Friday 3 August 2018

The new anti-Semitism

When does criticism of Zionism and Israel morph into anti-Semitism?
Actually it is quite simple.
Zionism is the belief that Jews are a people and have a right to self-determination in the land they originally came from.
It is part of the identity of the overwhelming majority of Jews.
When you vilify or demonize this right to self-determination, you are an anti-Semite.

A few concrete examples to illustrate this "new" antisemitism in practice.

First example.
British forces liberated the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in April, 1945. There is a well-known BBC radio report from Richard Dimbelby on the immediate aftermath of the liberation. 

There is also a lesser-known radio report from Patrick Gordon Walker.
He reported that 5 days after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, a Jewish chaplain held an eve of the Sabbath service.
Amidst the thousands of corpses that were still lying in the open and the walking dead, those who could, started to sing. 

They sang “Hatikvah” (The Hope).
The theme of this song reflects the Jews' 2,000-year-old hope of returning to the Land of Israel, restoring it, and reclaiming it as a sovereign nation.
“Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”

If you call this hope of the Bergen-Belsen survivors colonial, imperialist, fascist or racist, you are an anti-Semite.
If you compare this hope of the Bergen-Belsen survivors to Nazism, you are an anti-Semite.

Second example.
“If Not Now, When?” is the title of a book written by Primo Levi, an Italian survivor of Auschwitz.
In his book, Levi tells the story of a group of Jewish partisans behind German lines during the Holocaust. They seek to survive and continue their fight against the Nazis.

They have a dream that motivates them; the dream of reaching Palestine and taking part in the development of a Jewish national home.
The novel won both the Premio Campiello and the Premio Viareggio.

If you call this dream of the Jewish partisans colonial, imperialist, fascist or racist, you are an anti-Semite.
If you compare this dream of the Jewish partisans to Nazism, you are an anti-Semite.


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