HOWEVER DEFINED OR CATEGORIZED, antisemitism, Judeophobia, or the hatred and suspicion of the Jews has appeared throughout history and in many parts of the world with various degrees of intensity. This did not end with Hitler and the Second World War. But the motivation, character, and manifestation of antisemitism have changed over the ages, and though widely studied especially in recent decades, much about it remains unclear and in dispute.
The first and obvious question in this context is what is different about Jews that may have attracted attack and persecution? The need for a scapegoat may be part of the human condition, but it does not explain why the Jews have been consistently cast in this role. The attempts to explain modern antisemitism as a mental aberration on the part of antisemites, even as a mental disease, have singled out, not quite convincingly, certain aspects of a far wider and more complicated phenomenon.
Historically, Judaism had rejected two of the major world religions, Christianity and Islam, and this was bound to generate hostility. The Jews lost their state and for two thousand years survived as a minority. True, there were other ethnic or religious groups, some even more numerous than the Jews, that also did not have a state of their own, such as the Kurds, but these cases are hardly comparable. The great majority of the Kurds lived in contiguous territories and there was only a small Kurdish diaspora outside the region. The Jews, on the other hand, have been a minority presence in many countries and thus their difference has been reinforced across the globe.
Many branches of the tree of the Jewish people disappeared throughout history, some without trace, but others survived. What kind of communities are these outside the state of Israel? Many Jews are no longer religious, certainly not Orthodox. Most Jews living outside Israel do not regard themselves as a people except by way of origin. If they are a community, they are a defensive community, a community of fate—but as attacks against them decreased, this common tie also became weaker. Assimilation in Europe, where most Jews lived at the time, had not been very successful in the nineteenth century. But the fact that it had not been a success, and had not prevented the Holocaust, did not mean that it was always bound to fail—and this for obvious reasons. Today, the number of Jews has significantly declined and at the same time Western societies have become far less monolithic; or to put it more crudely, Jews are no longer the most bothersome minority.
Yet antisemitism continues, although there has been so much change in its character that the question of continuity itself is controversial. What is the nature of antisemitism? To what extent was Christian anti-Judaism connected with pre-Christian attitudes? What is the connection between the racialist antisemitism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the earlier Christian anti-Jewish tradition? And is there a “new antisemitism” at the present time?
Xenophobia was a fairly frequent phenomenon in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Though Jews were not popular, the attitude toward them was not significantly different from attitudes toward other ethnic groups. Pre-Christian antisemitism had no obvious social or economic roots and it was not religiously motivated, except perhaps in the sense that while Jews had pioneered monotheism (and were proud of it), this was not considered by Greeks and Romans a great spiritual achievement. The Jewish religion was not more tolerant than others, nor had the Jews been in other ways in the forefront of human civilization. Compared to Greece and Rome, Judea and the Jews had not produced paramount cultural values other than the Old Testament. Yet, at the same time the Jews stuck to their own, isolated themselves, and (so it appeared to outsiders) considered themselves somehow better than others because of being the chosen people and having a special connection with their god. This caused resentment, and sometimes contempt, but it was not really one of the major issues of the ancient world. By and large, antisemitism was one of many national and ethnic antagonisms.
The situation radically changed with the advent of Christianity. While early Christianity had been a Jewish sect, it gradually distanced itself from Judaism and this turned into open hostility. In the beginning, competition might have been the predominant factor because both religions were looking for converts. But Christianity prevailed early on, and even after its victory, hostility between the two religions in no way diminished. The Jews, it was claimed, had been the main culprits in the death of the founder of Christianity; they had rejected him as they had rejected earlier prophets; the destruction of their temple, their country, and their dispersal among the nations was the just punishment.
