Europeans Must Stop Telling Lies about Anti-Semitism

European politicians and intellectuals are happy to hold forth on the evil of hating Jews, but tend to address the problem with clichés, ignorance, and sometimes a stubborn unwillingness to face facts, as Monika Schwarz-Friesel writes:

[Often, Europeans] hear passionate affirmations, long since rejected by empirical research, that “rightist populism is responsible for contemporary anti-Semitism,” or that “the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the main cause,” or that “classical Jew-hatred is in retreat.” Completely misleading, too, is the assertion that “anti-Semitism and Muslim-hatred are closely related,” or that present-day Muslims suffer the same discrimination Jews once did. . . .

As in the past, present-day anti-Semitism reproduces and multiplies Jew-hating tendencies deeply rooted in Western consciousness. It follows the age-old pattern that attributes to the Jews all the miseries of the world. Anti-Semitic rancor is always directed against Jewish existence per se—and today, this means the most vital symbol of Jewish existence, the state of Israel. The opposition to Israel is now the meeting point for all sorts of haters of Jews, the common ground of present-day anti-Semitism. . . . Tirades of hate against the Jewish state, [moreover], are found not on the margins but in the center of Western society. Rancor against Israel feeds the dissemination of present-day anti-Semitism more than any other factor. . . .

When political spokespeople (rightly) criticize the new German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland because of its refusal to confront the frequent anti-Semitic utterances of its supporters, but at the same time overlook (or even applaud) when [the Palestinian Authority president] Mahmoud Abbas spouts well-known Judeophobic stereotypes in the EU parliament, or when [the Turkish president] Recep Tayyip Erdogan rages against Israel with surreal accusations, or when [the British Labor party’s leader] Jeremy Corbyn defames the Jewish state as an unjust colonial creation—these officials have a serious credibility problem.

It is not enough to criticize low-level neo-Nazis, Islamists, or boycott-divestment-and-sanctions (BDS) activists. Anyone who seriously wants to address the problem should look to the stage of international politics and step in forcefully.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Anti-Semitism, European Jewry, Jeremy Corbyn, Mahmoud Abbas, neo-Nazis, Politics & Current Affairs

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF