John has a blister, BUT... Jane has done her homework

Yesterday, I had a parable on the issue of anti-Semitism. Today I'm fresh out of parables. Time to look at some of the realities which the parable was about. There's a piece in the last Socialist Worker but one, purporting to address itself to the issue of anti-Semitism. How does it do this? It places it in the broader context of the need to combat all forms of racism. Fair enough. No one should argue against that; no one should expect that within the broader context the fight against anti-Semitism is to take priority over other kinds of racism.

However, the problem of anti-Semitism needs to be seen for what it is, a real one. Yet both times this Socialist Worker article gets to the sensitive point, it ducks it. First:

[W]hat some groups have claimed recently is that the real threat to Jewish people is a new form of anti-Semitism which, they say, comes from Muslims and the left. A new report on anti-Semitism in Europe published last week was used in this argument.

This ignores the fact that discrimination against blacks and Asians is still the dominant form taken by racism in Britain and around Europe.

No, this (claim) doesn't ignore that fact. It's a separate, free-standing claim whose truth or falsity is independent of what is the dominant form taken by racism in Britain, Europe or anywhere else. Let's try again:

Some people do accept the argument that Israel is "the Jewish state". This means that some people, including some Muslims, make the mistake of blaming all Jews for the actions of Israel and for the horrors inflicted on people across the Middle East.

But... [paragraph on Bush, oil, US power, its ally Israel.]

One great success of the global anti-war movement is that it has cut through the smokescreen thrown up by the supporters of US imperialism. It has squarely targeted the neo-conservative warmongers and united large numbers of Jews alongside Muslims and many others.

In so doing... it is winning large numbers of people in Europe and the Middle East away from seeing the world in the communal terms our rulers use. The increasing numbers of Jewish people prepared to attack what Israel is doing have speeded that process enormously.

So, there might just be a bit of a problem with 'some people', but no worries - many Jews are joining with everyone else to address it by attacking what Israel is doing. How about non-Jews joining with Jews to attack what other forces than Israel are contributing to the problem? Nix and nada. The article comes to an abrupt end pretty much there. Fortunate that it does, because this is only one of the things wrong with it - or two of the things.

Meanwhile back in the real world, EU leaders talk a language in which the realities of the real world show through rather more clearly:

At the [EU] summit, the leaders... issued a statement expressing their deep concern over rising anti-Semitism and condemned all attacks against Jewish religious sites and individuals.
.....
The denunciation of anti-Semitism was the first joint statement by EU leaders on the subject since the leaking of an EU-commissioned study which found that most anti-Jewish attacks are carried out by Muslims.
.....
"This anti-Semitism is real in our country," commission secretary Remy Schwartz said. "We found children have to leave public schools in some areas because they are not physically secure... This has profoundly shocked the commission."

The committee stated that for the first time, the number of attacks on Jews surpassed the number of racist attacks on any other minority last year...

According to the French report, wearing a skullcap in the street or on public transportation could be dangerous, and the expression "dirty Jew" has become common in schoolyards. Many Jewish students and teachers have left the public education system for Jewish and Catholic private schools because of the racial problems they encountered, the report found.

BUT... Jane has probably done her homework.