European Jewish communities were subjected to frequent attacks, persecution, and deportation during the Middle Ages, and their legal status was regulated according to the church teaching that was designed to keep them alive—but in misery. Jews were limited to certain professions (such as usury, which made them even more unpopular) and eventually confined to ghettos. But years of acute persecution (1096, 1348, etc.) were followed by relatively “normal” years, and after the expulsion from a certain country they were often gradually readmitted. This would not have been the case if antisemitism had been purely doctrinal-religious. But social and economic motives were also involved, and they may help to explain in certain cases why persecution was more severe at some times than at others. What matters in historical perspective is the fact that the stereotype of the Jew created by the church—or the Muslim—theological establishment has lasted over the centuries and continues to be of importance to the present time.
Though traditional religious antisemitism has lasted until the contemporary period, most students of the phenomenon also point to the development of a new, modern racialist antisemitism that emerged in Central Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century. These scholars draw attention to the growth of the nation-state and nationalist ideology, to the social strains and stresses that accompanied the disintegration of feudal society, and to modernization. Jews were made responsible more often than not for these social ills. Because Jews were said to be the main benefactors of social change, they were also blamed for its negative consequences. In the twentieth century, and particularly after World War One, the socioeconomic decline of the middle class provided the background for the increased receptiveness to antisemitism.
But the break in continuity between modern and premodern antisemitism must not, for a variety of reasons, be overemphasized. Racialist antisemitism can be found (for instance in Spain) many centuries before its appearance in Central Europe. Furthermore, the political and ideological features that are characteristic for the emergence of modern secular antisemitism in Germany and Austria are by no means typical for antisemitism in Russia and Poland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In these latter countries, where most Jews lived at the time, strictly racialist concepts never developed; there were no widely accepted theories about a Slavonic or Russian master race and the need to destroy racially inferior elements. But there was antisemitism and it was based as in the past on religious or quasi-religious elements. The same is true with regard to the Muslim and particularly the Arab world, where racialist theory always remained a marginal sectarian phenomenon and the main motivation in antisemitism remained religious or nationalist-religious. Seen in this light, it is not difficult to pinpoint chronologically the transition from traditional to modern antisemitism in Germany or perhaps in France, but it is quite impossible to do so in the East European context.
If there has been controversy about the continuity between the old mainly religion-inspired antisemitism and the new racialist theories, there has been a similar debate about the continuity between racialist antisemitism (of roughly speaking the period between 1880 and 1945) and the new antisemitism (or Judeophobia) of the period after World War Two. There certainly is an obvious if superficial difference: prior to 1945 few antisemites hesitated to call themselves antisemites, whereas more recently coyness has widely prevailed and open, outspoken antisemitism is restricted to sectarians of the extreme right. Post-1945 antisemites have been careful to stress that their hostility is limited to colonialist, capitalist, imperialist individuals and groups advocating racialist, aggressively militarist, and reactionary politics. Unfortunately, according to these contemporary critics, some or even many of these individuals happen to be Jewish (Zionist or pro-Zionist), but this should not give them immunity against justified criticism.
The term “new antisemitism” dates back to the 1970s when books with this title were first published. At the time, it referred simply to post-Nazi antisemitism emanating mainly from neo-Nazi groups in Europe and America. It did not imply a qualitative difference. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, “new antisemitism” refers to substantive differences as compared with earlier forms of antisemitism.
Some observers of the European and American scene argue that there is no “new antisemitism” and that antisemitism and anti-Zionism (or anti-Israelism) are two distinctly different tendencies that should not be confused. There is no demand for the expulsion of the Jews, not even for specific anti-Jewish legislation, and in this respect too, there is a basic difference between the present and the racialist antisemitism of the past. If this is antisemitism, they argue, there is as much, if not more, Islamophobia in the Western world, in Russia, and elsewhere.
As long as Jews were persecuted, there was some sympathy for them on the left, but once Jews (or Israelis) became the persecutors, attitudes toward them were bound to change. Could it be that many Jews, suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (or using the Holocaust as a propagandistic weapon), have been overreacting against justified criticism? In the Arab and Muslim world the situation is different inasmuch as the terms Israel, Zionism, Judaism, and the Jews are used as synonyms; if a difference is made, it is usually for outside consumption.
The fact that criticism of Israel is not per se antisemitism is so obvious that it hardly needs repeating once again. If Israel does not treat its non-Jewish citizens equally and humanely, if it persists in holding on to territories occupied in 1967 against the will of the local population, if it illegally seizes land elsewhere, if a racialist-chauvinist fringe inside Israel defies the law and elementary human rights and to a considerable degree dictates its outrageous behavior to a government, if some people in Israel are unwilling to accept the rights of others, such behavior invites condemnation.
But Israel does not border on Holland and Switzerland; how can it survive in a hostile surrounding if it does not play according to local rules? Is it not true that many, perhaps most countries outside Western Europe and North America behave in a similar way? Hence, we hear the Israeli and Jewish complaints about double standards being applied to them.
The complaint is correct, but it is based on the mistaken belief that there are equal rights for all. Israel is neither China nor India; it has not even a hundred million inhabitants nor oilfields or other vital resources. How can it conceivably expect to be permitted to get away with violations of norms forgiven to other, much bigger or strategically important countries? Russia may no longer be a superpower, but there has hardly been a murmur on the part of the other powers concerning the way the Chechens were treated, and in the Muslim countries too there have been no words of condemnation, let alone appeals for a jihad. There have been no United Nations resolutions and conferences condemning Russia, India, or China for persecuting Muslims.
What is the “new antisemitism”? The issue boils down to the question of whether antisemitism and anti-Zionism are two entirely distinct phenomena or whether anti-Zionism can turn into, in certain circumstances, antisemitism. Unfortunately, there is no clear border line. It has been argued that when criticism of Israel crosses the line from fair to foul it becomes antisemitic. But what is fair and what is foul? Some have argued that even the systematic vilification of Israel, singling out the Jewish state unfairly, may not necessarily be antisemitic, given the inflamed passions and the suffering the conflict has generated.
In the light of history, the argument that anti-Zionism is different from antisemitism is not very convincing. No one disputes that in the late Stalinist period anti-Zionism was merely a synonym for antisemitism. The same is true today for the extreme right which, for legal or political reasons, will opt for anti-Zionist rather than openly anti-Jewish slogans. It has been noted that in the Muslim and particularly the Arab world, the fine distinctions between Jews and Zionists hardly ever existed and are now less than ever in appearance. However, even if we ignore both history and the situation in other parts of the world and limit the discussion to Western left-wing anti-Zionism, the issues are not clear-cut.
About half of all Jews now live in Israel. Is the argument that the state of Israel is the greatest danger to world peace and has no right to exist anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli, or antisemitic? If it is based on the assumption that nation-states in general have caused more harm than good and should be dismantled, such a proposition cannot be considered antisemitic. But few of those who insist on the liquidation of the state of Israel share the conviction that all nation-states should be done away with. They believe that other states, not being such a danger to world peace, do have the right to exist.
There is a great deal of evil in the world and millions have perished within the last decade or two as the result of civil wars, repression, racial and social persecution, and tribal conflicts, from Cambodia to much of Africa (Congo, Rwanda, and Darfur). More than two billion people live in repressive dictatorships, but there is persecution too in countries that are free or partly free. National and religious minority groups have been systematically persecuted, abused, raped, burned, shot, gassed, and their property demolished, from Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, to Central Asia and beyond. In fact, it would be difficult to think of countries outside of Europe and North America that have been entirely free of such suffering; and even Europe has had such incidents on a massive scale, as in the Balkans. But there have been no protest demonstrations concerning the fate of the Dalets (Untouchables) in India even though there are more than 100 million of them. The fate of the Uighur in China, the Copts in Egypt, or the Bahai in Iran (to name but a few persecuted peoples) has not generated much indignation in the streets of Europe and America.
