The scourge of anti-semitism spreads its venom
William Shawcross reports on the new face of a deadly and ancient bigotry.
William Shawcross’s new book ‘Allies: The United States, Britain and
Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraqi War’, is published by Atlantic Books
December 14, 2003.
In Berlin last weekend I saw clips from hideous films that portrayed Jews as
(literally) bloodsucking murderers. In one episode ‘rabbis’ sliced up a Jew and
poured boiling lead into his mouth because he had slept with a non-Jewish
woman. In another, rabbis murdered a Christian child to use his blood to bake
Passover matzos. The dialogue in the latter went like this:
Rabbi: “Well, we have a mission from the leadership, and we must carry it out
quickly.”
Young Jewish Man: “What is it?”
Rabbi: “Listen. We want the blood of a Christian child before Passover, for the
matzos.”
The film then shows the terrified child, Joseph, being brought in to have his
throat cut over a metal bowl. In the next scene the rabbi insists that another
Jewish man eat some matzos.
Rabbi: “You must eat this, if not for my sake, for the sake of God.”
Jewish man: “Thank you.”
Rabbi: “How is it? Tasty?”
Jewish man: “Plain. Like all the matzos in the world.”
Rabbi: “No. Make no mistake. This one is tastier and holier because it was
kneaded with pure blood, the blood of Joseph.”
These films were horrifying and impossible to watch. But the worst thing was
that they were not relics of Nazi propaganda, borrowed from a dusty Berlin
archive. I wish.
No, these films were made recently in Syria, with the help of the Syrian
government and were broadcast in 29 episodes last month by a Lebanese
television station, Al-Manar, during Ramadan. According to a report on 11
November by the Syria Times, they are part of “a Syrian TV series recording the
criminal history of Zionism”. (While no European country has banned it,
resulting in a large number of viewers on the continent, the Hezbollah-affiliated
Al-Manar television station is illegal in Australia – MT Editor)
The series is called Al-Shatat (diaspora) and it purports to show that the Jews
have tried to dominate the world for centuries through a secret government led
by the Rothschild family. Al-Shatat insists that it is presenting the truth, derived
from Jewish sources such as the Torah, the Talmud, and the memoirs of
Theodor Herzl.
Millions of people, not just in the Middle East but around the world, watch such
anti-semitic horrors on satellite television. As Natan Scharansky, former Soviet
dissident and Israeli Minister, said at the European-Israeli Dialogue in Berlin:
“The film is so awful and so normal. Children and their parents watch it
at dinner day after day.”
And this is the product of the ‘mainstream’ Arab media, not of Islamic
fundamentalists.
With such inspiration, it is not surprising that anti-semitism is marching again
across Europe. It seems to be making most progress in France, where 10 per
cent of the population of 60 million is now Muslim. Some predict that within 20
years 20 per cent of the country will be Islamic. This will bring a fundamental
change in the country’s dynamics.
Parisian Jews say harassment and aggression are now part of everyday
life. The Chief Rabbi of France, Joseph Sitruk, has now suggested that Jews
wear baseball caps instead of yarmulkes in public. “In the current climate there
is no point in waving a red flag in public places.”
In France, traditional left-wing ‘progressivism’ is becoming closer to Islamic
extremism. The American writer Christopher Caldwell recently described in the
Weekly Standard a meeting of the leftwing Social Forum in St Denis. America’s
war against Saddam was universally condemned, while Palestinian terrorism
against Israel was widely supported. Caldwell listened as George Galloway MP
declared that he hoped George Bush would be ‘buggered’ by one of Prince
Charles’s servants during his state visit to Britain.
Of course it must be permissible to criticise the Israeli state without being
accused of anti-semitism: Israel being a democracy, there are many Israelis who
do just that. But there is now almost a conventional wisdom that says, “Some
of my best friends are Jews, but Ariel Sharon’s Israel is beyond the pale and
must be fought.”
What else can explain the extraordinary poll produced recently by the European
Union showing that six out of 10 Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat
to world peace, ahead of North Korea and Iran?
One French schoolbook uses an article by Agence France Presse entitled, “It
was an exam day in the occupied West Bank”. The text is illustrated with a
photo showing, according to its caption, “the evacuation of a school in the
West Bank and its students suffering from Israeli shooting”. It describes how
some students “who had been arrested by the Israeli army were released, the
morning of their geography exam.”
There are increasingly strict controls on hate speech against Muslims. While
such monstrous hatred of Jews is pumped out by Syria and other Arab
countries, there will be less and less chance for peace in the Middle East and
growing unrest between communities in Europe.
