Israel and Anti-Semitism

There are some questions of which we may be exceedingly weary, but they will not go away. Such a question is, What is anti-Semitism? Hillel Halkin, an Israeli essayist, comes back to it in Commentary under the title “The Return of Anti-Semitism.” His thesis is starkly stated: “One must not give an inch on this point. The new anti-Israelism is nothing but the old anti-Semitism in disguise.” He cites the UN “conference against racism” in Durban, South Africa, last summer, and rightly notes that the nations of the world solemnly assembled to tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, affirm the notorious formula that “Zionism is racism.” (To its credit, the U.S. withdrew from the conference in protest.) He also cites mainly anecdotal, but deeply ominous, indications that in Europe today it is becoming increasingly “respectable” not only to deride Israel but also to make overtly anti-Semitic remarks in public.

But then he takes his argument a step too far. “One cannot be against Israel or Zionism, as opposed to this or that Israeli policy or Zionist position, without being anti-Semitic. Israel is the state of the Jews. Zionism is the belief that Jews should have a state. To defame Israel is to defame the Jews. To wish it never existed, or would cease to exist, is to wish to destroy the Jews.” Drawing an analogy, Halkin writes that “only an anti-Semite can think the world would be better off without Israel, just as only a Francophobe can think the world would be better off without France.”

Not quite. To be French is inexplicable apart from France. Jews and Judaism, by way of contrast, had a clear identity long before the establishment of the State of Israel only fifty-four years ago. The Zionist belief that Jews should have a state was, until World War II, rejected by most of the world’s Jews. To “wish it never existed,” to believe that the establishment of Israel was a mistake, is certainly not the same as “to wish to destroy the Jews.” It is, rather, a matter of making a historical and moral judgment that the wrong thing was done. One may disagree with those who have arrived at that judgment without accusing them of wanting to destroy the Jews. Some of them argue that it is precisely the establishment of the State of Israel that is putting so many Jewish lives at stake.

To wish that Israel “would cease to exist” is something else. But even that is not necessarily a wish to destroy the Jews, since one might at the same time hope that the minority of the world’s Jews living in Israel would find a secure home elsewhere, notably in the U.S. Halkin admits that Zionism was wrong about one very important thing. It was thought that providing Jews with a homeland would be the end of anti-Semitism, since anti-Semitism could not exist without Jews. “Today we know that it can exist without Jews, or at least without focusing on them—and precisely because there is a Jewish homeland to represent them. But admitting this is tantamount to admitting that Zionism has failed in a central objective,” Halkin writes. Which returns him to the central claim that “the new anti-Israelism is nothing but the old anti-Semitism in disguise.”

Trivial and Non-trivial Pursuits

There is no doubt that much that is aptly described as anti-Israelism is inseparably admixed with anti-Semitism, and not only in its Arab and Muslim expression. But it is, I believe, a grave mistake to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Halkin quotes a 1992 article by Norman Podhoretz, “What is Anti-Semitism?”, in which Podhoretz wrote, “All criticisms of Israel based on a double standard, rooted as this is in the ancient traditions of anti-Semitic propaganda, deserve to be stigmatized as anti-Semitic.” Certainly one wants to reject double standards. At the same time, there is much that is unique to Israel. Halkin acknowledges as much in discussing American support for Israel: “Support for Israel, which is difficult to justify on cold grounds of national interest, ultimately depends on broad public backing—and this is especially true of the United States, where such support entails not only large sums of money but also, more than ever since September 11, large perceived risks. The potential for slippage in the willingness to pay a price for this friendship, should Israel be seen as morally undeserving of it, is there. And at this juncture in history, the moral undermining of Israel is anti-Semitism’s primary goal. Compared to it, such arcane pursuits as Holocaust denial are trivial. Only the isolation of Israel to the point that it might one day have to stand alone against enemies stronger than it can possibly lead to another Jewish catastrophe.”

Precisely. Ninety-eight percent of Americans are not Jewish, and the great majority of them strongly support Israel for explicitly moral reasons, and those moral reasons are inseparable from a religious and theological understanding of the bond between Judaism and Christianity. It is therefore hard to understand why so many Jews and Jewish publications—Commentary very much included—are preoccupied with trivial pursuits such as the fringe phenomenon of Holocaust denial, and with emphatically non-trivial pursuits such as attacks on Pius XII and the Catholic Church, and on serious Jewish-Christian theological dialogue. Such unremitting attacks—which in some cases, such as Daniel Goldhagen and Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic, are of a viciously anti-Christian character—can do nothing to enhance “broad public backing” for Israel or positive attitudes toward Jews and Judaism.

During the Cold War, many made the argument that U.S. support for Israel was justified on the basis of what Halkin calls “cold grounds of national interest.” Israel, it was repeatedly said, is the only democracy and the only reliable friend of the U.S. in that part of the world. The Cold War is over. Today, almost nobody tries to argue that, for the U.S., the tie with Israel is more of an asset than a burden. Most Americans are prepared to bear that burden, and one must hope that will continue to be the case. Toward that end, it is not helpful to suggest that support for Israel requires conversion to Zionist ideology, or that doubts about the wisdom and justice of Israel’s establishment in 1948 are tantamount to the desire to destroy the Jews, or that criticism of Israel is “but the old anti-Semitism in disguise.” Hillel Halkin is certainly right in saying that, after September 11, the perceived risks in U.S. support for Israel are greatly increased. There needs to be a civil conversation about why we should be prepared to accept those risks. It is distinctly unhelpful to poison public discourse with the suggestion that those who disagree or have doubts are, in fact, simply anti-Semites.