According to peace researchers, 25 million people were killed in internal conflicts since World War Two, of them, 8,000 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which ranks forty-sixth in the list of victims. But Israel has been more often condemned by the United Nations and other international organizations than all other nations taken together.
This takes us back to the issue of singling out Israel and whether this should be considered fair or foul, legitimate denunciation or antisemitism. Those singling out the Zionist misdeeds certainly do not do so because Israeli injustice has been on a more massive scale. Has criticism of Israel been harsher and so much more frequent simply because better was expected of the Jews? Or was it because Israel was small and isolated and there was prejudice against it?
Inflamed passions and the suffering caused could certainly explain Palestinian attitudes; their passions were indeed inflamed and the Palestinian people have suffered. This also explains why Palestinians in the heat of the battle have been attacking not just Zionism and Israel but Jews in general. But why should the passions be inflamed of people living thousands of miles away, who have never been to this part of the world, are not familiar with the circumstances of the conflict, or do not have particular emotional ties with it? If friends of the oppressed and humiliated were to protest in other cases of injustice, their case would be irrefutable. But if antiracialist protestations in defense of human rights are made selectively, the question arises why this should be the case. Neither antiracialist nor anti-imperialist emotions, however intense and sincerely held, can satisfactorily explain it. There must be something additional involved, and if this additional factor is not antisemitism, what is it? Is it a new form of post–racialist antisemitism masquerading as antiracism and anti-imperialism?
The “new antisemitism” has been explained as anti-Zionism or as hostility caused by the fact that Jews are perceived as representatives of Israel. Because it does not involve traditional stereotypes, it is claimed, it should not therefore properly be associated with the old antisemitism. This may be true in some cases but not in others. Moreover, anti-Jewish feeling among the left and the media in Western and in Eastern Europe has been generated only in part by events in Israel. There has been a transmutation and modernization of antisemitism in a more general way—“usury” has become “Wall Street” and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” have reappeared as the conspiracy of the neoconservatives aiming at world conquest.
Even if we assume that Israeli policies are the single most important factor with regard to the emergence of the “new antisemitism,” the question still remains why Israeli policies, however wicked, should generate such strong passions in the first place among the likes of Mikis Theodorakis or “Carlos the Jackal”—in other words, people without a known personal stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who have not suffered from it physically or emotionally? Is it sympathy with the underdog, a feeling that injustice should be combated? But if so, why concentrate on one specific underdog and ignore the others? There is no clear answer to this question; it does appear, however, that there must be a specific aspect or dimension to this case of injustice that other cases do not have.
WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS OF ANTISEMITISM in the contemporary world? Attempts to answer this question are bound to be speculative, but if there are no certainties, it is still possible to point to political, economic, social, and above all demographic trends that shed some light on these prospects.
Traditionally, Europe was the continent in which antisemitism had its strongest roots and most extreme manifestations. This is no longer so, partly because of the small number of Jews living there, but also because of the weakening of the traditional main pillars of antisemitism—the churches, the extreme right, and the fascist-Nazi movement. The political influence of the churches is weaker than ever before; furthermore, the churches have denounced antisemitism and engage instead in interfaith, ecumenical dialogue with the emphasis on amity and forgiveness. Individual churchmen continue to spread antisemitic propaganda (in Italy, Greece, Russia), but altogether this does not amount to much.
It would be premature to write off neofascism and neo-Nazism in Europe (and similar sects in America), particularly at a time when European power is shrinking, when the old continent faces economic and social strains, and, above all, when population pressure on Europe from the Muslim countries and the third world is increasing.
The facts and trends are well known and need not be adduced in detail. If the present decline in the birth rate continues, the number of people living in Germany will have fallen from 82 million at the present time to 32 million by the end of the century; the respective figures for Italy are 57 million and 15 million, for Spain 39 million at the present time and 12 million by the end of the century. On the other hand, the countries of the Maghreb will have 120 million inhabitants just by 2050, within one generation from now. Egypt will have 115 million and Turkey 100 million. The population of Iran will be larger than that of Russia. It is sometimes said that such projections are not reliable, but this is not true with regard to the period after World War Two; most serious projections have been correct with a margin of error of a few percentage points only.
