Tolerating anti-Semitism is not the way to oppose Israel

Connect: There's a common complaint which appears in the mailboxes of journalists when they refer to anti-Semitism in the politics of the Middle East. The word anti-Semitism is redundant or oxymoronic, it's argued. After all, the Palestinians and other Arabs are also Semitic peoples.

The complainers are plain wrong, as they would discover if they bothered to pick up any reputable dictionary. The word anti-Semitism was coined in the mid-19th century specifically to describe prejudice against and persecution of Jews. That remains its accepted meaning. The interesting question is why so many people should now feel the need to undermine it.

For some on the pro-Israeli side of the fierce debate over violence in the region, the answer to that question is clear. Much of the opposition to Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere, they argue, is underpinned by anti-Semitism. At its most extreme, this argument deems any criticism of Israeli policies and actions to be anti-Semitic, foreclosing all rational dialogue on Israel's often appalling policies and debasing the original meaning of the word.

But, that said, is there a case to answer? Just because you're opposed to Israeli policies doesn't mean you're anti-Semitic. But it doesn't mean you're not, either. The most abhorrent, crudely anti-Semitic propaganda is officially approved and circulated in many Islamic countries, including Palestine, under the banner of "anti-Zionism". Hizbullah and other Islamic extremists have bombed synagogues in countries around the world. And western opponents of Israeli and US policies have shared platforms with anti-Semitic clerics. Apologists in the West argue that Islamic anti-Semitism is a symptom of oppression and dislocation, that what was originally a European disease is an unfortunate consequence of our own governments' disastrous policies. Which fails to explain why such figures as the prime minister of a supposedly moderate and relatively prosperous country - Malaysia - could say, for example: "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy." The allegation that Jews secretly rule the world through money, influence and cunning is at the heart of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Favourable references have been made by commentators in this newspaper to The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, a paper by US academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which described the "de facto control by Israel of US public opinion". That paper describes the unrivalled power of the pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill, chiefly through the American Israeli Political Action Committee allied with pro-Zionist Christian evangelists and influential Jewish neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, along with a range of think-tanks, academic institutions and media organisations. It goes on to suggest that the invasion of Iraq and the current US pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme are also largely driven by Israeli rather than US interests.

Mearsheimer and Walt are respected experts in their field, coming from a "realist" position on US foreign policy opposed to neo-conservatism. However, it's one thing to suggest that Israel's successful lobbying has earned it a disproportionate and damaging level of US support; it's quite another to propose that US foreign policy is entirely driven by Israeli imperatives (as promulgated by US citizens, most of whom happen to be Jewish), or that US public opinion is "controlled" by Israel. Both propositions seem highly dubious. The research paper has already attracted (unwelcome) support from white supremacists in the US.

Hardcore anti-Semitism has been perceived (not entirely accurately) as the exclusive preserve of the radical right, appealing to those who felt disenfranchised or deracinated by industrialisation, the collapse of traditional social structures and the challenges posed by the new ideologies of liberalism, capitalism, socialism and communism. Parties of the radical right still exist across Europe, but opposition to the US and Israel has brought elements of the European left as close to anti-Semitic positions as makes no difference. In the UK, George Galloway's Respect party has been linked with proponents of the fictional anti-Semitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, while Labour contrarian Tam Dalyell has complained about "a cabal of Jewish advisers" around Tony Blair.

In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), part of the Council of Europe, defined ways in which attacking Israel or Zionism could be anti-Semitic, while stating that criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country was not anti-Semitic.

According to the EUMC, examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself include: "denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour; holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel; applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (eg, claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis; and drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and that of the Nazis."

Anyone following the current debate over the war in Lebanon will already have come across some of the above. But if anti-Semitism continues to be tolerated, we can expect to see more.