The academic year 2007-2008 saw ongoing anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incidents in various countries. Among them is Israel Apartheid Week, which has become an annual ritual in a number of cities on several continents. So have the calls of the University and College Union (UCU) in the United Kingdom for discriminatory measures against Israeli universities and academics. In several universities, such as on some campuses of the University of California, anti-Israelism is endemic.
Over the past several years, Iranian leaders have made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. While certain experts have interpreted these statements to be simple expressions of dissatisfaction with the current Israeli government and its policies, in reality, the intent behind Ahmadinejad’s language and that of others is the actual physical destruction of the State of Israel.
Hamas has established a terror hothouse in Gaza designed to continue the jihad against apostates, pursue the struggle against Israel, secure the overthrow of the Abbas regime in the West Bank, and assist the efforts of the parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, in overthrowing the moderate regimes in the Middle East headed by Jordan and Egypt.
In the past sixty years as a nation, Israel has survived many existential threats by means of its intense motivation to restore national sovereignty and through the adoption of various strategies and tactics. Threats of ballistic missiles, nonconventional warheads and mass terror attacks have increased in the recent past, with the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran posing a problem for the future.
Over half the states of Europe now criminalize Holocaust denial. They accept the premise that deniers are extremists who use denial, among other means, to rehabilitate Nazism. Their legal rationale in doing so is usually that denial negates the historical facts established at Nuremburg in 1945 rather than that it constitutes offensive or threatening speech.
German narratives on the Holocaust and World War II have changed since 1945, propelled by debates about the period, political developments, and distance from the historical event. Native Germans tend to focus increasingly on their own fate as Germans and to idolize their society’s behavior during the Holocaust era. Immigrants and immigrant students in Germany have trouble relating to the Holocaust, which often seems to them strictly a part of German history that has no connection to them.
An Urgent Wakeup Call
Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11, by Matthias Küntzel, trans. Colin Meade, Telos Press, 2007, 180 pp.
Reviewed by Amnon Lord
Around 2004, changes in technology created Web 2.0.[1] As technology adapted, so did online antisemitism. With the new “social web” came a new “social antisemitism.” This Antisemitism 2.0 is the use of online social networking and content collaboration to share demonization, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, and classical antisemitic motifs with a view to creating social acceptability for such content.
Between 2003 and 2005, the Iranians refrained from any nuclear activity under the influence of the impression created by America’s pre-emptive policies in the region, which served as the main instrument that enabled the Europeans to force Iran to postpone uranium conversion and enrichment. But when the Iranians realized in 2005 that there was no actual threat behind their fears of U.S. pre-emption, they decided to start conversion and then enrichment.
Any distinction between Iranian military and civilian nuclear programs is artificial. Once they have enough enriched uranium, they will be 3-6 months away from building a nuclear bomb if they decide to do so. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions without any interference.
Iranian state promotion of Holocaust denial is an example of anti-Semitism being used to generate anti-Zionism, the reverse of the normal dynamic. It has given a boost to Holocaust-denial activities worldwide. Mainstream Holocaust commemoration is increasingly under attack as a Zionist or imperialist tool. For some leftists, the contradiction between their antifascism and their anti-Zionism is solved by casting Jewish communities and the European far Right as political allies.
The December “surprise” resulting from the publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate disrupted fifteen years of Israeli policy based on working with the international coalition to pressure Iran to drop its nuclear weapons program through sanctions and the threat of military action, and has reminded Israelis of the limits of American security guarantees and strategic cooperation.
A Timely Warning on Jerusalem
The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City by Dore Gold, Regnery, 2007, 371 pp.
Reviewed by Isi Leibler_
Austria’s postwar history is characterized by its self-perception as the first victim of the National Socialists. The fact that the majority of Austrian society had supported the Nazis or at least obeyed the Nazi regime was assiduously ignored. This self-perception lasted until the late 1980s, when it was critically reviewed and altered under the impact of the Waldheim affair (discussed below). The latter, however, showed that not only the Social Democrats (SPÖ) but also the Conservatives (ÖVP) had a problematic relationship with the past.
Australian-Israeli relations have been almost consistently warm and robust since before Israeli independence. Neither geopolitics, common political and economic interests, historical accidents, nor the role of Australia’s Jewish community can fully explain the importance Australia and Israel have had to one another over decades. Only by including certain affinities of national personalities and values can the ongoing vigor of the relationship be fully explained.
