Jewish
Frontier

At the beginning of the third millennium, the Jewish people face a familiar argument, one that is being articulated in a new form across the globe, one that's nothing less than a new form of anti-Semitism. In the past Jews had been accused of killing Jesus and of continuing this sacrificial practice by killing Christian children. Today these accusations come cloaked in anti-Zionist and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Throughout history, Christian countries refused to recognize the right of Jews to live freely as equals among the nations. They often cast them as parasites thriving on the success of humanity. This view was reinforced, in particular, by St. Augustine's theological prescription that Jews occupy a downtrodden place in Christian society so that they might humbly witness the supercession of Judaism by the "True Israel," Christianity.

Today, 2,000 years after the exile of our people from our historic land and the astonishing revival of our nation, the Jewish people have found a political solution to its national-ethnic-human condition. However, the predominant view of the state of Israel around the world is of an artificial state created by Western colonialist powers. This is the meaning of the phrase "Zionist entity" typically circulated in the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic writings.

This phenomenon, by which an ancient people is deprived of the right to a physical, political, cultural, and spiritual existence, has no parallel in history. Only religious intolerance has this historical pattern. Therefore, what we are witnessing at the beginning of the twenty-first century as the rhetoric of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment is but anti-Semitism by another name.

During the last few years, the attempt to dehumanize and delegitimize the state of Israel has grown to unprecedented levels. Consider the following examples:

DOWN IN DURBAN

The official UN-sponsored World Conference against Racism, which took place in Durban, South Africa, was held in an atmosphere that sought to portray Israel as a racist state that practiced "apartheid." Tragically, a conference intended to examine effective mechanisms to combat racism and promote understanding and awareness of this important global problem became instead a stage for its own form of racist bailing. Draft resolutions initiated by the Arab states and Palestinian delegation and promoted by a majority of the over 3,000 NGO representatives attending the conference accused Israel of conducting systematic racist crimes, including war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. These drafts were acts of incitement against Israel, aimed at providing a foundation to the presumed lack of legitimacy of the Jewish state. Developing countries and NGOs alike selected Israel to fulfill the role of ultimate evil in our world, casting it not only as an illegal entity but an immoral state whose very existence endangers world stability and security. Without a "solution to the Jewish problem," said the Nazis, the world cannot be saved from itself. Without a solution to Israeli colonialism, argued the participants in Durban, the world can fare no better. The Zionists, they claim, will destroy it. And yet how reminiscent this sounds of Nazi doctrine.

REVISING ZIONISM

ow many today are aware of the growing ties between Western Holocaust deniers and the Arab world, which came to light in December 2000, when the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) announced that its 14th revisionist conference would take place in Beirut, Lebanon, in early April 2001? In previous years the IHR held its conventions closer to home, in places like Orange County and Los Angeles, California, a state famous for the outspokenness of its neo-Nazi groups. More interestingly, and in another break with IHR tradition, the Beirut conference was to bring together historical revisionism and Zionism. The IHR was assisted by its Swiss counterpart, Association Verite et Justice, founded by Jurgen Graf. Scheduled speakers were to include Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, Fredrick Toben, and Mark Weber. The IHR also pointedly announced that no one — including journalists — whose passport contained an Israeli entrance or exit stamp would be permitted to attend.

Soon after the conference was announced, several Jewish organizations voiced their concern about the possibility that the conference would lead to increased anti-Semitism in the region. The Simon Wiesenthal Center went so far as to urge the Lebanese government to intervene in the matter, saying that in the interests of regional peace, the conference must not go on. "There is a wide range of viewpoints as to how peace can be reached in your region," the Wiesenthal Center wrote to the Lebanese ambassador, "but certainly the introduction and acceptance of Holocaust denial into the mainstream of Lebanon and the Arab world is not one of them. It will only poison hearts and minds of the uninformed and further fan the flames of hate and mistrust in the region." Others also urged the Lebanese government to ban the conference, including, according to reports in the Arab press, the U.S. State Department.

French news organizations announced that 14 independent Arab intellectuals had also denounced the conference, including Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich, Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, and Palestinian-American professor Edward Said.

By the end of March 2001, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri had announced that his government would not permit the conference to take place. "Lebanon has more important things to do than holding conferences that hurt its international standing and smear its name," al-Hariri said. News of the ban was applauded by Western politicians and writers, many of whom expressed the hope that the ban presaged growing cooperation between Israel and Arab countries. On March 30, IHR and Verite et Justice officially announced that the conference was called off, though some free-speech advocates in the West decried the decision.

