Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader
By Barry Rubin
A reliable source in Finland reports that the speaker of parliament, Ben Zyskowicz, was attacked by a man shouting antisemitic slogans in Helsinki, June 1. He is a popular politician and the only Jewish member of parliament. Zyskowicz refused to press charges saying that going to court in such matters is futile.
This event in a relatively small, far-away country about which people know little will not make international news. But it isn't an isolated incident.
Reports from Holland say that Jewish funeral processions--and in some cases Christian ones--are being heckled by Muslim bystanders yelling, "Jews!" Is this a mistake on their part or is "Jew" becoming a wider designated curse to be uttered more generally? Western "peaceniks" and "humanitarians" are joining a Gaza flotilla whose organizers chant approvingly about the seventh-century genocide of Jews in the Arabian penninsula and pledge to repeat it, and for the benefit of a terrorist group (Hamas) that is actively and openly working on implementing a new genocide against Jews.
Politicians fly to expensive hotels to hold conferences on "tolerance" and "anti-hatred." Big public relations' campaigns are held on these topics. But all this has nothing to do with reality. Extremist groups and ideologies--including Islamism--along with endless incitement against Jews and Israel, including in the most "respectable" media, are creating an atmosphere where antisemitism is permissible, even fashionable.
True, the U.S. government is boycotting the ten-year- celebration of the UN's antiracism conference in Durban that turned into an antisemitism conference. Even the Obama Administration characterized this as including "ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism." But when the UN sponsors antisemitism might that suggest this is a rather big problem
Absolutely zero is being done about this at a time when, otherwise, the smallest accusations of religious or racial bigotry provoke hysteria. And those building this hatred, often by lies and hatred directed at Israel, claim they are innocent by manipulating definitions of antisemitism.
In Belgium, a sociologist conducted a poll that showed that half of Muslim students are antisemitic. The response? He has been taken to court by Muslims accused of a "hate crime."
Even in the United States, according to FBI statistics, attacks on Jews far exceed those on Muslims. Many of the attacks are staged by Muslims. Yet even Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League ignores the systematic inculcation of antisemitism in many mosques and Muslim schools. And here's the latest from Ireland. And the United Kingdom.
It would be excessively alarmist to say that this is a return to the 1933 and 1945. Rather, it is a return in a new form to the period between around 1000 and 1933. And that's bad enough.
Note: the reference in paragraph 2 about a small, far-away country of which people know little is to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's remark when sacrificing Czechoslovakia in 1938.
(seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East
(Wiley), and The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press later this year. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and Barry Rubin is now a blogger on Pajamas Media.Technorati Tag: Antisemitism.
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