Comments on: From Statelessness to Power: Israel and the reversal of antisemitism

By: Bill Rubinstein

Bill Rubinstein — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 01:25:10 +0000

Many thanks to Maxine Finberg for her kind remarks. Gary Max: I was talking about the current position of the mainstream right throughout the Western world, not the crackpot far right.
If I tried to discuss the far left’s current hostility to Israel,and often to Jews, this J-Wire website would not be large enough to hold the evidence – one would need a library.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a discredited source, demonising as it does anyone who disagrees with it, including voices of reason and moderation. Dennis Prager’s “Prager University” video site recently summed up its agenda very well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNFNH0lmYdM
Professor William Jacobson, who runs the Legal Insurrection website, has also devastatingly analysed its extremist agenda and thrust:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/06/southern-poverty-law-center-extremist-lists-used-to-silence-speech-and-speakers/
Somewhat in the manner of the Online Hate Prevention Institute here, the SPLC brands as “racist” anything it doesn’t like.

By: Gary Max

Gary Max — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 01:47:04 +0000

So right-wing anti-semitism has disappeared since 1948? Not according to Ira Rifkin in my Jewish Learning, who writes, ‘The new anti-Semitism is most apparent in Western Europe and the Muslim world. But even in the United States, long viewed as the world’s safest nation for Jews, anti-Semitism’s resurgence may be seen in the proliferation of websites maintained by right-wing extremists and anti-Israel activists, and in the rhetoric of left-wing anti-globalization demonstrators on the streets of New York and Washington, many of whom equate Israel with fascism.’
In the US, Richard Spencer and his National Policy Institute are a preeminent example alt-right’s continuing anti-semitism.
Of European ant-semitism, Rifkin writes, ‘Writing in The Jerusalem Report, commentator Stuart Schoffman postulates that Western European anti-Semitism is both an attempt to shake off Holocaust guilt by arguing that Jews no longer warrant sympathy due to Israel’s alleged wrongs, and “a twisted expression of atonement–in France and Belgium in particular, but elsewhere too–for (Europe’s) own sordid colonial past.”’
So while left-wing and Muslim anti-semitism are most prominent in Europe, right-wing ant-semitism is slowly reemerging because the existence of Israel and the passage of time has assuaged European guilt, rather than Israel winning the right’s admiration.
Studies in the US, by Carolyn Gallaher – School of International Service – and Keegan Hankes – Southern Poverty Law Center – show that there is a trend for some right-wingers to reassert their broader xenophobia and anti-semitism, pointing out the distinction between the alt-right, those expressing ant-semitism, and alt-lite, those continuing to be polite (or shtum) about Jews.
It may be a little early to claim, ‘That this type of anti-semitism (right-wing) has almost entirely vanished’ and it is certainly too early to claim, ‘this is the new reality and it is unlikely to change.’

By: Maxine Finberg

Maxine Finberg — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 21:18:47 +0000

This is an excellent article. Bill Rubinstein has elucidated with utmost clarity the positive effect that the proud democratic State of Israel has had on the political Right as opposed to the political Left, which comprises much of the world’s media, the UN, EU and has sympathies with the Islamic world.
As Bill Rubinstein says, the Right and Left have reversed their positions.
This is the new reality.

By: Lynne Newington

Lynne Newington — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 07:51:50 +0000

Since 1948…….yet it wasn’t until 1993 the Romans of later times would even acknowledge you…then for land grab holy sites [still in operation] concessions and fiscal benefits.
Shall I include in between years where you were still at their mercy during the Roman supported dictatorship of Argentina, not withstanding Nostra Aetate [In our time] originally conceived by John XX111 between Rome and the Jews.
Don’t take just my word on it…

Q: Does Nostra Aetate talk about religions other than Judaism?

A: As originally conceived, the declaration was to be about the church and the Jews only. Traditionalists, and Middle Eastern bishops unsympathetic to the new state of Israel, objected. Bea decided on a less contentious goal: a document that stressed ecumenism and discussed other faiths.