From refuge for Jews to danger
for Jews
Akiva Eldar
Haaretz, November 3, 2003
The official reaction from Jerusalem to the public
opinion poll showing that some 59 percent of
people from 15 European Union countries believe
Israel is the greatest danger to world peace was
to be expected. Minister for Jerusalem and
Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky attacked the
Europeans for "blaming the Jews for the world's
troubles," and said the findings show that
anti-Semitism hides behind political criticism of
Israel. According to Sharansky and his colleagues
in the government, one must be a European racist
to find anything wrong with the behavior of a
little Jewish state, under attack from terrorism,
surrounded by enemies, as it defends its citizenry.
The professionals in the Foreign Ministry, following
with mounting anxiety the rising trends in
anti-Semitism, propose a more complex diagnosis.
According to the professionals, 95 percent of the anti-Semitic incidents last year in Europe were by Muslim immigrants. Most of the incidents were meant as protest against the inequities of the Israeli occupation of the territories. The officials point to a direct connection between the dramatic rise in
anti-Semitism to the frequency of the pictures
of Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian
children. The images of settlers putting up
outposts in the heart of Palestinian territory
emphasizes to the non-Jews the Jewish identity
of the occupiers.
The decision to open a broad front against the
outgoing Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir
Mohamad, was not a conditioned reflex of
politicians who turn every enemy's shadow into
an enemy. This time it was the professionals
who rang the warning bells and proposed an
all-out campaign against the relatively new
anti-Semitic genie let loose in Asia.
They warned that the "pure" East European
anti-Semitism, and the West European
anti-Semitism rooted in the radical left, are
giving way to a serious case of hatred of
Israel, the U.S., and the alliance between
them.
The images of the war conducted by Israel in the
occupied territories like the images of the war
America is conducting in Afghanistan and Iraq
is regarded by many Muslims worldwide as part
of a Judeo-Christian plot to humiliate Islam.
The huge amount of support the Americans give
to the Jewish state's policy in its war against
mostly Muslim Palestinians strengthens their
view of the Bush administration as an enemy of
Islam. The Jewish extraction and deep affiliation with Israel by some of the architects of the war in Iraq is simply "proof" that the Zionists "pushed" Bush into invading Iraq.
European anti-Semitism was born long before the
State of Israel, let alone before neoconservative Jews rose to power in Washington. Many Israel haters don't need pictures of Jewish pilots bombing Muslim homes to nurture their hatred of Jews.
However, politicians who turn a local, national
conflict into a global religious war bear a great deal of responsibility for the safety of Jews worldwide. But there are politicians in Israel whose comments intensify the local national conflict to the global-religious level, and they are responsible for the safety of Jews, as Jews, worldwide. Minister Sharansky himself recently wrote in this newspaper that the Temple Mount is more important than peace. Ministers Effi Eitam and Benny Elon don't make any attempt to hide their belief that we are in
the territories because of a religious belief that the land of Israel belongs exclusively to the people of Israel.
When a government in Israel was finally serious
about putting an end to the occupation, anti- Semitism waned, giving way in Europe - and even Islamic countries - to sympathy and support for the Jewish state.
It is much easier to claim the entire world is against us than to admit that the State of Israel, which rose as a refuge and source of pride for Jews, has not only turned into a place less Jewish and less safe for its citizens, but has become a genuine source of
danger and a source of shameful embarrassment
to Jews who choose to live outside its borders.
Arguing it takes an anti-Semite to call the Israeli government's policies of 2003 a danger to world peace is a contemptible cheapening of the term anti-Semitism.
