Anti-Semitism is humanity's oldest and most poisonous sin. Never dormant, it lurks amorphously, waiting to take on new forms with each generation.
In Christian Europe, the lie that the Jews killed Christ fueled centuries of religious persecution. In the 1930s, the Nazis expanded this to murdering Jews as an ethnic group. As a "People of the Book", Jews fared better in Muslim lands than they did in Europe – a low bar – but were never afforded equal legal rights or social status, and were eventually expelled.
Today, anti-Semitism dresses as anti-Zionism and anti-colonialism. Consider the reaction to October 7, when a brigade-sized group of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and murdered more than 1200 people (with 240 taken hostage) in a gruesome pogrom.
Before the dead were counted and the abducted accounted for, and before Israel had responded, street mobs as far as London, New York, Jakarta, and Sydney, were baying for Jewish blood. Police stood and watched. In Europe, Jewish homes, buildings and cemeteries have been marked. Brazen rallies calling for Jewish genocide have gone unpunished – and even been defended – at America’s Ivy League colleges. A social media frenzy is fanning the flames. Globally, anti-Semitism is at its highest in living memory. Worse than becoming acceptable, it has become fashionable.
When confronted, these demonstrators reply with carefully rehearsed phrases.
I'm not anti-Jewish, I am anti-Israel
I'm not anti-Jewish, I am anti-Zionist
I'm not anti-Jewish, I am anti-colonialism
This mealy-mouthed talk must be called what it is – anti-Semitism in its new clothes. Imagine claiming you were not anti-Japanese, but just wanted to destroy Japan. This reveals the absurdity of these people’s claims that they do not have a problem with Jews, only with Israel.
While it is intellectually possible to be anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic, it is very hard given the practical realities. How can calling for something that would result in the death of millions of Jews – the destruction of Israel – not be anti-Semitic?
This is how we can be sure what anti-Israeli protestors mean when they chant “From the river to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” The area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea is Israel. Free of Jews is what they mean.
ROOTS OF HATE
This ugly revival shows how hard anti-Semitism is to kill. Its roots are deep and entangled in the dysfunctional family of the Abrahamic religions.
Jews are only a tiny number of the billions of people today who are not Christian or Muslim. Yet there is no great hatred towards this half of humanity. It matters not that billions of Chinese and Indians do not accept Jesus as the Messiah or Muhammad as God's final profit. They were not there to hear their preaching and witness their miracles. The Jews were.
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