# The New Antisemitism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2002, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095 "2002-04-17T06:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![berdollos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@berdollos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berdollos)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/41 "2002-04-19T13:34:27Z")
Much anti-Semitism (new as well as old) is based on envy. Someday in the future, everyone will be anti-American for the same reason. (By the way, the Indians recently rioted and killed 1000 Moslems. Nobody is criticizing them. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/42 "2002-04-19T13:41:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by berdollos \* > \*\*Much anti-Semitism (new as well as old) is based on envy. Someday in the future, everyone will be anti-American for the same reason. > > (By the way, the Indians recently rioted and killed 1000 Moslems. Nobody is criticizing them. \*\* 1. I thought they already were. 😉 2. I’d happily start the thread except I have to get to work. Anybody else who has time for the research care to? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/43 "2002-04-19T13:41:48Z")
**Jackmanii** , your remarks to **Barsa Loner** indicate to me knee-jerk prejudice. Nitpicking spelling mistakes because you disagree with a poster’s POV is out of order. Questioning someone’s provenance is also a bit silly: on a message board one has to take someone’s word about who they are, until/if they are shown to be lying. Further more, s/he didn’t compare Israelis to Nazis, s/he quoted a classmate and Moshe Menuhin. **Barsa Loner** , I for one found your thoughts interesting. Please don’t be put off by this. > [@](#): > > Indians recently rioted and killed 1000 Moslems The Muslims killed were Indians too. Hundreds of Hindus were also killed. It was an atrocious, rioutous situation. There has been a lot of criticism about what happened, albeit not much on this board. And your point is? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/44 "2002-04-19T16:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by EasyPhil \* > \*\*Disagreeing with Israeli policy and the Israeli government can get you labled an antisemite, but in my mind it’s just name calling. \*\* Martin Luther King saw things differently. > [@](#): > > \*\*“Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism” > > - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\*\* > > ". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely ‘anti-Zionist.’ And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God’s green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews–this is God’s own truth. > > "Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so. > > "Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them. [http://www.hsje.org/Durban2.htm](http://www.hsje.org/Durban2.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Efrem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@Efrem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Efrem)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/45 "2002-04-19T16:48:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Martin Luther King saw things differently. So did the Mahatma Mahatma Ghandi "It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha (non-violence) in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in the their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service." An excrept from a letter in 1938, full letter can be seen [here](http://home.sol.no/baksjon/Gandhi.html) ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/46 "2002-04-19T16:59:58Z")
Well, **efrem** , you certainly found a moral equal to Martin Luther King. Imagine Gandhi and MLK being on opposite sides! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by efrem \* They [the Jews] can offer satyagraha (non-violence) in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. \*\* This may or may not have been good advice in 1938; I can’t believe it would work today. On the contrary, if the Palestinians would stop violence, Israel would happily give them their own state. Israel has already made that offer. ---
**Author:** ![Efrem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@Efrem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Efrem)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/47 "2002-04-19T19:51:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > \*\*Well, **efrem** , you certainly found a moral equal to Martin Luther King. Imagine Gandhi and MLK being on opposite sides! > > This may or may not have been good advice in 1938; I can’t believe it would work today. > > On the contrary, if the Palestinians would stop violence, Israel would happily give them their own state. Israel has already made that offer. \*\* Palestinians think if Israel will stop their violence the infadata will stop, but who wants to agrue about “the chicken and the egg”? I say “it doesn’t matter who you are, if anyone stops their violence that only means there is less violence” :). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/48 "2002-04-19T20:06:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dropzone \* > \*\*Ahem. Can anybody name any names of real, live anti-Semites who post on this board? Or did for more than a couple times before being banned as jerks, racists, and hate mongers? A majority of Straight Dopers who have expressed an opinion on the subject in the time I’ve been here disagree with at least some of the policies of the Israeli government. Can **Jackmannii** or anybody else cite specific statements by any of them that would indicate that they are anti-Semitic? \*\* [Ahem.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=106169) And [hmmm.