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Western Anti-Semitism May Drive Israel toward Asia

(National Post-Canada) Julien Bauer - Contrary to what Western societies would like to believe, Western anti-Semitism is not a phenomenon of the past. It is very well alive. How can we understand the interest, if not the obsession, of the West for anything Jewish? Israel, the Jews' national expression, is treated as the archetype of anything bad and evil in the world. No word is strong enough to condemn Israel. Why threaten to impose special labelling for Israeli products manufactured in the West Bank, when such a treatment is not even considered for products from Chinese-occupied Tibet or Turkish-occupied (half of) Cyprus? How can we understand the French proposition, encouraged by many EU members, to impose a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and declare that Jerusalem - the Holy City of Judaism before there was Christianity or Islam - is Palestinian? Asian countries - where the religions are Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism - are not obsessed by Jews. Today, Israel's second-largest trading partner is China and India is coming close South Korea estimated that the intellectual ability encouraged by the study of Talmud was one of the explanations for Israel's economic success and so decided to introduce Talmudic studies in the schools. It has nothing to do with religion but was considered a tool for the specific goal of enhancing Korea's place in the field of knowledge. The mere idea of a Western country doing the same is ludicrous. The West is unconsciously encouraging Israel, and its high technology sector, to be increasingly linked with Asian countries. The writer is professor of political science at Universite du Quebec a Montreal and a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.
2015-06-17 00:00:00
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