A global epidemic of anti-Semitism

“I will personally do everything I can — as will my entire government — to ensure that anti-Semitism doesn’t have a chance in our country,” she said.

During the recent war in Gaza, marchers in Berlin, Frankfurt and other cities that once echoed with the goose steps of Nazi storm troopers, chanted “Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight;” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” Merkel’s resolute response was, one might say, incumbent upon German leaders, in light of the history.

But Germany was far from the only scene of vicious expressions of anti-Semitism this summer. In Paris, three hundred worshippers were besieged in a synagogue by a mob with “murder on its mind,” in the words of journalist present. The London Sunday Times reports that “Britain’s Jews are suffering an anti-Semitic backlash against Israel’s military action in Gaza with attacks, bomb threats, bricks thrown at a synagogue and ‘Hitler was right’ banners.”

A top South African trade union and political leader called for retaliation against that country’s Jewish community for the death of Gazans, “an eye for an eye.” A Turkish website reported that in a single day 27,000 Turks had tweeted praise of Hitler.

Some other European leaders have also spoken out against anti-Semitism, but none have been willing to ask why the world — and Europe especially — is witnessing the most virulent outbreak of anti-Semitism since Hitler. Nor are they willing to confront their own indirect contributions to this epidemic. The source is to be found in the fierce, one-sided and unreasonable criticism of Israel that pours forth each time it resorts to arms in self-defense. European leaders regularly acquiesce in this vitriol even when they are not themselves direct parties to it.

Not every criticism of Israel, even strongly stated, is tantamount to anti-Semitism, nor is every critic a hidden anti-Semite. Some are even Jews. Nonetheless, a growing share of Israel-criticism is laced with anti-Semitism. And there is logic to it. If the Jewish state is as vicious as it is often portrayed, can the Jewish people be blameless, especially when most Jews support Israel?

Is Israel indeed that vicious? The United Nations Human Rights Council treats Israel as by far the worst country in the world. Its agenda always contains several broad global themes and two items about abuses in specific countries: one for Israel and one for the other world’s 194 countries combined. Never mind that in the independent assessment of Freedom House, Israel ranks as “free,” while the average UN member is only “partly free” and all of Israel’s neighbors and enemies are “not free.”

This summer, the Council created a panel to “investigate” the war in Gaza, a reprise of the notorious “Goldstone Commission” which concluded that during the 2008-09 war in Gaza, Israel was guilty of “crimes against humanity,” a special concept invented for the trial of Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust. Once again, the resolution authorizing the “investigation” already declared Israel guilty and instructed the new commission to examine only the behavior of Israel not that of Hamas. Did Europe’s representatives join the U.S. in opposing this farce? No. France, England, Italy and the others all abstained — including even Merkel’s Germany.

The same one-sided Israel-bashing flourishes also among non-governmental organizations. British teacher unions have voted for academic boycotts of Israel, but not of countries that suppress academic freedom and allow no independent labor unions. American church denominations have opted to divest from companies in Israel but not in countries that allow no freedom of religion and actively persecute Christians. International human rights groups have condemned Israel more often and harshly than other Middle Eastern states with governments far more repressive and brutal.

The process by which this sharp bias against Israel grows into anti-Semitism is exemplified by the likening of Israel to Nazi Germany. The analogy once would have been dismissed as the obscenity that it is but now has become commonplace.

With the recent war in Gaza, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan took it further, accusing Israel of “barbarism that surpasses Hitler.” If so, then Hitler was the lesser evil. Had he only finished the job the world would have been spared something worse. It is easy to see why thousands of Turks are tweeting their praise of the man behind the Holocaust.

So, no, criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism. But the one-sided castigation of Israel that has come to dominate global discourse has created a hothouse atmosphere in which anti-Semitism is both flourishing and metastasizing.

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the author of Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions for editorials, available at this link.