Anti-Semitism on a Roll

Everywhere, it seems of late, the aeons-old scourge of anti-Semitism has resurfaced, blighting the atmosphere of cordial social relations, spuriously condemning a people by once again mantling it in responsibility for all the ills of the world. A steady and continual surge of blame and hateful scorn blooms like an unstoppable crop of noxious weeds, set to strangle public discourse and balance of opinion.

It seems not all that long ago that Jewish communities everywhere were able to sigh their relief at the universal belief that anti-Semitism had finally been laid to a well-deserved grave. That in the modern world of communications and intent to universalize brotherhood there was no room for that abhorrently warped view of fellow humans that permitted the social bigots among us to casually air their prejudices.

The sad truth of the matter is that the establishment of the State of Israel - in the determination to provide for world Jews what the global community was not prepared to - a haven of peace and security - has also given birth to another kind of Jew hatred, as that state has been pressed over the space of its existence to militarize itself for protection against the hostile forces surrounding it.

As long as Israel was seen as a humble and self-effacing presence, fearful of preserving its population, it had the support of the world community. When Israel mounted its initial defences against impossible odds, the world offered a grudging respect for the tiny nation determined to exist. But when Israel came of age as a mature country capable of facing down its enemies in a war of attrition, the tide of public opinion slid back to the old and familiar.

The left, once the sworn enemy of fascism, dictatorships, despots and religious fanaticism, has done a complete about-face and embraced all those ideologies in various guises of presentability, simply because they now regard those represented in those guises as the underdog, and the values of the West antithetical to humanity.

Israel is now characterized as the epitome of all that is wrong with Western values, coalescing as a fascist occupying force. And as such it brings quite amazing cooperation into play between the guilt-ridden liberal-left West, and the jihad-driven fascist Middle East. All the excesses of violent jihad are excusable, viewed through the lens of forgivable response to colonial oppression.

The combined forces of committed jihadists and victimhood-embracing Islamists are beside themselves with delight at their good fortune, that the very Western interests they so abhor willingly support their misbegotten aspirations.