These manifestations of anti-Jewish hostility have not been confined to the fringes of society – to the usual sources of virulent and visceral antipathy toward Jews. On the contrary, they have been expressed in unabashed fashion at the highest levels of society. Writing in the London Sunday Times, Andrew Sullivan described this phenomenon: “That 'shitty little country' [Israel] has become among may European elites, the object of hate which polite company can pillory when there is hesitation in using the word 'Jew'… Not since the 1930s has such blithe hatred of Jews gained this much acceptability.”

Antisemitism: No longer just the fringe


Antisemitic violence in Western Europe – attacks on Jews and Jewish property – has largely been confined to the burgeoning Muslim communities and various fellow travelers from both the extreme right and the extreme left of the political spectrum. While these acts of violence against Jews are cause for genuine concern and even vigilance, they constitute a phenomenon entirely distinct from the antisemitism of the mainstream, which has largely been reflected in hostility toward Jews and Israel in the mass media. There is a clear and unmistakable trend toward blaming Israel for the present ills of Western society – and especially in the wake of the September 11th tragedy in New York and Washington. Hostility toward Israel has been rampant in the European media, and many respected newspapers have actually hinted that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians was partially responsible for the devastating burst of terrorism against the United States.

In London it was the Jewish journalist Barbara Amiel, wife of media mogul Lord Black of the Crossharbour, who captured headlines with a ringing indictment of the antisemitism that has emerged in Britain in recent years. In a scathing article in the Daily Telegraph she revealed that at a dinner party hosted in her own home an unnamed senior diplomat of an EU country (later understood to be the French ambassador to the Court of St. James, Daniel Bernard) had called Israel “that shitty little country” and had attributed to the Jewish State most of what ails the world today. According to Amiel, the ambassador went on to ponder: “Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?”

“You people”


Lord Janner of Braunstone, honorary vice president of the World Jewish Congress, recently noted this phenomenon as well. Of late, in the House of Lords, some members have addressed him as “you people.” In his 27 years as a parliamentarian he had never heard such language, he observed. In a similar vein, Petronella Wyatt, writing in the Spectator, reported hearing a member of the House of Lords with impeccable liberal credentials declaring that: “[w]ell, the Jews have been asking for it and now, thank God, we can say what we think a last.”

Howard Jacobson writing in the daily Evening Standard composed one of the starkest portrayals of this so-called “new antisemitism.” “Suddenly it doesn't feel safe to be a Jew again. Is Israel the problem or the pretext? Impossible to know, but once again the tape of historical consequences is being rewound, and once again it is being stopped, where it has stopped so many times before: at us. Or, at the least in this instance at Israel – aversion of us, and the underlying cause, as some would have it, of the religious disturbances threatening us all…. It reminds you of the sediment of hate and irrationality waiting at the bottom of society. Activation of it will come from somewhere else. Someone ascribing the world's ills to that 'shitty little country', or someone else wondering aloud whether Jews should have been allowed to found that shitty little country in the first place.”

Prominent British Jews have reported that, at dinner parties and other posh gatherings of British high society, talk now focuses on Jews. Amiel, for example, describes how antisemitism has once again become respectable at such gatherings. At one recent soiree, an unnamed doyenne of London's political salon scene “made a remark to the effect that she couldn't stand Jews and everything that happened to them was their own fault.” When these words were greeted with silence, noted Amiel, the hostess upbraided her guests for their presumed hypocrisy by saying: “Oh come on. You all feel like that.” Symptomatic of this new ambience was a recent cover of the journal New Statesman, intimating that there is a “kosher conspiracy” controlling Britain.

Within the Anglo-Jewish community there is considerable debate regarding what course of action should be adopted in order to combat this phenomenon and the extent to which it poses a threat to the Jewish community. There is, for the most part, a feeling that the British media's coverage of events in the Middle East has only served to fan the flames of hostility toward Jews, and that as a result Israel cannot receive a fair hearing within British society. Even many of those who are dissatisfied with the policies of the Sharon government are disgusted. There is considerable concern that as the Muslim population of the United Kingdom, now over 2-million strong, begins to assert itself politically, pressure on Jews and Israel is bound to increase.

