@ProfDBernstein: Really excellent, quotable pie...

Really excellent, quotable piece on antisemitism in The Spectator.
"It is customary in debates around contemporary anti-Semitism to maintain there is nothing inherently anti-Semitic about criticising Israel. That is true. But what is striking is just how much criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic." 1/

"No other state on Earth has its right to exist debated so vehemently. The partitions and border re-drawings that followed two world wars generated tensions and conflicts elsewhere, to be sure. But no one calls for an end to Pakistan or the erasure of Jordan. A double standard is applied — one of the oldest markers of anti-Semitism." 2/

"The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have sought, albeit imperfectly, to minimise civilian casualties. Hamas has worked to maximise them." 3/

"But such restraint, which necessarily involves a greater risk to Israel’s own soldiers, has not brought Israel any greater understanding. Instead, the allegation that it is engaging in a genocide has grown in vehemence and volume." 4/

"Two strands of anti-Semitism are at work here. The first is the demand that Jews live on terms set by others: they can win sympathy as victims but never understanding, let alone support, when they assert their right to self-defence." 5/

"The second is the desire to go further and to erase any historic sympathy for the Jewish people’s plight by making them the equals of their past oppressors — the new Nazis, the génocidaires of our time." 6/

"Radical left thinking, and especially the enduring influence of writers such as Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, has induced in the West a set of beliefs peculiarly vulnerable to modern anti-Semitism. Colonialism is the greatest evil, privilege and success evidence of injustice, neo-liberalism a lie that cloaks exploitation." 7/

"Israel’s success ... is a powerful refutation of the post-colonial left’s world view. And so its success is attributed to wickedness, exploitation and oppression. Thus another anti-Semitic trope is disinterred from the grave in which it should have been left to rest. The misery of others is down to the rapacity of the Jews." 8/

"Standing against this hatred, these ideologies and this wickedness is the democratic duty of all of us and the principled fight of our times." spectator.com/article/anti-s…