[W]henever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism, September 2006).That's Norman Finkelstein, whom I'll sully my blog by linking to here, just so that you can see I'm not misquoting him.
The parliamentary inquiry was announced in September last year during the Labour Party conference. Finkelstein is unembarrassed to suggest that its timetable was set with the Hizbollah attack on Israel nearly a year later and all that followed from that in mind.
He is also unembarrassed by the proposal that anti-Semitism is defined by violent acts and incendiary speech only:
The report includes under the rubric of anti-Semitic incidents not just violent acts and incendiary speech but "conversations, discussions, or pronouncements made in public or private, which cross the line of acceptability," as well as "the mood and tone when Jews are discussed."This he mocks - failing only to explain whether other forms of racism than anti-Semitism also exclude (just for example) prejudicial forms of language, absurd allegations and myth-making, discriminatory practices and such other activities not falling into the category of either violent acts or incendiary speech.
More generally, Finkelstein feels able to judge entirely confidently, from his vantage point on the other side of the Atlantic, whether or not there's a resurgence of anti-Semitism in this country.
You don't always know what to call it, but you know why it stinks when it does. (Thanks: AC.)