The new anti-Semitism: graffiti on the walls of history.

• Author: Zuckerman, Mortimer B.
• Position: Thinking Aloud

Winston Churchill was premature in his declaration that "all the isms are wasms". In the twentieth century, fascism came and went, communism came and went, socialism came and waned. But today, several "isms" of extraordinary virulence still inhabit the world: anti-Americanism has burgeoned around the world and so, too, has atavistic anti-Semitism and its twentieth-century version, anti-Zionism. These latter "isms" of hatred and destruction are graffiti on the walls of history. The new anti-Semitism is not exclusively hostile to this or that individual Jew, or to Judaism. It is directed primarily against the Jewish collective, the modern State of Israel.

Just as historic anti-Semitism has denied individual Jews the right to live as equal members of society, anti-Zionism denies the collective expression of the Jewish people, the State of Israel, the right to live as an equal member of the family of nations. Its policies are subject to criticism that in effect singles out Israel when others in similar circumstances would escape criticism. Surely if any other country were bleeding from terrorism at the same rate as Israel, there would be no question of its right to defend itself, whether against armies organized by hostile States or against violence organized by terrorist groups. But Israel's efforts to perform the minimal function of protecting its own citizens is routinely portrayed as hateful aggression.

To complain that such portrayals are unfair and illogical is not to dismiss all criticism of the Israeli Government as anti-Semitic. A democracy must welcome critics, and Israel is a democracy. The Israelis criticize their Government and their society ceaselessly and with great intensity in their free press, their parliament and even through their courts. But for many, the criticism of Israel has become so perverse, so persistent, so divorced from the reality on the ground, that it can be seen only as emotional anti-Semitism hiding behind the political mask of anti-Zionism. In Europe and the Muslim world--even in Asia--traditional anti-Semitism has resurfaced as anti-Zionism, focused on the Jews of Israel, the role of Israel and for some on the Jews of the United States and their support of Israel. The focus of post-war anti-Semitism has shifted to an attack on the collective expression of contemporary Jewish existence: the State of Israel. Israel, in effect, is emerging as the collective Jew among nations.

It dates from the 1967...