“What’s this got to do with anything?”

Errm . . . for the umpteenth time, a lot of high profile people, ranging from Sharon to Larry Summers, are saying criticism of policies and actions of the state of Israel amounts to anti-semitism. I’m saying that is just rubbish but what is far more significant, so are Jews for Justice for Palestine and the more who recognise Sharon for what he is. In Friday’s news from Reuters:

“Half of Israelis regard Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as untrustworthy after he said he might take unilateral steps to resolve conflict with Palestinians on Israel’s terms, an opinion poll has indicated. The Dahaf Institute survey published in the Israeli daily Maariv showed 50 percent felt Sharon was untrustworthy or somewhat untrustworthy, compared with 40 percent last August. Forty-seven percent saw him as reliable in the latest poll.” - at: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=421224&section=news
“Simple question: do concerned people have any grounds to examine whether there has been any increase in anti-semitism in Europe in the last five years? Yes, or no? Is this: a) something that bears investigation; or b) should it simply be dismissed out of hand as a false charge from Jews with ulterior motives?”

I’ve already attempted to respond to that above in general terms in answer to Anqua. But I’m not really the person to ask since I’m a Londoner and London is hugely cosmopolitan by any measure and generally recognised as tolerant of political, ethnic and religious diversity.

Plainly, the recent European poll in which 60% something said Israel is a threat to world peace is telling us something but I don’t believe that reflects a growing sentiment of anti-semitism across Europe. The libel trial in 2000 of Professor Lipstadt and Penguin Books also shows us that there is a marginalised fringe of politicised anti-semitism but that has verging on zero influence on most, if not all, west European governments as well as on popular sentiment.

The factor of growing significance is the infection from al-Qaeda among disaffected and militant Muslim youth. However, it has to be said that prior to US Presidential in 2000 comments were made that for many years London has provided a place of refuge to a huge variety of exile groups and an international rallying point for radical movements of many kinds but then it always has.

Apart from Disraeli, a grandson of immigrants who became prime minister of Britain, remember that Karl Marx is buried in Highgate cemetry in London. The famous conference in 1903 of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, which lead to the emergence of the Bolsheviks, was held in London - Lenin and Trotsky both came for the meeting. London has historically had a long and proud tradition of independence and radicalism: it declared early for Parliament against the King in what developed into England’s civil war in the 1640s.

Something that came out in the news relating to the trial of Reid, the shoe bomber, is that the security services had been warned over years before that a handful of radical Muslim clerics had been trying to stir up ethnic animosities, albeit with little observable effect. In terms of real politicks and political savvy, the great majority of Britain’s Muslim population of 1.6 million is too deeply engaged in business and work to wish to promote inter-ethnic enmities, let alone terrorism.

The situation is different in France where 5m Muslims, mainly from France’s ex-colonies in north Afria, amount to getting on for 10% of the population. In addition to the depressed state of each of the major Eurozone economies in mainland Europe at present, France has a highly regulated economy with a high tax burden by comparison with most European countries and a relatively high statutory minimum wage. One (predictable?) outcome is a high average unemployment rate among the under 25s, even by EU standards, with, unsurprisingly, well above average unemployment rates among Muslim youth resident in the housing estates on the fringes of France’s major cities. The social consequence is a degree of disaffection and militancy which connects with the item in the news about the proposed ban on display of conspicuous religious symbols in school. If implemented, the headscarves worn by Muslim girls would be proscribed as would skullcaps worn by Jewish boys.

Synagogues and Jewish cemetries have been attacked or defaced in France - and in Britain too. But we need to read that in a context where, according to official figures, an average of four churches a week in Britain have been subjected to arson attacks. For what it’s worth, I believe the security services are right to prioritise tracking potential terrorists rather than vandals and minor pyromaniacs. The spate of arrests in recent weeks in Britain under the anti-terrorism laws is a clear sign that the security services are very active in pursuing their mission.

Believe me, around where I live the extent of ethnic and linguistic diversity is so wide that racism becomes laughable. The more likely and threatening prospect is of terrorist sleeper cells which very intentionally maintain low profiles.

Yes it does.
Why attack French citizens (who incidentally happen to be jewish) & their synagogue ? This is weird ! Instead you ought to demonstrate in front of Israel’s embassy in Paris if you want the ***SHAROGNARD*** to be aware of your contempt or anger.

The French -whatever their “religion” (at least for the minority of them who believe in “god”: 80 % of the French are wise enough to rank religion along with astrology, cartomancy or fortune-telling - they do have spiritual lives, but they needn’t any “religion” to be elevated Human beings) are not responsible of the atrocities committed by fascists of all kinds: sharognards and islamoterrorists alike.

Absolutely right. What’s this got to do with anything?

