Daily Telegraph, London

(Filed: 20/04/2002)

TOM PAULIN tells an Egyptian newspaper that Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers should be shot. Ghazi Algosaibi has a poem published in a London Arabic daily newspaper that praises Palestinian suicide bombers as martyrs who “died to honour God’s word”. Both the poet and the Saudi ambassador are inciting the murder of Jews. Yet all they have received so far is a verbal reprimand. Mr Paulin remains a lecturer at Oxford University. Mr Algosaibi is still accredited to the Court of St James’s. Both men are benefiting from a climate in which fear of Arab terrorism inclines people to blame Israel for unrest in the Middle East. Their censure is directed primarily at the government of Ariel Sharon but it easily mutates into opposition to the very existence of Israel. That little country – so the thinking goes – is just more trouble than it is worth.

Such a view is openly embraced by Mr Paulin. In another interview, this time with the Belfast monthly Fortnight, he describes Israel as an American colony which will cause a nuclear war. He says he is pro-Semite but anti-Israel. If the second part of that distinction means opposition to the policies of the present government, well and good: many Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora share that opinion.

But if it means – as in Mr Paulin’s case it does – a wish that Israel didn’t exist, it is very hard to sustain. Logically, you can draw a line between Jews who live in Israel and those who don’t. But in practice wholesale condemnation of the first is tantamount to anti-Semitism. The state of Israel is the homeland for a people who have suffered unparalleled persecution. To wish it swept away is to strike at the heart of Jewish aspirations the world over.

Messrs Paulin and Algosaibi can peddle their incitement to murder with relative impunity because Jews tend to be seen as the dominant party. In the occupied territories they are the tank advancing on stone-throwing children and self-sacrificing teenagers. Abroad, they are associated with material wealth and discreet but powerful political clout. But such caricatures disguise their extreme vulnerability. In the Middle East, they are surrounded by Arabs who want them driven into the sea. In Europe, they are a minority under threat from an indigenous hatred of Jews reinforced by the fanaticism of Muslim immigrants. The discourse in the Islamic world is steeped in anti-Semitism. It has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the focal point of a global struggle between the infidel and the righteous. In the past the confrontation was more localised and secular. Now it has been caught up into a religious crusade embracing both the homeland and the diaspora.

While Israelis continue to be prey to suicide bombers, Jews in this country are threatened by radical Muslim organisations such as al-Muhajiroun. Leaflets advertising a talk in London by one of its members carried the message: “The Holy Land; Palestine; Crying for Jihad. The hour will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.” In France, there have been more than 300 anti-Semitic attacks in the first few months of 2002, the level normally reached in an entire year. Synagogues in Marseilles, Bordeaux and Strasbourg have been burned down. A Jewish football team was attacked and one boy badly injured. The Jewish community, at 700,000 the largest in Europe, feels so vulnerable to Muslim fanaticism that some of its members are even looking to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Far Right, anti-immigration presidential candidate, for protection.

On both sides of the Channel, anti-Semitism is using the second intifada as a cover for views which are not receiving the outright condemnation they deserve. After what happened in Europe between 1933 and 1945, the Continent’s leaders have a special responsibility to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and a murderous hatred of Jews. The leverage which the European Union has over the Palestinian Authority, by virtue of being its principal source of funds, was wisely wielded after September 11 in getting Mr Arafat to condemn the attacks on America. Today it should be used to draw the Palestinians back from a literally suicidal course. In the words of George Bush, the bombers are murderers, not martyrs, and Israel has the right to defend itself against them. However difficult it may be for some European leaders, they should follow the presidential line, and bring their weight to bear where it can be most effective – in restraining Palestinian violence. That would be the best antidote to growing anti-Semitism in the countries they govern.

______________________________________________ Graeme Hunt http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~invictus