The New Anti-Semitism & the Secular Religion of the Ideological Far Left

Europe is seeing alarming levels of a new anti-Semitism. As Denis MacShane points out below, there is a new "mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London." He points out that this new strain of anti-Semitism is about much more than Jews or Israel. It goes to the core of humanistic values, the rule of law, tolerance and respect for basic rights such as free expression. "It is about everything democrats have long fought for: the truth without fear, no matter one's religion or political beliefs. The new anti-Semitism threatens all of humanity."

The old anti-Semitism has morphed into a more sophisticated form of racism. Bizarrely, despite the reactionary attitude of Islamic radicals towards women and gays, the ideological left gives them a pass on this bigotry and denial of human rights, in favor of siding with them against Israel. Robin Shepherd, a senior research fellow of the Chatham House Center in London notes that people like Noam Chomsky are not necessarily self-hating Jews, as is often assumed, but that their political standing in the left is more important for them than their Jewish identity. "That's why the extreme Jewish critics of Israel almost always come from the far left, for them politics is the most important of their identity. They are in thrall with a system of thought that happens to have as one of its main objects of belief an obsessive hatred of Israel."
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The New Anti-Semitism - Denis MacShane (Washington Post)
Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.
Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens - there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain - that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.
More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt.

Today the old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous. Anti-Semitism today is officially sanctioned state ideology and is being turned into a mobilizing and organizing force to recruit thousands in a new crusade to eradicate Jewishness from the region whence it came and to weaken and undermine all the humanist values of rule of law, tolerance and respect for core rights such as free expression that Jews have fought for over time.
We are at the beginning of a long intellectual and ideological struggle. It is not about Jews or Israel. It is about everything democrats have long fought for: the truth without fear, no matter one's religion or political beliefs. The new anti-Semitism threatens all of humanity. The Jew-haters must not pass.
The writer is a Labor member of the British House of Commons and has served as Britain's Europe minister.



http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/899632.html

An Unlikely Advocate
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Jewish World Correspondent
Robin Shepherd is not the first person to try and define the world's oldest hatred, but he is perhaps one of the most unlikely. The senior research fellow of the Chatham House center in London has no significant connection to the Jewish people and his visit to Israel last week was only his second, his first being in 1989 as a student.
His previous study was on the wave of anti-Americanism sweeping Europe and this lead him to believe that a new form of anti-Semitism was also at the root of the increasingly critical attitude towards Israel on the continent. Interestingly, Shepherd notes that the old-style anti-Semitism is still fairly prevalent in the post-communist central and eastern Europe countries, but at the same time, there's much less anti-Zionism there as in western Europe. What in his opinion is "a much bigger problem is the objective, anti-Semitism, the hatred of the state of Israel. Since Israel is a Jewish state and if you use false analogies between Israel and Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, you are comparing them with Jews and you are therefore engaged in anti-Semitism." That doesn't mean that everyone who uses the comparison is an actual anti-Semite says Shepherd, "that depends on how central it is for you. When it becomes an obsession, and this is one of the things you find increasingly in Europe, then at this point it becomes a new form of anti-Semitism." This obsession is Shepherd's answer to the standard response given by Israel's detractors in the West that "not every criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. Of course one can criticize Israel, but there is a litmus test and that is when the critics begin using constant key references to South Africa and the Nazis, using terms such as "bantustans". None of these people of course will admit to being racist, but this kind of anti-Semitisim is a much more sophisticated form of racism and the kind of hate-filled rhetoric and imagery are on the same moral level as racism, so gross and distorted that they are defaming an entire people, since Israel is an essentially Jewish project."
He defines his politics as "center-right on international affairs with very liberal social views." He attributes the rise of the new anti-Semitism to the crisis of the "old ideological left" in Western Europe."The main thrust is coming from the left wing of the old European Labor and Social-Democratic parties and of course from the surviving Communist, Trotskyite and Marxist parties. These are groups that might have a marginal place in wider society but there influence is focused in the trade unions which are boycotting Israel and the opinion-forming classes such as the media. The ideological left has been comprehensively defeated, and it knows it. That's why it has no positive campaign as it had in the past, like nationalization of the economy. In the absence of a positive program, it is about what they hate, the US, the global capitalist economy and the state of Israel, because Israel is the frontline to the only force that is challenging all that, is the Arab world. That is why despite the horribly reactionary attitude of the Islamic radicals towards women and gays, there is common cause "my enemy's enemy is my friend."
Another excuse often made by Israel's poisonous critics who say they are not anti-Semites, is that there also prominent Jews among their ranks. Shepherd says that this is one of the most interesting points that he plans to research. "I know there is a tendency to call them self-hating Jews but the key point is much more subtle. This is where you have to understand people like Noam Chomsky who is American but an iconic figure for the European left. He is not a self-hating Jew but his political standing in the left is more important for him than his Jewish identity. That's why the extreme Jewish critics of Israel almost always come from the far left, for them politics is the most important of their identity. They are in thrall with a system of thought that happens to have as one of its main objects of belief an obsessive hatred of Israel. It might be personally painful for them but the ideological left is a secular religion, more than any other political group, and for them this religion comes before being Jewish."