American Jews still don’t get it. They still think European anti-Semites resemble Hitler and the Cossacks, armed far-right nutjobs with shaved heads, their arms aloft in a Sieg Heil. To be sure, that class of anti-Semite continues to exist, and cases, such as the discovery in 2011 of a Nazi cell in Zwickau, Germany, are deeply troubling. But they are rare.
The real anti-Semites in Europe to be feared today come from the opposite pole of the spectrum: the far left.
The ones who march in so-called Palestinian solidarity, yet are nowhere to be seen at, for example, demonstrations against the plunder of ancient Christianity in Syria.
The ones who relish equating Israeli policy with that of the Nazis, the ones who have an obsession with Israel, despite the many, far bloodier conflicts elsewhere in the world.
The ones who call for mass boycotts of Israeli goods but are perfectly comfortable outfitting their lives with products made in China.
In the recent AJC poll of American Jews, 90% of those polled said that anti-Semitism is currently a problem in Europe. In the follow up question, 20.1% of respondents said that most of the political far right is anti-Semitic, while only 9.6% of the far left is.
Do these respondents have their collective heads in the sand?
• Jeremy Corbyn, the recently elected UK Labour Party leader, is on the left spectrum of his party and has made headlines in Jewish media (including an IJN editorial) for calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends.”
• The city council of Reyjkavik, which recently decided to ban all goods from Israel, that’s right, all goods, not just those from the West Bank, is run by a left leaning coalition. (Several days later it revised the ban to target goods produced in the West Bank only).
• Rototom Sunsplash, the Spanish festival that disinvited the Jewish musician Matisyahu because he wouldn’t make a political statement to its liking, aligns itself with leftist humanitarian causes
• Geri Müller, the Swiss politican who participated in an anti-Israel rally where signs equating Israelis and Nazis were waved, is a member of the leftist Green Party.
• The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel is not populated by skinheads and such like, but by leftist activists and intellectuals.
The shift toward leftist anti-Semitism, most experts agree, began after the Six Day War. The left loves to support underdogs, and following Israel’s triumph, it no longer played that role. The Palestinians did.
Right-wing anti-Semitism continues to exist in Europe and must be monitored and combatted. Yet it remains what it is, a fringe movement — in part because of harsh laws against Holocaust denial and Nazi party activity in many Western European countries. The real danger in Europe is that the anti-Semitism on the left is rapidly ceasing to be part of the fringe, instead becoming mainstream.
Note to American Jews: It’s time to extract your heads from the sand.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
