EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana says anti-Semitism is unacceptable and should be fought against without compromise. But he also says that "criticism of Israel" is another matter, and should continue, even if its terminology in recent years has reached the point of inciting anti-Semitic attacks and gross discrimination against Israel.
An example is the call to for a scientific, cultural, and economic boycott of Israel, reminiscent of the Nazi boycotts launched after they achieved power in 1933. Another example is the demonization of Zionism and the Jewish people as inherently "criminal" and "satanic" forces, which also resembles the methods, language, and techniques of Nazi anti-Semitism.
The nazification of Zionism is purportedly anti-racist in intent, and the slander is sometimes clothed in the language of human rights, anti-imperialism, and so-called "progress".
Critics of Israel consider it legitimate to condem Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (and US President George W. Bush) as reincarnations of Adolf Hitler. The comparisons were prevalent among Muslims, leftists, intellectuals, and artists during the anti-war demonstrations that preceded last year's Iraq War.
Israel is the only country in the world that many countries, political blocs and individuals (including some Jews) want to see disappear, in a chilling reminder of Nazism.
No one hears Solana, EU president Romano Prodi, or EU External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten criticize Iran's genocidal diatribes against Israel. The EU has a policy of "constructive engagement" with the Iranian ayatollahs. Its spokespeople have nothing to say about the vicious anti-Semitism, camouflaged as "criticism of Israel", uttered by Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, countries with which the EU has maintained business ties for decades, despite the demonization of the "alien Jew" in their media.
The European-Arab dialogue has never been called off because of European demands to end Arab incitement. The Arab world considers Israel's isolation and extinction as one of the purposes of this dialogue. The fact that millions of euros were channeled to finance Palestinian terrorism against Israel is still waiting for official EU acknowledgement.
PLO officials invest efforts in delegitimizing Zionism, with success. The negation of Jewish nationalism and sovereignty in Israel is accepted by many Europeans to an alarming degree. The same is true about the Palestinian denial of any historic link between Judaism and Zion, or the existence of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.
The EU does not protest against Israel's non-appearance on Palestinian maps, even during the Olso peace process. The EU has never condemned the widespread publications of anti-Semitic motifs, including Holocaust denial, blood libels, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in the Palestinian Authority. These facts make Solana's call to fight anti-Semitism appear ridiculous.
As part of EU support for the Palestinians, EU member states have become infected by old-new anti-Semitic formulas that view Jews as bloodthirsty colonizers and "imperialist invaders" that conquered "Palestine" by force, as modern-day Crusaders that have no legitimate rights to the Holy Land, and as a foreign implant in the region.
Hitler would welcome this Palestinian-Arab narrative. There are even some Jews who have adopted this parody of history as if it were truth.
Contemporary anti-Zionism unashamedly exploits anti-Semitic stereotypes regarding the so-called "Jewish-Zionist Lobby", "the criminal nature" of the Jews, and "Israeli warmongering". Without such racist prejudice and propaganda, it is impossible to explain how 60% of Europeans believe that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, how a third of Europeans believe that Jewish influence is too great, and why they suspect Jews of double loyalties.
The continuous attacks against Israel's so-called "criminal", "racist", "Nazi", and "Fascist" policies incite anti-Semitism. There is a link between the radical left, populist right, and militant Islam; between the European media and the masses; between church and mosque; between the increasingly anti-American Europe and the anti-West Islamic-Arab Middle East.
This anti-Israel attitude blends into anti-Semitism, despite artificial efforts to distinguish between the two.
This is the source of the hypocrisy, malices, and schizophrenia demonstrated by so many European politicians, intellectuals, journalists, and church heads who condemn anti-Semitism even as they incite it with their hostile attacks on Israel and double standards they impose on it. The crocodile tears shed by European elites over the Holocaust are insufferable in view of their criminal collaboration with their Arab partners' calls for Israel's extermination.
The seminar on anti-Semitism under EU auspices in Brussels will turn out to be useless, and possible even worse, unless it comes out with a clear declaration ending the double-think of purporting to be pro-Jewish and opposed to anti-Semitism, while at the same time feeling free to smear Israel.
Prof. Robert Wistrich is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center and director of the Institute for the Study of anti-Semitism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on March 1, 2004