Anti-Semitism: Alive and Kicking

"In every place [I visit] I'm very well received."
"If the BDS movement has been effective [it's because] we in Israel have been over-reacting. It's a phenomenon that exists, but if you analyze this phenomenon, how many people are there who are the usual suspects?"
"First of all, we feel responsible for the well being of every Jew. It doesn't matter where they live. The phenomenon of anti-Semitism is part of what we are following intensively in our daily work. We follow the events here [in Canada]."
"The problems we have in the Middle East should not be exported to other countries. I think this is a bad phenomenon. There's no reason, living here in paradise [Canada], to have these confrontations."
Rafael Barak, Israeli ambassador to Canada

Anti-Semitism has been given a new lease on its malicious, diseased life. Before, individual Jews could be despised on the basis that they represented "the Jews", that accursed 'race' whom all others love to hate; upon whom all others could heap the scorn of being responsible for all the ills of the world by their conniving, mendacious plans to control the world. For a nation that aspires to control the world, one can only comment, sourly, that despite the fact that Jewish intellectuals outweigh those of any other ethnic group, a poor job has been done of it.

Jews may represent the highest number of over-achievers, those whom the world recognizes as geniuses in every field of human endeavour, representing within the sciences and the humanities the highest number of Nobel prize winners, but they remain regarded as an inferior, troublesome species, regardless. When Jews are attacked and refuse to become victim to hatred and violence, they are accused of being oppressors for defending themselves.

The State of Israel -- whose presence is an assurance to international Jewry that a haven awaits them during times of uncertainty -- has become the world's dartboard to receive the unending supply of poisoned arrows of racism. Sneering at the Jewish determination to defend themselves from existential danger, the old anti-Semites have been encouraged to come out of hiding, assured that now they can do so with impunity; indirectly attack Jews by boycotting and slandering Israel.

It is the actions of a state that they deride and condemn, not the people within the state, so obviously it is not anti-Semitism, they claim, but the sanctimonious standing in judgement of what they perceive as morally unacceptable is the reality. It has become immoral to defend oneself, but morality is an altering, shape-shifting vision depending on what is being perceived; if the attackers are presumed to be oppressed, their violence is condoned, and the state's condemned.

Protesters chant during a pro-Gaza demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London, Aug. 1, 2014.  (photo by REUTERS/Neil Hall)

Liberal, enlightened Europeans with their exchangeable values and critiques see an easy target in Israel, not to be confused with anti-Semitism. The flood of Muslim immigration that has altered the European landscape has renewed the racist disease, given it fresh impetus under the guise of denouncing an oppressive state refusing to melt into failed history in favour of leaving its geography to the avails of surrounding Arab nations.

The latest rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe has stimulated almost 30% of Jews living in Europe to seriously consider abandoning the countries that have been their homes for centuries and more. Anti-Semitic incidents have doubled in Britain and in France where shouts of "Jews to the gas chambers" has become a popular mantra from Spain to Germany to Norway. And where, just incidentally he flags of Hamas and ISIS can be seen boldly carried by protesters.

In Canada, a small percentage of university student groups have voted to favour sanctions against Israel; the motions pass because of a small coterie of dedicated vocal activists condemned by their critics as outright anti-Semites and blatant hypocrites for ignoring dramatically horrendous human rights abuses in many countries of the world, choosing to focus on what they insist are human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel.

Israel, stated Ambassador Barak, is well aware of the growing emphasis of anti-Semitic chants and acts of violence accompanying pro-Palestinian protests organized around the world, and accelerating each time there is a conflict between Israel and Hamas. In some circles there have arisen arch comments that 'Islamophobia' represents the new anti-Semitism.

In the wake of September 11, FBI statistics demonstrated that anti-Semitic attacks far outnumbered anti-Muslim attacks.

When Islamist-jihadist terrorist attacks take place, there are no mobs rampaging to attack Muslims and fire-bomb their mosques where they live in Europe, but when tensions rise in the Middle East, mob-action, incited by Muslims living in Europe, spew hateful rhetoric at the presence of Jews, hound them, attack them, and their synagogues as well.