Anti-Semitism is back.............

During an Israeli TV show to commemorate the Holocaust a man was interviewed, saying that the Jews are to blame for all the troubles of the world, and that "Hitler was too nice." This was not a swastika-tattooed, swivel-eyed,  card carrying-member of Agitprop. It was a seemingly-normal middle class American. ‘This is the face of modern anti-Semitism: not criminals, but your next-door neighbour, your bus driver, your child's teacher…’

 

It is just one illustration of the nasty and insidious anti-Semitism that is creeping into normal discourse, skulking under a cloak of support for the Palestinian ‘cause’. That cause is the annihilation of Israel from the face of the earth, although its Christian supporters and funders don’t often mention that. They conflate Israel with Jewry as a way of disguising their hatred of Jews as a political statement. Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism. They call Israel an ‘apartheid’ state, an insult to those who suffered under apartheid and ignoring the fact that Jews were very prominent in anti-apartheid protests.

 

Anti-Semitism is being espoused by the extreme left and extreme right. The ‘quenelle’, a new version of the Nazi salute is sweeping Europe, frequently used at soccer matches and other crowd events.

 

One reason why anti-Semitism gathers momentum in difficult times is that people don’t look for reasons or solutions; they look for scapegoats. They need someone to blame. Hitler understood this only too well. Times are very difficult indeed in parts of Europe; the growth of neo-Fascist politics is a consequence.

 

A recent writer commented that ‘the anti-Semite’s image of the Jew is always as "a people set apart, not merely by their customs but by their collective character. They are arrogant, secretive, cunning, always looking to turn a profit. Loyal only to their own, wherever they go they form a state within a state, preying upon the societies in whose midst they dwell. Mysteriously powerful, their hidden hand controls the banks and the media. They will even drag governments into war if this suits their purposes. Such is the figure of 'the Jew,' transmitted from generation to generation."^[22]

 

It hardly needs saying that this image is mindless drivel.

 

Of course Jews tend to live in their own neighbourhoods. So do we all – it is part of the human condition to live with people like yourself, Sikhs in White City, Irish in Kilburn, Punjabis in Bradford, Ismaili Moslems in  Leicester. But in the case of Jews they were often forced into ghettos by law; Russian Jews were hired into shtetls ‘beyond the Pale’.

 

Control of banks? Given the recent record one can only say ‘If only!’ The media? Most is controlled by a handful of international corporations. But to some, everything is a Jewish conspiracy.

 

A simple question needs to be put. What harm, in the whole of history, have Jews done to Gentiles?.

 

They have certainly provided breath-taking talent in science , the arts, business, finance, entertainment over the centuries. They have hoovered up a raft of Nobel Prizes. But harm?

 

The reverse is sadly true. Since Jews ever were, Gentiles have tried to exterminate them,  from the Romans to the Persians to the Moors to the Spanish to the Catholic Church generally, and finally to Hitler. Their sheer survivability is a miracle.

 

Can it be that in the dark recesses of the human psyche we are so screwed up by their intellect,  talent, wealth and resilience that the poison of envy begins to dominate?