PostGlobal: Who is an anti-Semite?

First, the formalities: Yes, of course, you can be critical of Israel and not be anti-Semitic or a bad Jew. Saying as much has become rote in these discussions, so let me go further. I consider myself a staunch Zionist, but I wouldn’t deny that Israel has sometimes done foolish, even immoral things in its dealings with a very hostile Arab world. I would place under this heading (to take two examples) Israel’s recent use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and the general course of its settlement policies in the occupied territories.

But anti-Semites aren’t just “critics” of Israel; they are people who hate Israel and the Jewish people and want to see harm come to them. It is easy to get caught up in definitional tangles here, so let me try examples.

My list of present-day anti-Semites (to kept the task practicable) would start with Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Bashar Assad. It would include Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the French ambassador who a few years ago confided to friends in Britain that he considered Israel “a shitty little country,” and (come to think of it) much of the French foreign ministry.

My catalogue would have entries for David Duke, David Irving, Louis Farrakhan, Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson’s father, the Saudi-funded King Fahd Academies that are sprouting up in Western capitals, the mini-series of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” recently produced for Egyptian television, the Turkish movie blockbuster “Valley of the Wolves, Iraq,” with its depiction of an American Jewish doctor who harvests and sells the organs of hapless Iraqis. Anyway, you get the idea.

What about Tony Judt, Tony Kushner, Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Jimmy Carter, and all the other supposed recent martyrs to the cruel vindictiveness of the pro-Israel machine? I think they are wrong about most things — naïve and simple-minded in their history and politics, too forgiving of Arab hatred and intransigence, too quick to find fault with the Jews. But they write, it seems to me, out of sympathy for the Palestinians, worries about American power and influence, and other venial motives.

Are they anti-Semites? No. That’s a distinction we need to reserve for a different class of offenders.

By Gary Rosen
Gary Rosen is managing editor of Commentary