Hate the Jews - MUST READ

Bernard Lewis, emeritus professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, has just written an excellent article on anti-Semitism through history for the Winter 2006 issue of the American Scholar.

It's brilliant, clearly and cogently written and worth your time.

Some insights:

Anti-Semitism is something quite different. It is marked by two special features. One of them is that Jews are judged by a standard different from that applied to others.
...
The other special feature of anti-Semitism, which is much more important than differing standards of judgment, is the accusation against Jews of cosmic evil. Complaints against people of other groups rarely include it. This accusation of cosmic, satanic evil attributed to Jews, in various parts of the world and in various forms, is what has come to be known in modern times as anti-Semitism.

Lewis goes through in anti-Semitism in history and divides it into three phases, the religious, the racial and the form most prevalent today, political-ideological. Lewis argues that while the first two forms cannot be invoked in polite company the last has taken its place as an acceptable way to "hate" Jews.

The other advantage for Jews was that they were not seen as dangerous. Christianity was recognized as a rival world religion and a competitor in the cosmic struggle to bring enlightenment (and with it, inevitably, domination) to all humanity.
...
The main negative quality attributed to Jews in Turkish and Arab folklore was that they were cowardly and unmilitary—very contemptible qualities in a martial society.

The shocking events of 1948 re-galvanized in the Middle East the hatred of the Jews.

Azzam Pasha, who was then the secretary-general of the Arab League, is quoted as having said: “This will be like the Mongol invasions. We will utterly destroy them. We will sweep them into the sea.” The expectation was that it would be quick and easy. There would be no problem at all dealing with half a million Jews. It was then an appalling shock when five Arab armies were defeated by half a million Jews with very limited weaponry. It remains shameful, humiliating. This was mentioned at the time and has been ever since. One writer said: “It was bad enough to be conquered and occupied by the mighty empires of the West, the British Empire, the French Empire, but to suffer this fate at the hands of a few hundred thousand Jews was intolerable.”

Lewis argues, though, that this hatred was already there, 'imported' from Christian missionaries in the 15-17th centuries and later, 'stoked' by the Arab affinity to the Third Reich after the latter started to de-stabilize the Middle East in the run-up to WWII.

The Nazi propaganda impact was immense. We see it in Arabic memoirs of the period, and of course in the foundation of the Ba’ath party.

Lewis accuses the United Nations of essential complicity in 'signing off' on anti-Semitism by obviously and on a continuing basis treating Israelis and Palestinians differently:

The United Nations’s handling of the 1948 war and the resulting problems shows some curious disparities—for example, on the question of refugees...A significant number of Arabs remained in the territories under Jewish rule. It was taken then as axiomatic, and has never been challenged since, that no Jews could remain in the areas of Palestine under Arab rule...not just settlers, but old, established groups, notably the ancient Jewish community in East Jerusalem, which was totally evicted and its monuments desecrated or destroyed. The United Nations seemed to have no problem with this; nor did international public opinion. When Jews were driven out, no provision was made for them, no help offered, no protest made. This surely sent a very clear message to the Arab world, a less clear message to the Jews.

In summary, as the horrors of the Holocaust fade, anti-Semitism in its political-ideological form, becomes fashionable again:

But inevitably, the memory of those days is fading, and now Israel and its problems afford an opportunity to relinquish the unfamiliar and uncomfortable posture of guilt and contrition and to resume the more familiar and more comfortable position of stern reproof from an attitude of moral superiority. It is not surprising that this opportunity is widely welcomed and utilized.

HT: NRO