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=108310) Some of these posters are alive and well (although the latter is arguable), not to mention posting in this very thread. Draw your own conclusions. It is obviously untrue that criticizing the Israeli government equates to anti-Semitism. I’ve never said anything of the sort, and I have criticized aspects of Israeli policy myself. On the other hand, it is obvious that some anti-Semites use Mideast tensions as a stalking horse for their own bigotry - and as criticism of Israel become increasingly virulent, one-sided and irrational (see linked threads), it becomes increasingly likely that the purveyor of those opinions is a bigot. I don’t think that Gandhi was anti-Semitic, despite comments like this one from the Indian newspaper Harijan on 6/22/40, when brutal repression by Germany of its Jewish population had long been apparent: “Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.” The historian who quoted Gandhi noted that success tends to breed approval. And Gandhi must have felt some satisfaction in the Germans taking it to the British at that point. Still, his judgment was out to lunch on that occasion, to put it mildly. I am still waiting for someone to demonstrate the accuracy and usefulness of characterizing the Israeli population as psychotic, or of quoting in an approving manner someone who describes Israelis as Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/49 "2002-04-19T20:13:27Z")
december, That text is from an article named “Letter to an anti-zionist friend”, so was this directed at a specific person, who very well may have been anti-semitic, or was Dr. King just mistaken in his argument. I’m also a bit confused why everyone seems to leave out the preceeding text. This is widely quoted on anti-anti-semitism websites, but everyone starts with the same ellipsis. Is there a context problem, perhaps. I don’t care if the burning bush equates anti-zionism to anti-semitism, it just isn’t true. There are numerous Jews and Jewish organizations that are anti-zionist. Personally, I’m all for a universally recognized Jewish state, but I have major issues with how they are going about it. ---
**Author:** ![Barsa\_Loner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9de053/32.png) [@Barsa\_Loner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barsa_Loner)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/50 "2002-04-19T21:28:06Z")
When I said psychotic, what I meant was that Israeli society must be going through a sort of psychosis. While admitting to not being a psychology expert as well as a bad speller, I do have a bit of intuition about how we think. Israelis of a certain age have only known a siege mentality in their lives. Going to nursery school with barbed wire and soldiers protecting you is not my idea of a healthy place to grow up in. Taking small children into a colonial setting is also not my idea of responsible parenthood, apart from the ideological differences I have with the settlers. If people think they have a God-given right to something then that is their affair. However, as a conscious human being no-one should shut up when they see what has been going on over the last few weeks/months/54 years. It is a cheap and easy argument to claim anti zionism is the same as anti semitism. Martin Luther King also had a separatist, narrow nationalistic outlook on the world, as far as I am aware. Zionism as a political ideology shares those same narrow points of view. The early Zionist leaders (Some history for you Jack, if you are prepared to read) had a more than ambivelant attitude to antisemitism Herzl, after the Dreyfuss case, actually said he understood it and took the position that it was futile to try and fight it. So they looked to someone who would support them in their quest, but they had to give something back in return of course. The Ottoman Empire, The British and since the second world war, of course, the Americans. So if you can’t fight something the logical answer is to run away from it. That is precisely what the early Zionists did, Herzl even negotiating with Von Plehve, the Russian police murderer responsible for the pogroms of the early part of the 20th century. The Jewish immigration body in the 30s attempted to negotiate with the third reich to allow Jews out of Germany. Not very successfuly. In 1905, Trotsky a Jew, was elected president of the petrograd soviet - in a country where antisemitism was rife. But did he, and hundreds of thousands of other Jews run away as the answer. No, they stayed and fought antismitism and for a society where that antisemitism would lose its base and the conditions which breed it. As the saying goes today “Another world is possible”. I have always taken the position that racist ideas can be fought and have spent my entire adult life being actively anti fascist anti racist and anti nazi. I am reading reports of what has happened in Jenin and other places over the last weeks. I have read the letters and statements of refuseniks in the not very aptly named IDF. I can see on TV tonight small demonstrations of Israelis opposing the occupation. They are Jews inside Israel, so can hardly be called antisemitic. What do you call what has happened in the occupied territories this week if it not genocide. Gerald Kaufmann, a pro-Israeli British MP and 100% supporter of Tony Blair called the events “Barbaric” and a lot more other things. Please read his speech. Read the first post I made again please Jack. There’s nothing sinister in it and I do not have the imagination to pretend to be someone I’m not. It’s my opinion based on my experience of the world an an analysis of how the world dysfunctions. Israeli society is not a healthy society. It is based on prejudice and expansionism. I feel sorry for Israelis who have to live with the garrison mentality. But here is a difference between them and the Palestinians. Israelis today have a choice of supporting and identifying with their state and its action. or they can, like some are doing today. oppose it. That means questioning the whole basis of what they have been taught all their lives. Palestinians do not have such a luxurious choice. And after last week, even less. They have to oppose the state that controls them to survive. When Sharon and his supporters cry “antisemitism” at their critics it is an act of blatant hypocracy. Zionist ideology feeds off antisemitisn¡m and gives them the handy excuse to do what they do in the name of Jews across the world. As the poster after me yesterday said he or she is a member of Not in My Name. I can only echo their sentiments. ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/51 "2002-04-19T21:50:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dropzone \* > \*\*Ahem. Can anybody name any names of real, live anti-Semites who post on this board? Or did for more than a couple times before being banned as jerks, racists, and hate mongers? A majority of Straight Dopers who have expressed an opinion on the subject in the time I’ve been here disagree with at least some of the policies of the Israeli government. Can **Jackmannii** or anybody else cite specific statements by any of them that would indicate that they are anti-Semitic? How about the governments of (most) of the people who post here? Their local news organizations? Or is this “widespread” anti-Semitism a paranoid delusion? \*\* Sweet Willy must be. