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Book Review - A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad by Robert S. Wistrich

(Washington Post) Walter Laqueur - The term "anti-Semitism" was coined in the 1860s, but hatred of Jews dates back far earlier. For almost two millennia the motivation was mainly religious. Jews have been attacked for assimilating, as well as for isolating themselves. In the 1920s and '30s Jews were attacked as a dangerous revolutionary enemy of the established order, communists and worse; today they are denounced as a main pillar of capitalism, neo-conservatism, imperialism and globalism. Before World War II, anti-Semitism was quite common, almost respectable, but Hitler and the mass murder of European Jewry gave anti-Semitism a bad name. But memories faded, and so did the guilty conscience generated by the Holocaust. Whereas the old anti-Semites had made no secret of their hatred of the Jews, many of the new ones emphatically reject the charge of anti-Semitism; they oppose Zionism, and in particular the policies of recent governments of Israel. In A Lethal Obsession, Robert Wistrich rightly stresses that criticism of Israel does not, of course, equate with anti-Semitism. But if Israel is singled out for condemnation, and its right to exist as a state denied, how can anyone consider this as anything but anti-Semitism? Wistrich's facts are all true, but do they present the whole picture? How to explain the fourfold increase in the number of Jews living in Germany during the last 20 years? How to explain that despite the rise of virulent anti-Semitism in France, many Jews play leading roles in politics and public life? Even Russia had two prime ministers of Jewish origin in recent years. The writer is a distinguished scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
2010-02-12 07:48:41
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