Anti-Semitism is one of the most powerful words in the English language, a word resonant with the murder of more than six million Jews before and during World War II. In sheer numbers alone, the genocide practised upon the Jews of Europe is recorded history’s most grievous crime against humanity. It all happened because of an anti-Semitism that fed off conspiracy theories and an abhorrent nexus between a person’s race or religion and his or her right to live.
Fast forward nearly six decades and there are deep-seated fears that anti-Semitism may again be on the rise.
In early November 2003, a German MP and the commander of Germany’s Special Forces were forced to resign after the former made comments linking Jews with atrocities committed during the days of the Soviet Union. The well-known Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, recently described Jews as the root of all evil. His comments came barely a month after the outgoing Malaysian prime minister Mahatir Mohammed stated at a conference of Muslim leaders that Jews are ‘arrogant’ and ‘rule the world by proxy’. Little seems to have changed since deeply offensive conspiracy theories, that Jews had been somehow responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, gained widespread currency in the Arab world.
As is often the case in a climate where racist comments are widely aired, attacks against Jewish targets are on the rise across Europe. This year alone, attacks against synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and other Jewish symbols have been reported in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Belgium. These attacks have ranged from defacing Jewish memorials with anti-Jewish propaganda and Nazi slogans to attempted suicide bombings.
Jewish communities elsewhere have been similarly targeted, to even more devastating effect. On 15 November, the bombing of a synagogue in Istanbul killed 20 people. In April 2002, a truck bomb exploded at the El-Ghriba synagogue on the island of Jerba in Tunisia. Nineteen people were killed.
That all of these attacks have been widely condemned does not temper the disquiet that the spectre of an old hatred may be re-emerging. As a people, no-one has suffered from racism as greatly as the Jews, and renewed fears of anti-Jewish violence are very real among the Jewish diaspora and in Israel itself.
There are, however, at least two important elements of the popular debate which must be considered alongside the recent outbreaks of anti-Semitism.
The first