by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
W<\/span>ho recently said: “These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War I. Why? Only to build Israel.”<\/p>\n Some holdover Nazi?<\/p>\n Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews \u2014 whom he refers to as “bacteria” \u2014 controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States.<\/p>\n Who alleged: “The Arabs who were involved in 9\/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs.”<\/p>\n A conspiracy nut?<\/p>\n Actually, it was former Democratic U.S. Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota. He denounced Israel on a Hezbollah-owned television station, adding: “I marveled at the Hezbollah resistance to Israel. . . . It was a marvel of organization, of courage and bravery.”<\/p>\n And finally, who claimed at a United Nations-sponsored conference that democratic Israel was “much worse” than the former apartheid South Africa, and that it “undermines the international community’s reaction to global warming”?<\/p>\n A radical environmentalist wacko?<\/p>\n Again, no. It was Clare Short, a member of the British parliament. She was a secretary for international development under Prime Minister Tony Blair.<\/p>\n A new virulent strain of the old anti-Semitism is spreading worldwide. This hate \u2014 of a magnitude not seen in over 70 years \u2014 is not just espoused by Iran’s loony president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or radical jihadists.<\/p>\n T<\/span>he latest anti-Semitism is also now mouthed by world leaders and sophisticated politicians and academics. Their loathing often masquerades as “anti-Zionism” or “legitimate” criticism of Israel. But the venom exclusively reserved for the Jewish state betrays their existential hatred.<\/p>\n Israel is always lambasted for entering homes in the West Bank to look for Hamas terrorists and using too much force. But last week the world snoozed when the Lebanese army bombarded and then crushed the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, which harbored Islamic terrorists.<\/p>\n The world has long objected to Jewish settlers buying up land in the West Bank. Yet Hezbollah, flush with Iranian money, is now purchasing large tracts in southern Lebanon for military purposes and purging them of non-Shiites.<\/p>\n Here at home, “neoconservative” has become synonymous with a supposed Jewish cabal of Washington insiders who hijacked U.S. policy to take us to war for Israel’s interest. That our state department is at the mercy of a Jewish lobby is the theme of a recent high-profile book by professors at Harvard University and the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n Yet when the United States bombed European and Christian Serbia to help Balkan Muslims, few critics alleged that American Muslims had unduly swayed President Clinton. And such charges of improper ethnic influence are rarely leveled to explain the billions in American aid given to non-democratic Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinians \u2014 or the Saudi oil money that pours into American universities.<\/p>\n The world likewise displays such a double standard. It seems to care little about the principle of so-called occupied land \u2014 whether in Cyprus or Tibet \u2014 unless Israel is the accused. Mass murdering in Cambodia, the Congo, Rwanda and Darfur has earned far fewer United Nations’ resolutions of condemnation than supposed atrocities committed by Israel.\u00a0A number of British academics are sponsoring a boycott of Israeli scholars but leave alone those from autocratic Iran, China and Cuba.<\/p>\n T<\/span>here are various explanations for the new anti-Semitism. For many abroad, attacking Jews and Israel is an indirect way of damning its main ally, the United States \u2014 by implying that Americans are not entirely evil, just hoodwinked by those sneaky and far more evil Jews.<\/p>\n At home, there are obvious pragmatic considerations. Some Americans may find it makes more sense to damn a few million Israelis without oil than it does to offend Israel’s adversaries in the Middle East, who number in the hundreds of millions and control nearly half the world’s petroleum reserves.<\/p>\n Cowardice explains a lot. Libeling Israel won’t earn someone a fatwa or a death sentence in the manner comparable criticism of Islam might. There are no Jewish suicide bombers in London, Madrid or Bali.<\/p>\n This new face of anti-Semitism is so insidious because it is so well disguised, advanced by self-proclaimed diplomats and academics \u2014 and now embraced by the supposedly sophisticated left on university campuses.<\/p>\n When national, collective or personal aspirations are not met, it is far easier to blame someone or something rather than to look within for the source of the failure and frustration. More recently, someone must be blamed for getting terrorists (with oil and its profits behind them) mad at us.<\/p>\n That someone is \u2014 no surprise \u2014 once again Jews.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world again turns to Jews. by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Who recently said: “These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War I. Why? Only to build Israel.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[754],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-UZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3933,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-vocabulary-of-untruth\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":0},"title":"The Vocabulary of Untruth","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Words take on new meanings as Israel struggles to survive. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online A\u00a0\u201cceasefire\u201d would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2006"","block_context":{"text":"July 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/july-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7717,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/7717\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":1},"title":"Winning a Lose\/Lose War","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"How to lose battles and gain sympathizers. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Once again neighboring enemies are warring in diametrically opposite ways. Hamas sees the death of its civilians as an advantage; Israel sees the death of\u00a0its\u00a0civilians as a disaster. Defensive missiles explode to save civilians in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5556,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-impossible-peace-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":2},"title":"The Impossible Peace","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial page published last Saturday a collection of short editorials on\u00a0Israel\u00a0\u2019s campaign to neutralize Hezbollah. With the exception of Richard Perle\u2019s, most of the opinions represent the tired received wisdom that ignores the true cause of the conflict and relies on various\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5145,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-impossible-peace\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":3},"title":"The Impossible Peace","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial page published last Saturday a collection of short editorials on\u00a0Israel\u00a0\u2019s campaign to neutralize Hezbollah. With the exception of Richard Perle\u2019s, most of the opinions represent the tired received wisdom that ignores the true cause of the conflict and relies on various\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2696,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israels-cuban-missile-crisis-all-the-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":4},"title":"Israel’s Cuban Missile Crisis–All the Time","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why would the Iranian government spend billions of dollars on trying to develop a few first-generation nuclear bombs (as nearly everyone believes is the case) when the country is so poor that it has to ration gasoline? A lot of reasons have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5023,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/flunking-with-flying-colors-failing-the-moral-test-of-our-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":3533,"position":5},"title":"Flunking With Flying Colors: Failing the Moral Test of Our Times","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 9, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Middle East crisis offers the world an ethical litmus test for our generation in a variety of historic ways. 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