Opinion | Antisemitism: more hypocritical, less dangerous Israel today

Antisemitism is an elusive matter.

For those who are not affected by foreign considerations, the well-known statement of American judge Potter Stewart on pornography is appropriate: "When you encounter it - you will recognize it."

Its essence can be summed up as "hostility to Jews and the application of criteria unique to them in the service of this hostility";

And blaming them for responsibility for adversity and injustice, even when their behavior does not deviate from the imperfection inherent in the human race, and even when it is better than usual in similar situations.

This ancient hatred develops thousands of years of new variants according to the objects of hostility, anxiety and value fads in each generation.

It is often led by those with pretensions to moral superiority.

In the Middle Ages and early modern times, Jews were persecuted in the name of the Christian gospel of human love.

In recent decades, the center of gravity in the Democratic West has gradually shifted from hatred of the Jewish individual to the exclusion of his nation-state and its abandonment in the face of its enemies, led by "advanced" circles of human rights priests.

Along with the escalation of its violent manifestations, anti-Semitism has recently, in the name of those noble values, gained keyboard backing in circles that have previously been condemned to condemn it.

The bad news is that anti-Semitism is on the rise and has established itself as a permanent phenomenon both, and perhaps most importantly, in the modern world and enlightened societies.

The good news is that the Jewish people and their nation-state are proving their ability to survive and even flourish despite rising anti-Semitism: it is hypocritical, disgusting, and very disturbing, but far less threatening than ever.

There is no longer any real controversy over a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in the West as well.

Leaders of European countries and American public spokesmen state this publicly, and have even recently emerged to combat the phenomenon.

Of particular concern is the defiled alliance in hatred of Israel between far-right fascists, Muslim immigrants and some of the "progressive" elites, who preach de-legitimization and demonization of the Jewish state and dismiss self-defense as war crimes.

Even when the motive is different, the images are clearly antisemitic and the result is the denunciation of the Jews.

Particularly unfortunate and repulsive is the indirect assistance that anti-Semites receive from Jews and Israelis.

An important Israeli journalist claims that Israel's protest against the institutionalization of plunder of Jewish property in Poland reinforces the prejudices about "Jewish Shylock with his endless property claims," ​​and presents a false comparison with Palestinian property lost during their 1948 attempt to exterminate the Jews.

Anti-Semites are built on the mobilization of Jews and Israelis against Germany's commitment to fight Israeli boycotters.

"Breaks of silence" of all kinds enlist in the service of hostile bodies, in "testimonies" of Israeli atrocities that are presented, with deliberate intent, without the data that will allow the perpetrators to be punished and condemned if it is true, or to refute the plot when it comes to manipulative lies.

The good news is mainly about the State of Israel and much less about Jews living in Europe and the United States. In most countries of the world, there is no real future for Jewish life, even when there is no extraordinary danger to the lives of Jews as individuals. , A minority of children and a distancing from Jewish identity and Israel, will accumulate a critical mass.

From Israel's point of view, the surprising prevalence of anti-Semitism in its various forms in developed societies and the disconnect between the behavior of Jews and their state and the depth of hatred towards them, strengthens the recognition that in the liberal age a strong, developed and value-based Jewish state is needed to withstand pressure and secure the Jewish people. Only such a state is not enslaved to the need to please the anti-Semites and the periphery that supports them and to appease the peoples among whom it nests with such power. It is true that even a superpower cannot ignore widespread hostilities, but Israel has shown in recent generations that even a small, strong and determined state can guarantee its inhabitants security, and even prosperity and international recognition of its achievements, despite pathological hatred spreading in self-enlightened circles under the guise of human rights.