The cancellation inspired another group, the anti-normalization Jordanian Writers' Association (JWA), to host a conference of its own, whose theme was "What Happened to the Revisionist History conference in Beirut?" Scheduled speakers included Lebanese, Jordanian, and Syrian writers, one of whom pledged to read the paper Robert Faurisson had intended to give at the Beirut conference. Though the Jordanian authorities postponed JWA's conference at least twice, the conference eventually took place in Amman on May 13, 2001. According to one of the organizers, lbrahirn Alloush, the participants resolved to condemn the fourteen Arab intellectuals who had opposed the Beirut conference and to establish an "Arab Committee of Historical Revisionism"

BLOODTHIRSTY JEWS IN THE ARAB MIND

In a national broadcast of the Abu-Dhabi television, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is depicted as a vampire, drinking with pleasure blood of young Palestinian boys, hated by God and humanity.

On March 10, 2002, the government-run daily newspaper Al-Riyadh in Saudi Arabia published an article claiming that on Purim, Jews bake cookies made with the blood of Christian or Islamic adolescents; on Passover, the author claimed, Jews use the blood of children under ten years old to make matzah. This latest representation of the age-old blood libel was condemned by the United States government, which issued an editorial on the State Department-run Voice of America radio broadcasts, staling, "No one who not blinded by hate for Jews could ever believe such nonsense." The editorial implied that the Saudi newspaper was lending an air of credibility to this blood libel, which was neither common sense nor "moral sense."

The repetition of the age-old blood libel in a newspaper published in the holiest land in Islam continues a phenomenon that began in the 1930s. Blood libel charges originated in Europe, with the death of the young Christian, Hugh of Lincoln, in 1209. It comes out of the belief in medieval Christianity that the Jews killed Jesus, the "child" of God. It then extended the link to Passover because of its proximity to Easter. The blood libel was adopted by Christian Arabs in Syria in the nineteenth century, with the famous 1840 Damascus Blood Libel. Then, during World War II, as an expression of anti-Western and anticolonialist feelings, Arab leaders sided with the Nazis, adopting their propaganda, including the most base anti-Semitic charges and images ever to be leveled at the Jewish people. None of this rhetoric is of Islamic origin, and ironically it runs counter to Islamic tradition, which teaches tolerance toward Christianity and Judaism and establishes a special status for Jews and Christians within Islamic society. This fact is reflected in non-Arab Islamic countries, which have not incorporated Christian anti-Semitic images. Only Arab countries and Iran have adopted these attitudes.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, these charges were transferred from Jews themselves to Israel and Zionism. Thus, Israel as a Jewish state located in the heart of the Middle East is the center around which modern anti-Semitism throughout the world revolves, using anti-Semitic literature and propaganda in mass media.

After the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, familiar charges emanated from this region. These arguments reveal the depth of the hatred Israel and the Jewish people. They include the claim that the Israeli Mossad committed the terror attacks of September 11, that Osama bin Laden triggered the attacks because the United States favors Israel in the Middle East conflict, and that even if Israel is not to blame for the attacks, Israels behavior threatens the American-led coalition against terror.

I had the pleasure to serve as member of the Steering Committee of the Sixth International Conference of Jewish Ministers and Members of Parliament, which took place in Jerusalem in January 2002, and to moderate a panel on the "Struggle against AntiSemitism" there. My recommendation then were as follows:

• Increase awareness in the world and in Israel about the phenomenon of anti-Semitism.
• Take effective action to prevent turning the Arab-Israeli conflict into a religious one by, among other things, building a coalition with moderate Muslim leaders.
• Reestablish ties with the community of human rights organizations.
• Take measures in the field of education and law enforcement, especially where local legislation permits, as in Rio de Janeiro, where an internal police department for anti-Semitic harassment and antiSemitic activities was established.

The threat of anti-Semitism is not a chimera. It is real, and it has heated up significantly because of the increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. We must not let this become an opportunity to stoke fires of Jew-hating that swept Europe during World War II. We must attack this disease directly and root it out. There is no place for this type of hate when we all so eagerly seek peace.

Michael Landsberg is secretary general of the World Labor Zionist Movement.