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Anti-Semitism Is Civilization's Acid Test of Decency

(Jerusalem Post) Amit Deri - The Pittsburgh synagogue murderer is a classic anti-Semite who believes one thing is certain: Jews have no right to live. Anti-Semitism is a hatred that enables its adherents to blame everything on Jews, attributing to them all the paranoid delusions that the irrationally hateful suffer from. I have spent the last two years immersed in American college campuses helping to make the case for Israel. I have encountered not just rejection of Israel's legitimacy, but the most vile Jew-hatred, over and over again, with little pushback from decent people. I understand and support the right to voice your opinion, no matter how much I might disagree with it. But I also know that free speech cannot be the rationale for not calling out vile and hateful accusations. When anti-Semitism is excused because the speaker is someone whose political agenda I support, or is part of an ethnic or racial group that I don't want to offend, then I have given my tacit support to that same anti-Semitism. In the increasingly identity-centric world I encounter on campuses, where the world is conveniently divided between the privileged and the oppressed, the real loser is human dignity. In the current calculus, Israel - and by extension and increasingly explicitly Jews - are privileged oppressors. Unworthy. Not deserving of common decency and respect. Anti-Semitism thrives in this landscape. Anti-Semitism is ultimately civilization's acid test of decency. When it is tolerated, the floodgates of hatred and inhumanity will open in truly horrific fashion. The writer is founder and CEO of Reservists on Duty.
2018-11-07 00:00:00
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