by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
H<\/span>ating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.<\/p>\n Anti-Semitism, after World War II, often avoided the burning crosses and Nazi ranting. It often appeared as a more subtle animosity, fueled by envy of successful Jews in the West. “The good people, the nice people” often were the culprits, according to a character in the 1947 film “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which dealt with the American aristocracy’s social shunning of Jews.<\/p>\n A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners.<\/p>\n Those who randomly shoot Jews for being Jews \u2014 whether at a Jewish center in Seattle or at synagogues in Istanbul \u2014 are for the large part Muslim zealots. Most in the West explain away the violence. They chalk it up to anger over the endless tit-for-tat in the Middle East. Yet privately they know that we do not see violent Jews shooting Muslims in the United States or Europe.<\/p>\n Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to wipe Israel “off the map.” He seems eager for the requisite nuclear weapons to finish off what an Iranian mullah has called a “one-bomb state” \u2014 meaning Israel’s destruction would only require one nuclear weapon. Iran’s theocracy intends to turn the idea of a Jewish state on its head. Instead of Israel being a safe haven for Jews in their historical birthplace, the Iranians apparently find that concentration only too convenient for their own final nuclear solution.<\/p>\n In response, here at home the Council on Foreign Relations rewards the Iranian president with an invitation to speak to its membership. At the podium of that hallowed chamber, Ahmadinejad, who questions whether the Holocaust ever took place,\u00a0basically dismissed a firsthand witness of Dachau by asking whether he really could be that old.<\/p>\n The state-run, and thus government-authorized, newspapers of the Middle East, slander Jews in barbaric fashion. “Mein Kampf” (translated, of course, as “Jihadi”) sells briskly in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah militias on parade emulate the style of brownshirts. In response, much of the Western public snoozes.\u00a0They are far more worried over whether a Danish cartoonist has caricatured Islam, or if the pope has been rude to Muslims when quoting an obscure 600-year-old Byzantine dialogue.<\/p>\n I<\/span>n the last two decades, radical Islamic terrorists have bombed and murdered thousands inside Europe and the United States. Their state supporters in the Middle East have raked in billions in petro-windfall profits from energy-hungry Western economies.\u00a0For many in Europe and the United States, supporting Israel \u2014 the Middle East’s only stable democracy \u2014 or even its\u00a0allies in the West\u00a0has become viewed as both dangerous and costly.<\/p>\n In addition, Israel is no longer weak but proud and ready to defend itself. So when its terrorist enemies like Hezbollah and Hamas brilliantly married their own fascist creed with popular leftwing multiculturalism in the West, there was an eerie union: yet another supposed third-world victim of a Western oppressor thinking it could earn a pass for its murderous agenda.<\/p>\n We’re accustomed to associating hatred of Jews with the ridiculed Neanderthal Right\u00a0of those in sheets and jackboots. But this new venom,\u00a0at least in its Western form,\u00a0is mostly a leftwing, and often an academic, enterprise. It’s also far more insidious, given the left’s moral pretensions and its influence in the prestigious media and universities. We see the unfortunate results in frequent anti-Israeli demonstrations on campuses that conflate Israel with Nazis, while the media have published fraudulent pictures and slanted events in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n The renewed hatred of Jews in the Middle East \u2014 and the\u00a0indifference to it in the West \u2014 is a sort of “post anti-Semitism.” Islamic zealots supply the old venomous hatred, while affluent and timid Westerners provide the new necessary indifference \u2014 if punctuated by the occasional off-the-cuff Amen in the manner of a Louis Farrakhan or Mel Gibson outburst.<\/p>\n The dangers of this post anti-Semitism is not just that Jews are shot in Europe and the United States \u2014 or that a drunken celebrity or demagogue mouths off. Instead, ever so insidiously, radical Islam’s hatred of Jews is becoming normalized.<\/p>\n The result is that the world’s politicians and media\u00a0are talking seriously with those who not merely want back the West Bank, but rather want an end to Israel altogether and everyone inside it.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Hating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.<\/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":[766],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Za","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3298,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/islam-without-apologetics\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":0},"title":"Islam Without Apologetics","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Andrew Bostom documents the long history of Muslim anti-Semitism. by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal A review of\u00a0The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, by Andrew G. Bostom (Prometheus Books, 766 pp.) According to received wisdom, an Islamic faith that once tolerantly coexisted with Jews and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11815,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-progressive-anti-semitism-and-why-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":1},"title":"Why Progressive Anti-Semitism \u2014 and Why Now?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The\u00a0New York Times International Edition\u00a0recently published an anti-Semitic cartoon of a dachshund with the face of Benjamin Netanyahu. The composite animal was leading a hunched Donald Trump who had on dark sunglasses, as if blind, and a yarmulke. Almost immediately, everyone pointed out that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anti-Semitism"","block_context":{"text":"Anti-Semitism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/anti-semitism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5162,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-caldron-of-anti-semitism\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":2},"title":"The Caldron of Anti-Semitism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The use and abuse of popular culture's favorite victim. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers As if there isn\u2019t enough evidence of the ideological corruption of America\u2019s universities, along come\u00a0Chicago\u2019s John Mearsheimer and Harvard\u2019s Stephen Walt, arguing that the \u201cIsrael lobby\u201d dominates American foreign policy to the hurt of our\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":3533,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/looking-for-a-scapegoat\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":3},"title":"Looking for a Scapegoat","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"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.\" Some holdover Nazi? Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2007"","block_context":{"text":"September 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/september-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":810,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-anti-semitism\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":4},"title":"The New Anti-Semitism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Not long ago,\u00a0The Economist\u00a0ran an unsigned editorial called the \u201cAuschwitz Complex.\u201d The unnamed author blamed serial Middle East tensions on both Israel\u2019s unwarranted sense of victimhood, accrued from the Holocaust, and its unwillingness to \u201cto give up its empire.\u201d As far as Israel\u2019s paranoid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7787,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nothing-to-do-with-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":3792,"position":5},"title":"Nothing to Do With Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. 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