There’s nothing quite like a Middle-Eastern war to bring out the “Some of my best friends are Jewish (SOMBeFAJ)” brigade. Actually, calling the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas a ‘Middle-Eastern war’ is a bit of a stretch, if one takes into account what is going on in places such as Iraq and Syria. Daily suicide attacks in Baghdad markets and wholesale slaughter of hundreds of civilians on Syrian streets are no match in the world of attention-grabbing headlines for “Israel’s Gaza campaign in seventh day (BBC, of course),” thereby accusing Israel of once again fighting back first. However, since Israel is not involved in and can’t be blamed for the on-goings in either Iraq or Syria, they make less interesting news articles than the poor little peace-seeking Hamas being bombarded by those tyrannous Israelis. Conflicts involving Israel always bring a certain type out of the woodwork. The type who claims that they have nothing per-se against Jews, but that Israelis are a problem. They might use the word Zionist, too, instead of Israeli, but the implication is clear. You see, there are all sorts of Israelis and, as it turns out, all sorts of Zionists too. There are Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Druze, Bedouin, even unaffiliated-in-any-way people, all holding Israeli citizenship; all allowed an equal part in Israeli society. They are all Israeli. However, I’m fairly certain that any slight on Israelis made by the SOMBeFAJ brigade are not implicating any of the above Israelis in their sweeping generalisation. They are referring to only one type of Israeli – the Jew. Closet anti-Semitism is all of a sudden not so much bubbling below the surface or hiding behind locked doors as it is champing at the bit to be vocalised and publicised. The twitter hashtag of the last few days - #HitlerWasRight – has gone out of its way to prove this. In times of conflict in particular, anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in public, exposing cloistered opinions for all of the world to see. The world, however, refuses to see it for what it is, and tries its hardest to present anti-Semitism as something else. This same said bunch of people, in the name of human rights, or equal rights, or anti-fascism, or gay-rights, or women’s rights, or religious freedom-rights are suddenly blinded by a hatred of all that they believe in – because the Jews are the only ones in this region who provide any of it. Their hatred may be disguised in any of a myriad of ways, it may be called many things, but it is what it is: anti-Semitism. But you know what? Even through this chaos, perhaps especially through it, some of my best friends aren’t Jewish.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:02:31 +0000
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