02/05/2004 | KAKTUZZ

Це стаття із "Геральд Тріб"юн"
Who is anti-Semitic, and who is not
Identifying the virus
By Uri Avnery (IHT)
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

TEL AVIV, Israel: Two men meet during the June 1967 war. ''Why do you look
so happy?'' asks one. ''I heard that the Israelis shot down six Soviet MiGs
today,'' his friend replies. The next day, the friend looks even more
jubilant: ''The Israelis downed another eight MiGs!''
On the third day, the friend is crestfallen. ''What happened? Didn't the
Israelis down any MiGs today?'' ''They did,'' the friend answers, ''But
someone told me that the Israelis are Jews!''
This is the story of anti-Semitism in a nutshell.
The anti-Semite hates the Jews because they are Jews, irrespective of their
actions. Jews may be hated because they are rich and ostentatious or
because they are poor and live in squalor. Because they played a major role
in the Bolshevik revolution or because some of them became incredibly rich
after the collapse of the Communist regime. Because they crucified Jesus or
because they infected Western culture with the ''Christian morality of
compassion.'' Because they have no fatherland or because they created the
state of Israel.
That is in the nature of all kinds of racism and chauvinism: One hates
someone for being a Jew, Arab, woman, black, Indian, Muslim, Hindu. His or
her personal attributes, actions, achievements are not important. If he or
she belongs to the abhorred race, religion or gender, they will be hated.
The answers to all questions relating to anti-Semitism follow from this
basic fact. For example: Is everybody who criticizes Israel an anti-Semite?

Absolutely not. Somebody who criticizes Israel for our actions cannot be
accused of anti-Semitism for that. But somebody who hates Israel because it
is a Jewish state, like the man in the joke, is an anti-Semite. It is not
always easy to distinguish between the two kinds, because shrewd
anti-Semites pose as bona fide critics of Israel's actions.
But presenting all critics of Israel as anti-Semites is wrong and
counterproductive; it damages the fight against anti-Semitism. Many deeply
moral person criticize our behavior in the occupied territories. It is
stupid to accuse them of anti-Semitism.
Can a person be an anti-Zionist without being an anti-Semite?
Absolutely yes. Zionism is a political creed and must be treated like any
other. One can be anti-Communist without being anti-Chinese,
anti-capitalist without being anti-American, anti-globalist, anti-anything.
Yet, again, it is not always easy to draw the line, because real
anti-Semites often pretend just to be ''anti-Zionist.''
Can a person be an anti-Semite and a Zionist?
Indeed, yes. The founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, tried to enlist
the support of notorious Russian anti-Semites, promising them to take the
Jews off their hands.
Nowadays, the Zionist extreme right receives and welcomes massive support
from American fundamentalist evangelicals, whom the majority of American
Jews, according to a poll published this week, consider anti-Semitic. Their
theology prophesies that on the eve of the second coming of Christ, all
Jews must convert to Christianity or be exterminated.
Can a Jew be anti-Semitic?
That sounds like an oxymoron. But history has known some instances of Jews
who became ferocious Jew-haters. Karl Marx wrote some very nasty things
about the Jews, as did Otto Weininger, an important Jewish writer in
fin-de-siecle Vienna. Herzl, his contemporary and fellow-Viennese, wrote in
his diaries some very uncomplimentary remarks about the Jews.
If a person criticizes Israel more than other countries which do the same,
is he an anti-Semite?
Not necessarily. True, there should be one and the same moral standard for
all countries and all human beings. Russian actions in Chechnya are not
better than ours in Nablus, and may be worse. The trouble is that the Jews
are pictured and picture themselves (and indeed were) a ''nation of
victims.'' Therefore, the world is shocked that yesterday's victims are
today's victimizers. A higher moral standard is required from us than from
other peoples. And rightly so.
Has Europe become anti-Semitic again?
Not really. The number of anti-Semites in Europe has not grown, perhaps it
has even fallen. What has increased is the volume of criticism of Israel's
behavior towards the Palestinians, who appear as ''the victims of the
victims.'' The situation in some suburbs of Paris, which is often cited as
an example of the rise of anti-Semitism, is a quite different affair. When
North African Muslims clash with North African Jews, they are transferring
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to European soil. Then why did many
Europeans state in a recent poll that Israel endangers world peace more
than any other country?
That has a simple explanation: Europeans see on television every day what
our soldiers are doing in the occupied Palestinian territories. This
confrontation is covered more than any other conflict (with the possible
exception of Iraq, for the time being), because Israel is more
''interesting,'' considering the long history of the Jews in Europe, and
because Israel is closer to the Western media than Muslim or African
countries. The Palestinian resistance, which Israelis call terrorism, seems
to many Europeans very much like the French resistance to the German
occupation.
What about the anti-Semitic manifestations in the Arab world?
No doubt, typically anti-Semitic indications have crept into Arab
discourse. Suffice it to mention that the infamous ''Protocols of the
Elders of Zion'' have been published in Arabic.
Whatever inanities may be voiced by certain ''experts,'' there never was
any widespread Muslim anti-Semitism, such as existed in Christian Europe.
In the course of his fight for power, the prophet Muhammad fought against
neighboring Jewish tribes, and therefore there are some negative passages
about the Jews in the Koran. But they cannot be compared to the anti-Jewish
passages in the New Testament that have poisoned the Christian world and
caused endless suffering. Muslim Spain was a paradise for the Jews, and
there has never been a Jewish Holocaust in the Muslim world. Even pogroms
were extremely rare.
The Muslims never imposed their religion by force on Jews and Christians,
as shown by the fact that almost all the Jews expelled from Catholic Spain
settled in Muslim countries and flourished there. Aren't the utterances of
the prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Muhammad, about the Jews
controlling the world, anti-Semitic?
Yes and no. They certainly illustrate the difficulty of pinning
anti-Semitism down. From a factual point of view, the man was right when he
asserted that the Jews have a far bigger influence than their percentage of
the world's population alone would warrant. It is true that the Jews have a
large influence on the policy of the United States, as well as on the
American and international media. But the sounds make the music, and
Mahathir's music does indeed sound anti-Semitic.
Should we ignore anti-Semitism?
Definitely not. Racism is a kind of virus that exists in every nation and
in every human being. Jean-Paul Sartre said that we are all racists, the
difference being that some of us realize this and fight against it, while
others succumb to the evil. In ordinary times, there is a small minority of
blatant racists in every country, but in times of crisis their number can
multiply rapidly. This is a perpetual danger, and every people must fight
against the racists in their midst.
We Israelis are like all other peoples. Each of us can find a small racist
within himself. We have in our country fanatical Arab-haters, and the
historic confrontation that dominates our lives increases their power and
influence. It is our duty to fight them, and leave it to the Europeans and
Arabs to deal with their own racists.
The writer heads the Israeli peace movement Gush Shalom and is a former
member of the Knesset.