After World War II, when the world became witness of horrible crimes committed by the Nazi Germany towards Jewish people, most people seemed to believe that anti-Semitism is going to die out – no matter how much one dislikes Jews, no one would want to be associated with Auschwitz concentration camp guards.
However, anti-Semitism just refuses to die, and recent years saw a rather disturbing signs of its resurgence. However, today it seems to take a bit different form than before.
In the past – since the beginning of the Diaspora – Jews have often been a target of suspicion, envy and hatred wherever they went, for a number of reasons. Their foreignness to any country, nation and culture they called their temporary home. Their ability to maintain their religious, cultural, ethnic and communal identity for centuries without fully assimilating into any society they lived in. Their supportiveness of each other, growing out of necessity – all these things looked suspicious both to local populace and local rulers, who were more than happy to use Jews as scapegoats for whatever problems occurred at the moment. Jews were always nearby, and were always a convenient target.
After the creation of the state of Israel in the middle of the 20th century the situation, at least partially, changed. Many Jews went to their ancient homeland; and suddenly another kind of anti-Semitism emerged. Just like the anti-Semite of yore denied Jews the right to exist near them, modern anti-Semites deny the Jews the right to exist as citizens of an independent state.
You would think that Jews leaving for Israel en masse and finally freeing their neighbors from the burden of their presence should cheer them up; but now it turns out that Jews are just as evil and vicious for wanting to live in the country of their own and finally be left alone.
This new kind of anti-Semite doesn’t call for extermination of all Jews (well, at least most of them don’t). They just deny them the right to protect themselves in any way. They believe that Israelis who have an audacity to protect themselves, their country and their loved ones with weapons in their hands are inherently wrong. Jews should leave unlawfully occupied land immediately or try to negotiate another kind of peaceful solution with neighbors – who for more than half a century did their best to murder them. This new kind of anti-Semite will probably be sad if some kind of new Holocaust happens, but still will be adamant in his opinion that Jews aren’t supposed to resist.
However, the violent anti-Semitism of today is different from what it was. Although Nazi sentiment still emerges from time to time in Europe, major threat for Jews now comes from Muslims, who consider Jews to be their natural enemies after the creation of Israel. Ironically, moving to Israel, towards the theater of never-ending war, very soon may become a safer decision for Jews than living in Europe with its ever-growing Muslim population.