Amid what some analysts are calling a new wave of anti-Semitism, the official Palestinian daily newspaper published a cartoon depicting the oft-repeated charge Jews are a danger to the world.
The cartoon in Al Hayat Al Jadida plays off a recent European poll showing nearly 60 percent of those surveyed believe Israel is the greatest threat to peace in the world today.
 Political cartoon, “The European poll,” in Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida |
“The doctrine that Jews endanger the entire world has been a common theme of anti-Semites throughout history,” commented Itamar Marcus of Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch.
“Often they create a specified threat, as in the ‘poison wells’ lie in the Middle Ages,” Marcus said. “Other times Jews are depicted as a general universal threat, as a larger-than-life evil threatening humanity.”
Marcus notes Malaysia’s recently retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s comment on the European poll.
Mohamad asserted: “The reaction of the world shows that [Jews] do control the world.”
“There are not many Jews in the world,” he said. “But they are so arrogant that they defy the whole world.”
The poll was conducted in 15 European countries. In the survey, 500 people from each of the 15 EU countries were asked which state they regard as most dangerous to world peace. According to the results, 59 percent believe Israel tops the list, and 52 percent positioned the U.S. in second place.
In a speech Sunday to commemorate “Kristallnacht” at the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Spring Valley, N.Y., Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said he sees a growing trend of anti-Semitism reflected in the use of religious and racial stereotypes on a political level in several nations, the Journal News of White Plains, N.Y., reported.
“Germany is not the only place where anti-Semitism can be found,” said Weitzman, citing examples in Ireland, England and Greece.
There is room for criticism of Israel, he said, according to the Journal News, but a bias is revealed by exempting other nations from criticism.
“There is a lie there. There is a double standard, and that is the difference,” said Weitzman, co-author of “Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
The Protocols, written a century ago, purports to detail a Jewish plot to dominate the world. It was debunked long ago but still is used around the world as the basis for discrimination against Jews.
The information age, particularly with the advent of the Web, said Weitzman, has helped spread the hate material.
In her new book, “The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It,” Phyllis Chesler argues a dangerous, worldwide coalition of forces have joined together to blame the Jews and the Jewish state for the current state of turmoil around the world.
This Orwellian force, Chesler says, comprises Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but misinformed students, right-wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, pious academics, feminists, opportunistic European politicians and sensation-seeking international media.
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EU poll: Israel ‘biggest threat’ to world peace
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Lesson of anti-Israel Euro-poll
