust was an aberration, > that anti-Semitism, at least as a mainstream phenomenon, > has exhausted itself in shame. > > Many of us have justifiably criticized the Jewish > community's obsessive focus on the Holocaust, insisting > that we teach our children the beauty and power of Jewish > tradition rather than frighten them into a victim identity. > But while Jews need to be careful about lapsing into > hysteria and self-pity, something familiar and sinister > is stirring again, and we'd be fools to ignore it. > > Not coincidentally, the renewal of seemingly random > anti-Jewish violence is being accompanied by an > ideological assault against Zionism and Israel. The > assault is being led by Muslim extremists and > anti-globalizers and neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers, a > bizarre coalition uniting far left and far right. And > the hatred against Israel is beginning to penetrate > respectable institutions, including universities. > > Criticizing specific Israeli policies is, of course, > legitimate; self-criticism is an Israeli national pastime. > But when the United Nations obsessively searches for a > nonexistent massacre of Palestinians in Jenin while > systematically ignoring massacres of Israelis, when the > only country in the corrupt and violent Middle East to > be singled out for judgment is Israel, when the context > of Israel's war for survival is ignored and only Israel's > self-defense is condemned, when the very existence of > a Jewish state becomes immoral and the only form of > nationalism considered racist is Zionism--then the line > is crossed from legitimate criticism to demonization. > And the ground is prepared for murder. > > Without identifying the illness, we won't be able to treat > it. Its name is Jew-hatred, even if some insist on calling > it everything but what it is.
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