In brief, the character of most European countries is rapidly changing and it will probably change even more quickly in future. Even at the present time between 40 and 50 percent of the young people in West German cities such as Cologne are foreign born; the same is true for the major Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht). The percentage is almost equally high in the French regions of major Muslim immigration (Ile de France, Provence, Alsace, Languedoc) but lower in the United Kingdom (London, Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester). By the middle of the present century, between one-quarter and one-third of the population of France, Germany, and other European countries will be Muslim or of Muslim origin. Since the Jewish communities are also concentrated in the big cities, it means that in a few decades they will exist in a largely or even predominantly Muslim milieu.
The decline of “old Europe” is bound to strengthen political movements radically opposed to immigration. But such opposition is not limited to neofascism and the far right; it is shared even now by most political parties. The extreme right has not changed its fundamentally hostile attitude toward the Jews, but the “Jewish peril” is so much smaller now than the Muslim danger that they feel under pressure to adjust their policies accordingly. In fact, in parts of Europe such as Belgium, sections of the Jewish community are opting for the political parties most actively keeping the streets safe and preventing attacks—not because of any ideological affinity but for eminently pragmatic reasons.
How are European governments facing the demographic change? They are only partly aware of the huge problems facing them. The natural tendency of democratic governments elected for a period of four or five years is to ignore dangers that are farther ahead. But it could well be that it is too late even now to take effective measures, and chances are that there will be a sudden awakening that may well manifest itself in radical reactions and even panic. The policy that will be followed (and to a certain extent is already pursued today) is a mixture of a strong hand and appeasement. “Strong hand” means drastically cutting down on further immigration, opposing aggressive violations of the legal norms and cultural values of Western societies (for instance, the banning of the veil in France). But the situation is further complicated because of the fact that West European economies need new immigrants to get their industries and services running and to provide the social safety net on which the welfare state depends. But where will these new immigrants come from?
A policy of repression is bound to be softened by appeasement. While in some European countries only few immigrants from Muslim countries have the right to vote, this will change at the very latest within a generation or two. Even at the present time, the Muslim vote is significant in scores of British and French constituencies, and this will increase very quickly in the future. In the circumstances, political parties will try hard to show that nothing is farther from their minds than Islamophobia and there will be a readiness to make concessions to Muslim feelings on issues that are not of central interest to the non-Muslim majority.
It is in this context that the Jewish issue will very likely play a role. Given the anti-Jewish feelings in Muslim communities (less pronounced among German Turks than among French or Dutch North Africans), the policy vis-à-vis Israel (a country quite unpopular in any case) will be affected but also, inevitably, the position of local Jews, who will be well advised to take a low profile to escape attack. There are parts of Europe in which local Jews have been far less threatened than in others, and it is quite possible, even probable, that with the acculturation and integration of the Muslim element into European society, these tensions will become less acute with time. But this is unlikely to happen very soon.
In the meantime, European Jews will come under growing pressure. Britain exhibits such pressures, for instance, in the “anti-Zionist” speeches and articles of Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, and the attacks against Jewish leaders of the Tory party. Each case is different and generalizations are bound to be misleading. In some cases, such attacks might be purely opportunistic, dictated by electoral facts; in other cases, there might be a genuine aversion toward Jews which will find expression more openly as the Holocaust recedes into the past and with it the bad conscience of European nations. In most cases, it is probably a mixture of the two trends. In any case, Jews are likely to be adversely affected.
A number of years ago, a leading left-wing French intellectual wrote in Le Monde that the political implications of the fact that there are ten times as many Arabs as Jews in France should not be disregarded. The writer in question was attacked—for saying out loud what everyone knew and many had accepted. In other European countries the discrepancy in numbers is much greater. These facts explain at least in part the shifts that have taken place in left-wing attitudes not just regarding Israel but also concerning the Jews. The domestic impact of the Muslim factor will be even greater in Europe in the future than in the past. Numbers do matter—Stalin’s question: How many divisions does the pope have?
