Anti-Semitism – Post 1945

[John Simkin]

Media propaganda attempts to suggest that the current crisis in the Middle East is a result of anti-Semitism. This has had little impact on the thinking in most countries but unfortunately it is a factor in government policy in the US and the UK. It also seems to have had an impact on American political thinking. This is partly due to the successful way that Bush has portrayed Arab resistance as being a result of a mixture of anti-Semitism and international terrorism.

In reality, the current hostility towards Israel has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It is just a reflection of the way that Israel has behaved in recent years.

In the past, the worst aspect of anti-Semitism was the way it affected government policy. For example, the treatment of Jews in Tsarist Russia or the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. The attitude of Arabs towards Israel is best understood by the occupation of lands. As Edward Pearce has pointed out: “What makes Israel different from its neighbours is not being a Jewish state, but being a colony.”

There have been serious cases of anti-Semitism since 1945. One of the worst examples was the estimated deaths of 3,000 Jews in Argentina. Israel and the US chose to ignore this purge. The reason being that the Jews were seen as “communists” by the ruling military junta. As we know, the USA government has never been concerned about the killing of people with left-wing views in military dictatorships. This was one of the reasons the US initially supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq.