In today’s Guardian, Antony Lerman discerns a regrettable religio-political dynamic taking shape in the EU, as anti-Muslim sentiment is uniting some European Jews with far-rightists whose pasts are laden with anti-semitism:
[The] judgment—whereby you assess the salience of someone’s antisemitism or their perspective on Jews, and whether they are a respectable political partner, on the basis of their views on Israel—is rarely formulated in the explicit terms employed by [editor of the Jewish Chronicle Michael] Pollard. And yet, it’s a judgment that Jews are now constantly being challenged to make—by far-rightists and former neo-fascists seeking political respectability, who now support Israel and see Israel-supporting Jews as potential allies in their fight against the “Muslim threat”. Jewish communities are divided on how to respond, but some Jewish leaders and groups have been seduced and have acquiesced. And it’s a challenge posed by the millions of Christian Zionists in America, who offer unconditional support to Israel, but who think Jews in Israel are doomed to hellfire. A number of American Jewish organisations have engaged with these pro-Israel evangelical groups to the consternation of many other leaders and groups in the American Jewish community.The engagement with Christian Zionists and the approval offered to “reformed” far-rightists like [Polish politician Michal] Kaminski, on the grounds of their “pro-Israeli” and/or anti-Muslim positions, is the worst kind of short-term political opportunism. It’s a tragic error and deeply damaging for Jews and for Israel. But if people who are defined as “anti-Israel” are demonised as antisemitic, the implication of the Pollard judgment, that people who are “pro-Israel” cannot be antisemitic, flows logically from it. That self-styled “experts” on antisemitism have brought us to this Alice in Wonderland conclusion is quite simply deplorable.
Read the full piece here.