An exercise in counterfactual history: What if the Ottoman empire had collapsed one hundred years earlier than it did, and what if the majority of European Jews had decided to move and settle there? Given a birth rate similar to that of the Gaza strip, the region would now have a population of between sixty and eighty million inhabitants, perhaps even more. And, what if major oilfields had been discovered in this imaginary Greater Israel reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates?
Such a country would live in peace with its neighbors and be an honored member of the United Nations. There would be no debates about its right to exist, for no one would trifle with a country of such size, power, and geostrategic importance. Muslim religious leaders would invoke quotations from the Koran stressing the friendship and closeness of Muslims and Jews, children of the same ancestor—Abraham (Ibrahim). There would be no attacks against Zionism on the part of the antiglobalists and Trotskyites, only songs of praise concerning the miraculous renaissance of an old people.
These are, of course, mere fantasies that might have appealed to a visionary like Disraeli. But the Ottoman empire did not then collapse, and the Jews did not emigrate there. Israel is a small country that has not yet quite come to terms with its status in the world. Its existence has not yet been accepted by its neighbors. Small might be beautiful in all kinds of other contexts, but in international affairs, its drawbacks are obvious.
But it would be wrong to assume that attitudes changed only because of demography. The roots of the shift go back to the 1960s and 1970s, a period in which these demographic facts did not yet exist—or in any case were not fully perceived.
The shift also predates Ariel Sharon, the Intifada, and the coming to power of the conservative right in Israel. If so, why did left-wing attitudes change? To a certain extent the changes are connected with the anti-Americanism of the European left (but not only of the left). However, anti-Americanism was rampant in Europe well before Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and relations between Washington and Jerusalem were by no means close in the past. In other words, the estrangement between Europe and America goes farther back in time and to a deeper ideological shift, even though events since 1967 caused an aggravation.
While Jews were attacked in the 1920s and 1930s as destructive elements for their prominent part in Communism and other left-wing, revolutionary movements, the main attack at the present time comes from the populist left-wing, antiglobalist camp and the accusations are the very opposite of what they once were—now Jews are seen as the protagonists of international finance capital. Earlier on Jews were accused of being rootless cosmopolitans and internationalists. They are now singled out as the avatars of an anachronistic and reactionary nationalism, doubly reprehensible in view of the close alliance between Israel and America. A frequent antisemitic slogan in the streets of Europe in the 1930s was “Jews—move on to Jerusalem.” Sixty years later they are called on to move out of Jerusalem.
Over the last few decades, there has been an ideological reorientation of what used to be the left. With the progressive disillusionment with Communism and the later breakdown of the Soviet empire, the sympathies of the left were transferred to the third world, the underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa. If earlier on the (unofficial) slogan had been “no enemies on the left,” the new guiding line became “no enemies in the third world.” But Israel was not a third world country. The left, with only a few exceptions, had never been in favor of a Jewish homeland, which they considered a step in the wrong direction. And as the problems generated by the creation of a Jewish state multiplied, the erstwhile antagonism reappeared with additional vigor.
In an ironic twist of history, Israel had been admonished for decades not to be an outpost of the West but to become integrated culturally as well as politically in the part of the world in which it was located. In recent decades, such changes inside Israel have taken place with the growth of religious fundamentalism, religious nationalism, and the growth of the “Eastern” element (Jews from North Africa and the Middle East and their descendants). These changes did not help the integration of Israel in its surroundings in any way, nor did they affect hostility toward Israel. On the contrary, the “orientalization” of Israel only added to such enmity. As many Europeans saw it, Jewish support for Israel (and the assistance given by the American right) poisoned relations between Europe and the Middle East, endangered the oil supply, increased the danger of a new war, and, above all, added to the tensions inside Europe between Muslim new immigrants and the other segments of the population.