Bob. Simple question: do concerned people have any grounds to examine whether there has been any increase in anti-semitism in Europe in the last five years? Yes, or no? Is this: a) something that bears investigation; or b) should it simply be dismissed out of hand as a false charge from Jews with ulterior motives?

(Minor point: “Jews” and “Jewish” are generally capitalized.)

“Is there anti-Semtism in Europe? Has it been increasing?”

Europe is a big place and I’ve not been outside London for quite a while but then as Samuel Johnson, the famed lexicographer, said: “The man who is tired of London is tired of life.” That was more than a couple of centuries back and London has got a lot bigger since. Besides, as Disraeli wrote: London is the modern Babylon, and that was in 1847.

There are some fairly clear signs of increasing xenophobia in the European Union, as reported in the news, but that seems mainly related to fears at the prospect of East European migration to the relatively affluent countries of Western Europe when the EU expands to include the accession countries, and also because of continuing illegal migration from Africa. Not many weeks pass before news surfaces of the Italian navy encountering another ship in the Mediterrean crammed full of would-be migrants trying to make it to settle in Europe. There is also a steady flow of news stories about slave traffic relating to vice - impressionistically, Albania seems to be the originating source most often mentioned.

The issues and sentiments underpinning the concerns are many, complex and often inter-related. Western Europe is confronted by the problems associated with population ageing over the next half century, especially the associated trend increase in dependency ratios which raises fundamental questions as to who is going to pay for the future pensions in the European Social Model. Inward migration could help to abate such problems but other concerns impinge, notably the persisting high average unemployment rate in the Eurozone, relatively low employment rates by American or British standards, and low rates of generating new jobs to replace the inevitable job losses induced through technical change, trade and switches in consumer preferences.

Much of the illicit migration traffic is connected with international criminal gangs so the migrants become vulnerable to all sorts of blackmailing pressures by the traffickers. Predictably, that also connects with security concerns about the increasing threat of terrorism which, in the case of France and Germany, pre-dates 9-11, while Britain has had separate terrorist problems connected with Northern Ireland for the last 30 something years. Judging by blog reading, some Americans seem to believe Europeans are unfamiliar with terrorism and doing little to avert the threat - emphatically, not so.

In all this, classic anti-semitism is relatively small scale and marginal. What there is seems linked with either extremist muslim groups infected by al-Qaeda or with the mostly small, fascist fringe groups, endemic in mainland Europe at least since the 19th century. As best I can gather, these latter are not making much collective headway and their present main focus is with East European migration, asylum-seekers or illegal migrants, not with anti-semitism.

Some years back now, a British commercial TV channel produced an enlightening programme on nationalist and neo-fascist fringe groups. Quite deadpan, the programme gathered a collection of about half a dozen young people from across Europe who each subscribed to some variant of Holocaust denial and persuaded them to go on an expenses paid trip to visit Auschwitz. Once there, the group was introduced to a guide who was to show them around what remains of the camp. The guide was an engaging lady who had been an inmate there as a young girl, with her mother at the time, until the end of the war when she had somehow got to Britain and had lived here since.

In a sort of quiet and friendly way she started to relate on camera her everyday experiences of life in Auschwitz, after displaying her tatoo mark, in much the way she might have talked of experiences in a holiday camp - except that she in passing mentioned seeing a camp guard pick up a child by the legs in order to smash the child’s head against a wall. The group of young people walked off. They simply couldn’t handle her story. Asked later about why they had walked away they said she was just talking lies and propaganda. There was no possibility of rational dialogue. They just didn’t want to know.

Perhaps because of that, I doubt the value of discussing xenophobia in a general way without focusing on its recruiting territory - typically, the disaffected young, usually male, under-achievers with job problems who are also targeted by al-Qaeda recruiters.

So far, your argument is equivalent to the following:
“Is there racism in the US?” — “Robert Mugabe is a very nasty man! Look, even black people say so!”
“I agree, but is there racism in the US?” — “Criticizing Mugabe’s policies in Zimbabwe is not racism!”

The points you are making are absolutely true. Nobody is saying otherwise. It’s just that you do not seem to be answering, well, the actual questions, and do wonder why.

They are actually fairly easy yes or no questions, and do value your opinion on the subject. Is there anti-Semtism in Europe? Has it been increasing? Should this be a concern for progressive people? Is it justified?

Notice that I am not asking whether Sharon is a nice guy, or whether Israeli policies can be criticized. To pre-empt you, I will even agree: Sharon is not a nice guy. Israeli policies can and should be criticized. So how about it, now — can you answer my questions?

The point is simple and must be starkly obvious.

Criticising policies and actions of governments of the state of Israel, or political leaders there, as many jews have done and do, does not amount to anti-semitism.