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=110505&goto=newpost](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=110505&goto=newpost) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/52 "2002-04-19T22:06:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barsa Loner \* > \*\*When I said psychotic, what I meant was that Israeli society must be going through a sort of psychosis…Israelis of a certain age have only known a siege mentality in their lives. \*\* And your evidence that Israelis as a people are psychotic? Got facts? Sifting through your non-sequiturs about Trotsky, German immigration policy of the 1930s etc., I see one statement apparently aimed at backing up the idea that Israeli policy is equivalent to Nazism - the civilian deaths in Jenin. If you’re going to claim that failure to avoid the inflicting of civilian casualties in battle is genocide, you’ll have to accuse lots of other governments of genocide - starting with the U.S. in Afghanistan. Again, this is cheapening the significance of genocide. I’ll give you an example that may make things clearer to you. Suppose one were to claim that the Palestinians were exhibiting Nazi-like behavior (a belief I most emphatically do not hold). One could cite Palestinian collaboration with the Nazis during World War II, and point to the infliction of terror on an unarmed civilian population by bombers and gunmen. Anyone making such a claim would get the same response from me - such a comparison is a gross mischaracterization, ignores the significance of the Nazi regime and serves only to poison debate. Criticize Israel as you wish, but recognize you’ll be more effective if you drop the flaming pejorative nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/53 "2002-04-19T22:13:15Z")
Daoloth, either you’re making an extremely circuitous point about the attractiveness of intelligence…or you’ve linked to the wrong thread.\* \*Unless you think it’s got more going for it than this one, which could quite possibly be true. ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/54 "2002-04-19T22:16:24Z")
Err, I meant this post: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=108310](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=108310) Had the wrong address in my copy, heh. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2002, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/55 "2002-04-19T22:27:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daoloth \* > \*\*Sweet Willy must be. \*\* [aside] Hasn’t he been banned yet? How annoying does somebody have to be to get banned around here? [/aside] ---
**Author:** ![Efrem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@Efrem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Efrem)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/56 "2002-04-20T12:14:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > \*\*I don’t think that Gandhi was anti-Semitic, despite comments like this one from the Indian newspaper Harijan on 6/22/40, when brutal repression by Germany of its Jewish population had long been apparent: > > “Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.” > > The historian who quoted Gandhi noted that success tends to breed approval. And Gandhi must have felt some satisfaction in the Germans taking it to the British at that point. Still, his judgment was out to lunch on that occasion, to put it mildly. > \*\* What? That wasn’t an Anti-Jewish comment. He clearly wasn’t praising Hitler at all, that comment was on the gulibilty of the future generations of Germans. It was in fact a comment on the human tenditcy as a whole to emulate people to the point of overlooking all the bad stuff they did in the past (like you said “success breeds approval”). For example there stands a staute if Stalin in his home town, when the authorites tried to take it down the people protested (If I get any part of this story wrong, please inform me). Gandhi was even right in his comments, doesn’t Germany have a problem in high amounts hate crimes, and Neo-nazism? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/57 "2002-04-20T15:17:46Z")
[Today’s NY Times lead editortial](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/20/opinion/_20SAT1.html) finally took note of this situation. It mentions two incidents I had not been aware of. > [@](#): > > …But just as the attacks forced Americans to face the fact that there are deadly serious groups seeking to destroy us, so some of the anti-Semitic actions in Europe in recent months cause us to wonder whether, six decades after the Holocaust, we are witnessing a resurgence of the virulent hatred that caused it. > > …when the liberal Italian daily La Stampa depicted a baby Jesus looking up from the manger at an Israeli tank, saying, “Don’t tell me they want to kill me again.” Or when a Lutheran bishop in Denmark delivered a sermon in the Copenhagen Cathedral comparing Ariel Sharon’s policies toward the Palestinians to those of King Herod, who ordered the slaughter of all male children under the age of 2 in Bethlehem. ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/58 "2002-04-20T18:48:48Z")
The US has a higher amount per capita of Neo-Nazis than any other countries in the world. Naziism is illegal in Germany, and the murder rate is lower than the US, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![RenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@RenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RenMan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/59 "2002-04-20T19:03:31Z")
See my response to the Gandhi letter [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2018183#post2018183). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2002, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095/60 "2002-04-21T00:11:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by efrem \* > \*\*What? That wasn’t an Anti-Jewish comment. \*\* (sigh). Perhaps you overlooked this statement: “I don’t think that Gandhi was anti-Semitic, despite comments like this one.”\*\* > [@](#): > > He clearly wasn’t praising Hitler at all, that comment was on the gulibilty of the future generations of Germans.\*\* On the contrary, the evidence is that he saw admirable traits in Hitler and was willing to expound on them despite terrible things Hitler had already done. I refer you to Len Deighton’s “Blood, Tears and Folly” for background on this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-antisemitism/104095.md?page=4)