Such attitudes were by no means confined to the European left; they were increasingly shared by the mainstream European media. And as time went by, the hostility toward Israel was transferred to Jews supporting it—or at least to those not actively dissociating themselves from it. These explanations do not wholly account for the animosity toward European Jews who were neither Zionists nor indeed actively involved in Jewish life. On the other hand, it is also true that there was and is a tendency to exaggerate the intensity of the “new antisemitism” which, after all, is aimed not at the physical elimination of the Jews as per prewar racialist antisemitism, but merely at the reduction of the Jewish influence, real or perceived. The new antisemitism is aimed not at radical exclusion but at appeasement, and the Jews are expected to minimize their presence, and not to cause unnecessary and dangerous tension and conflict.
The situation of the Jews and the question of antisemitism in Russia and Eastern Europe are different inasmuch as the Muslim factor does not exist there or is perceived as basically hostile. This will not prevent the Russian government from trying to improve relations with Arab and Muslim countries, precisely in order to neutralize the political aims of the Muslim minorities at home. But this will not, in all probability, affect the Jews living in Russia. The fact that so many Jews emerged as super-rich oligarchs in the age of perestroika no doubt fueled native antisemitism, even though most of the oligarchs (like the Bolshevik leaders before them) had no connection with the Jewish community or had even formally distanced themselves from it.
On the other hand, the antisemitic impact of the appearance of these Jewish oligarchs was not as traumatic as might have been expected. The Russian antisemites had (falsely) argued for more than a century that the Jews were, among other things, dominating the Russian economy. And when for a number of years the oligarchs seemed to be in such a position, the shock was therefore much less than many assumed. In any case, the state-and-KGB bureaucratic apparatus soon started to squeeze out the super-rich. While Russian governments have no particular predilection for individual Jews or Jews as a group, they are not actively antisemitic. Given the small number of Jews surviving in these regions after the war and the great exodus from Russia and the Ukraine, the Jewish issue no longer figures among the most important on their agenda. The relations between Russia and its neighbors, the former parts of the Soviet Union, loom considerably larger.
Much depends, however, on the general climate that will prevail in Russia and Eastern Europe in the years and decades to come. If political and social trends and economic developments are relatively smooth, there will be peace on the home front. But if the politics and economic policy of the ruling stratum run into difficulties or fail, old enmities could reappear, and antisemitism could become official policy at least temporarily, affecting the Jews however insignificant their numbers.
Antisemitism in the United States as in Europe has appeared and will in the future be active both on the extreme right—especially the neo-Nazi sects and militias with their invocation of the ZOG (Zionist occupation government)—as well as on the far left. Both extremes share a belief in conspiracy theories and in the power of modern means of communication, especially in the Internet which has provided unprecedented access to many people. The neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust; the far left does not deny it but opposes the overemphasis on the murder of the Jews in World War Two because this can serve only the cause of Zionism and Israel. The antisemitism of the extreme right is traditional and racialist on the pre–World War Two pattern.
The anti-Zionism of the far left is post-racialist, mainly motivated by anti-Americanism and America’s support for Israel, and counts not a few Jews among its spokespeople and followers. It is particularly prevalent on university campuses, and many of its followers take great pains to explain that they are by no means opposed to America per se, only to the wrong turn American domestic and foreign policy has taken of late. For this wrong turn, individual Jews and Jewish groups (the neoconservatives) are made responsible even though the majority of Jewish voters are traditionally found in the democratic left-of-center camp.
In its most radical form, the rejection of American values and of Zionism is absolute, as these principles are considered incurably reactionary and antihuman. In its milder form, the opposition to an activist (aggressive) American foreign policy has a far wider outreach. Shared by both the old right wing (paleoconservatives) and many liberals, this opposition is very influential in the media and has established itself as the new political correctness. It includes the belief that close association with Israel has caused far more harm than good and is not in the best interest of the United States. Hence, the all-powerful Jewish lobby in Washington is criticized and is made responsible for the fatal turn taken by American foreign policy.
