A Lethal Obsession

The scourge of anti-Semitism will not die, refuses to pass out of human consciousness. Its hateful ideology of isolating, demonizing and victimizing Jews as lesser human beings whose evil intentions of resolutely working toward world domination of global finance and power is a morose and miserable legend that refuses to submit to the trash heap of malign obsessions targeting an relatively small ethnic, social and religious group.

A group which has, throughout history, provided the world, ironically enough, with exemplars in human achievement.

As an enduring and dreadful manifestation of humankind's propensity to target and victimize itself, or those who appear to represent differences that the majority will not accept, and to whom attributes are associated that are seen to be abhorrent to others, anti-Semitism represents a true failure of the accepting and generous human spirit. Because of this dread virus that continuously affects civil society, just as a dread pandemic would, and the difficulty in extirpating it, solutions must be found to make anti-Semitism a dead issue.

To that end, it makes good sense that an intergovernmental organization has been founded for the purpose of examining this dreadful and lethal obsession shared around the globe and whose purpose it is to degrade and slander Jews and the State of Israel. The Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism can only be seen as a response to the dysfunction of the United Nations and its creature groups whose actual encouragement of anti-Semitism spells a failure of the international community.

This second congress of the ICCA, meeting in Ottawa, and addressed by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, unequivocally expressing his government's support for the State of Israel, and Canada's dedication to combating racism and anti-Semitism, set the tone for the proceedings in the right direction. Where, conversely, an address by another Canadian authority on hatred and racism, attending a parallel 'experts' conference, raised a conundrum.

Karen Mock, in her capacity as an 'expert' cautioned "We have to marginalize the extremist voices"; well and good, but she also stated "The election of right-wing governments in Europe and escalating incidents of anti-Semitism and hate is particularly worrying, as part of a trend that appears to be getting stronger". And this assertion has to be questioned. For while in the past it was indeed right-wing governments that supported and encouraged anti-Semitism, in the current situation, it appears to be left-wing groups and governments that are forwarding anti-Semitism.

And signally, among most countries of the world, Canada appears to be far more accepting and intolerant of anti-Semitism - under a Conservative-led government - than traditionally tolerant countries like Sweden, for example. In poll results taken in the U.S., Canada, Spain and Germany, Canada tops intolerance toward prejudice among all four countries. And English-speaking Canadians represent the most knowledgeable and tolerant, while French-speaking Canadians appear at the opposite end of the spectrum.

What will ultimately be achieved by a continuation of such meetings is debatable. Predictably, those who attend do so because they have been selected to represent their countries' interest in forwarding themselves as staunch defenders of Jews and of the existence of the State of Israel, to keep both free from violent harm, as due any other ethnic religious group and state. No decent country with Western values and freedoms officially embraces anti-Semitism.

The nostrums and recommendations that may result at the conclusion of this conference may represent in the end, good fellowship and feel-good agreements on the problems inherent in safeguarding the human rights of a small world minority, without arriving at any workable solution simply because the problem of lethal racial hatred is so well engrained, so endemic, has so infiltrated the social and body politic of so many countries.

Above all, because of political correctness, delegates would not hasten to put forward the obvious, that a growing problem of increasing Islamist militancy has incorporated into its primary agenda a viral anti-Semitism as a rallying cry for religious-fanatic jihad against the 'enemy', and the enemy is clearly identified as Jews and Judaism and the existence of the State of Israel in a Muslim-majority geography.

Instead, bland assertions that the Internet and the World Wide Web has facilitated the deadly work of anti-Semitism, just as infiltration of the increasing usefulness of communicating on a wide scale through international boundaries has advanced the cause of global jihad in its ongoing battle with the West, with critics of Islamism, is wreaking havoc internationally in a campaign of terror.

This is all inter-related, and there does indeed exist a public relations and a terror war in the process; there is no separation between the growing, lethal incidence of anti-Semitism and violent Islamist jihad whose purpose is to inflate their terror effectiveness on the global community.