World leaders will soon gather in Jerusalem to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and fight anti-Semitism, with awareness of the fact that its awakening also threatens the foundations of open society. Of its many revelations, it is interesting and dangerous precisely the new mutation of the ancient virus: the hatred of Israel and the obsession with Jews and their country among extensive circles of the European left and its affiliates. More than it bothers Israel and harms Jews, it is dangerous to Western culture, not least to its older sister on the far right. It is even more serious, because it successfully masks the fight for human rights, slides into the mainstream of elites and its messages seep into the general public and the education system.
It is easy to distinguish between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel. The test is uniquely unique to the Jewish state and is set on injustices and mistakes - real or imagined - earnings, and even more severely, among other nations in similar situations.
To illustrate the characteristics of anti-Semitism among the European left, it is appropriate to return to the event from seven years ago. Although one prominent person, it reveals the genetic code of an important phenomenon. In 2012, the Nobel laureate for literature and the European left icon Guenter Grass published a political song called "What Must Be Said." Grass wrote that Israel's nuclear capability "endangers world peace" and that its pre-emptive war against Iran could "wipe the Iranian people off the face of the earth," even though no single atomic bomb has been proven in Iran. From Israel he demanded to give up power and Germany to stop selling its submarines.
Grass recruited the memory of the Holocaust against Israel, not only by saying it was plotting the destruction of a people, but also by warning Germany "that its unique crimes are haunting it" from providing Israel with submarines for the destruction of "all-destroying warheads." Until his old age, he said, his criticism was silenced for fear that his German origins would be stained with anti-Semitism. The song, as expected, was supported by Iran, by "peace activists" in Europe and by far-right and left-wing parties in Germany.
It is anti-Semitism, not only because of the familiar motifs of the plot against the Jews and the manipulative and nasty reversal of Nazi crimes. If Grass had blamed all the world's nuclear weapons holders, and would have even added Israel to the list of particularly repugnant regimes - such as North Korea or Pakistan - the matter could be dismissed as typical shallowness or widespread ignorance.
But Grass acted in the political and value environment of many in the European left, whose default is to designate Israel as the source of the Nazi source of evil. Not only did he deliberately ignore the Iranian destruction threats (dismissing the matter as "a big-mouthed leader"), Grass also did not find it necessary to explain why Israeli action against the Iranian military mandate, contrary to all strategic and operational logic, nuclear holocaust and genocide. Maybe that's why the prose artist was hiding behind a song: it's a sentiment and not a matter of reasoning. And the sentiment is also anti-Semitic.
Anti-Semitism is not the reason for the hostility and distaste for Israel of widespread sections of the European left and its metastases. The depth reasons deserve a separate discussion. These are mainly three: one, Israel's distorted identification with colonialism and apartheid; The second, its need for power, as much as needed to thwart the threats against it and deter its enemies; Third, its overt and continuing disdain for the biased "international community," which is mobilized to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state and its actions. These three - the feelings of colonial guilt, the dislike of the use of force and the belief in the "international community" - are the identity lords of the left. The necessity of Israel to deny them and its continued success in refuting them threatens its very identity. Anti-Semitism is a tune.
Dr. Dan Shiftan is the head of the International Security Program at the University of Haifa