How is all this likely to affect American Jews and at what point does anti-Zionism become antisemitism? This depends very much on events in the Middle East and the Muslim world in the years to come; American setbacks will create a constellation in which Jews could be blamed for having been responsible to a considerable extent for American involvement and defeats. But it is difficult to imagine that antisemitism, old or new, will become a crucial factor on the American political or social scene. America is a country of immigrants that has traditionally given a great deal of latitude to consecutive waves of newcomers. Muslims in communities in the United States are of different social and economic backgrounds than those in Europe and are more integrated. If there are fears concerning domestic ethnic tensions in the United States, they concern minorities other than Jews and Muslims.
Antisemitism in the contemporary world continues to exist in Europe and America, but it is far less important there than in the Muslim and Arab nations. The revival of antisemitism in Europe is predominantly Muslim in character. Is this likely to change in the foreseeable future and to what extent does it depend on Israel? Israel is considered an alien body in their midst by believing Muslims, the Jews a perfidious enemy according to the Koran. True, the Christians are an enemy too, but the Christians are many and for the time being powerful and they have to be accepted. The Jews are few and much less powerful, why not try defeating them? The jihad against them ought to be pursued to the end—the destruction of their state and the reduction of the survivors to the old status of “dhimmi-tude,” that is, second-rate citizenship status.
This is the desire of the religious and nationalist extremists. But such beliefs are not static and unchanging; their impetus does not remain forever equally strong. Just as Christianity has not engaged in crusades for a long time, there is no reason to assume that Islam will do so forever. For the Palestinians, the existence of Israel is bound to remain a trauma for as far as one can think ahead, the loss of part of their homeland being the greatest injustice which can be put right only by violence. It is only natural that they will want this state to cease to exist. Once they have a state of their own, however, problems of daily life will loom large and much of the energy will have to be invested in making this state work. The great urge to reconquer what was lost will not disappear, but it will not be pursued as in the days when this was the only issue.
The same is true in particular with regard to the other Arab and Muslim countries and the Muslim communities in Europe. Israel and the Jews will remain an enemy. But it is unlikely to remain the only or even the main enemy; these countries and communities, most of them remote in distance from Israel and the Jews, are facing great problems in every respect. Many of their complaints have nothing to do with the existence of Israel and the presence of the Jews, but with other factors such as the (perceived) discrimination of the young Muslims in France, or internal Arab relations, or the tensions between Shi’a and Sunni, or North African unemployment, or the conflict between India and Pakistan.
It cannot be taken for granted that Israel will follow a policy of accommodation to Palestine; the fundamentalist-nationalist extremism of the Muslim world has its counterpart in strong fringe groups of equal fanaticism inside Israel. Once the Palestinians have a viable state, however, and once Israel has taken other steps to accommodate Muslim interests—such as the internationalization of the holy places in Jerusalem—there is a reasonable chance that Arab antisemitism will decrease even though it will not disappear. On the other hand, mainly because of the deep-seated propensity of Arab and Muslim societies to believe in conspiracies, however far-fetched and unreal, there is no certainty that the deeply ingrained fanaticism will quickly fade. In a nuclear age such fanaticism could have devastating consequences.
Jews will be under pressure and attack in many parts of the world, mainly (but not entirely) because of their insistence that they have rights not only as individuals but also as a national group. That this is in no way comparable to the persecutions of the 1930s and 1940s goes without saying. Whether to call this pressure antisemitism or Judeophobia or post–racialist antisemitism or radical anti-Zionism is a fascinating semantic question that can be endlessly discussed. Hitler gave antisemitism a bad name and there is widespread reluctance on the part of even the most severe critics of the Jews to accept this label. A spade is no longer called a spade but an agricultural implement. But whatever terminology used, there is no reason to believe that the last chapter in the long history of antisemitism has already been written.