“One should not be shocked”



Across the English Channel in France, the situation is scarcely better and in many respects far worse. Historian Pierre Andre Taguieff, a noted French authority on racism and antisemitism, claims that “[n]ot since the Second World War have we witnessed such a rash of anti-Jewish acts, which have met with such limited intellectual and political resistance. One thing is certain… At the start of the 21st century we are discovering that Jews are once again select targets of violence. It is dangerous to identify as a Jew today. Hatred of Jews has returned to France.”

One symptom of that hostility is to be found in the fact that state and government officials have been even more outspoken in their hostility toward Israel and in some instances have even attempted to “contextualize” the antisemitic violence that erupted in the wake of the latest Intifada.

In a discussion on the recent violence against Jewish institutions and individuals in France, French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine claimed “one is not shocked when young French Jews instinctively sympathize with Israel regardless of its policies… So one should not be shocked when young French citizens [of North African background] feel compassion for the Palestinians.” In so doing, he gave a green light to those who wished to demonstrate their support for the Palestinian Arabs through violence. There has been little reaction in the French public to the phenomenon of Muslim demonstrators chanting “Death to Jews” in the center of Paris. Given the country's wartime history of collaboration in the destruction of the French Jewish community, this silence is especially disturbing. There may, in fact, be a link between the demonization of Israel and that guilt. By painting Israel as an apartheid or even Nazi state, the French can see the annihilation of European Jewry as being somehow less evil. And they can view the Israelis as having lost the moral high ground in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There is, of course, little love between French elites and the Muslim community in France, but it seems that there is, at least on the Jewish question, a degree of common And one suspects, that there is even a degree of satisfaction in certain circles that Muslims are on the offensive against the Jews. But then, where Jews, or rather the hatred of Jews, are concerned the strangest and least likely alliances have emerged – and may yet be emerging again.

Meantime, French President Jacques Chirac has declared that there is no antisemitism in France. He, the first French leader to openly acknowledge French complicity in the deportation of French Jews in the Holocaust, has intimated that the Jews would be wise not to even suggest that there is any antipathy toward Jews in France – or face serious consequences.

France, of course, has a long history of attempting to appease Arab despots in order to further its own interests in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, the French media has also displayed a marked preference for the Arab cause reporting on the recent violence in the Middle East. In France too, the Muslim population, which outnumbers the Jewish population by a factor of more than 5:1 may be expected to wield increasing political clout.

A handy punching bag



In Belgium, as well, Jews report a trend toward demonization of Israel. Certainly, the lawsuit currently being head in a Belgian court in which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is accused of committing war crimes, has done much to fan that hostility. According to political scientist Joel Kotek of the University of Brussels, Jews who sympathize with Zionism and the State of Israel have been marginalized. One's position regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a test of loyalty. “Should he express solidarity with Israel, he becomes a supporter of a Nazi regime.” Prof. Kotek claims that “there is a Christian tradition in this state that views the Palestinians as a kind of new people of Jesus. And so I'm not saying that we have antisemitism here – it is simply bottomless hatred of Israel.” Clearly, not just in Belgium, but throughout the world Israel is again a handy punching bag for those who dare not voice their hatred of Jews by name.

The trend toward the integration of Europe does nothing to blunt this phenomenon, and in fact, the elites in many countries have discovered their common aversion to what they perceive as a common nuisance.

Across the continent -- in Germany, in Scandinavia, in Spain and even in Italy -- a similar phenomenon can be observed. There are, certainly, voices within the Jewish community and without, who believe that Jewish fears are overwrought, that too much should not be made of anti-Jewish pronouncements, or even that once the situation in the Middle East is stabilized “the new antisemitism” will disappear. There is an understandable fear of isolation if too much is made of the current manifestations of hostility toward Jews. They advise caution and moderation in treating this phenomenon.

Others, however, suggest that the way in which Jews deal with the anti-Jewish antipathy of the elites will have existential consequences for their future on a continent that more than once has proven it is capable of murderous hatred.