It is both proposterous and dangerous to suppose otherwise; dangerous, because it is apt to impede progress to any peace settlement for Palestine and also blocks off the normal political discourse which most regard as fundamental to the process we label “democracy.”

Equating criticism of Israeli governments or Sharon with anti-semitism looks amazingly like a concerted campaign of mendacious political spin to shut critics down and cover up unacceptable conduct.

Quite likely, anti-semites do criticise Israel but then they also most likely also subscribe to the proposition that: 2 + 2 = 4. As best as I can tell, it is not yet being seriously proposed that we reform the theory of numbers or reprogramme store checkout tills just because anti-semites are known to subscribe to it.

Btw as diligent history students have noted, there are states and countries which rather take to political leadership by military men or supposedly contrite terrorists and those which do not. Britain is one that does not. Our historic experience with military leaders, like Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Wellington, did not prove encouraging. A documented remark by Wellington following his first cabinet meeting as prime minister shows why: “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.”

Sure, and there still is now. On the other hand, I haven’t seen very many liberal and progressive people trying to explain this away as an understandable or acceptable reaction, in the way that many have done with respect to anti-semitism. What you don’t seem to be getting through your head is that war or terrorism is not an excuse for racism, and that if racism does arise as a result of conflict, it should be fought rather than justified.

Earth to Maynard: Lots of countries, including the United States and Britain, have justified their national missions in full or in part by religious reasons. It’s still possible - and necessary - to separate nationalism from religion.

Posted by Jonathan Edelstein at December 4, 2003 01:27 PM

Well, Jonathan, since you appear to have been asleep at the time, PRECISELY this thing happened two years ago in a little incident called 9/11. At the time there was a whole lot of punditing going on about whether there is an intrinsic element to Islam that puts it in irreconcilable conflict with the west. Now this whole debate was mostly fudged and allowed to die down, largely, I suspect, not because GWB and friends are great and good people, but because they are madly in love with the Saudis. The fudge, for the most part, came through saying things like “well jihad should be interpreted as meaning a personal struggle”.
But let’s not kid ourselves; the real reason this went away is simply that the US and the Middle East are too far away from each other for much Middle Eastern terrorism to occur on US soil. If there were daily incidents of terrorist attacks on US civilians, whose perpetrators claimed to be doing what Islam commanded them to do, you can be damn sure the US press would be full of stories about how the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.

Perhaps it might be even more relevant to leave Ariel Sharon and his virtues and crimes out of the discussion entirely, since his existence neither justifies the existence of anti-semitims or false charges of anti-semitism. Leaping from topic a to topic b might be considered just the sort of sweeping attempt at a distraction as you yourself are suggesting others are engaging in, Bob. What on earth does topic b have to do with topic a? How does the existence of topic b make irrelevant discussion of topic b?

I am, incidentally, entirely cognizant of the role of Great Britain in fighting Hitler and fascism while America was isolationist, and of the long years the United Kingdom engaged in desperate war while America preserve de jure, though scarcely de facto, neutrality, and I’m emphatically grateful to Great Britain and its Dominions for the heroic role it played.

It seems to me there’s a lot of pointless generalized statements being flung around here. I repeat: no one (here or sensible) is making generalized charges that suddenly, or at all, a plurality of Europe is stalking about burning synagogues or engaging in vast amounts of anti-semitic demogogary. So defenses on that sort of charge are pointless and a waste of time, as is defensiveness towards such inane and non-existent (by serious interlocutors) charges.

What might be seriously discussed is whether there are small and alarming signs of anti-semitism, here and there, in small corners, whether in Europe or America or Antartica, and how real or alarming, or not, such suggested signs are, and whether it is more useful to discuss them and put them in perspective, or whether it is more useful to argue in a pointless defensive way over red herring charges that no one is making.

Meanwhile, I’m not defending Ariel Sharon, so going on about what he or his supporters say or don’t say is irrelevant. At best.

“Instead of making sweeping charges about anti-semitism in Europe, it would perhaps be more relevant and timely to focus on Israel’s government and Sharon in particular. [...] Those inclined to persist in their charges of rising anti-semitism in Britain are well advised to first read up references to Sharon’s military and political career in Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall, starting with what happened at Qibya in 1953. Gerald Kaufman, one of our MPs, has been quite explicit in calling Sharon ‘a war criminal.’ I can understand why.”

That’s nice. What’s your point? I assume you’re not suggesting that there is anti-semitism hither or yon, but that it’s justified because Ariel Sharon is a war criminal, but I’m at a complete loss as to what point you think you are making. It’s like someone suggesting discussing racism being responded to with “well, anyone who wants to talk about racism against blacks should look into the record of Idi Amin!” What, actually, would be the point of such a response?