Excerpts from an interview with Robert Wistrich by Manfred Gerstenfeld

Robert Wistrich:

"The growth of the European Union and the extension of a democratic consensus based on antifascism and antiracism should have created the best of all possible worlds for Jews….What more could Jews have asked for than a fully democratic Europe?— especially those Jews interested in integrating into a peaceful, prosperous, and cosmopolitan civilization with special concern for its minorities....

"The reality in the first four years of the new millennium, however, turned out to be much more complex. Anti-Semitism, under the mask of anti-Zionism and in its own right, resurfaced with a vengeance in a supranational, multicultural, pluralistic, antiracist Europe. There is a general consensus among researchers that not since 1945 has there been such a level of concern, anxiety, even depression among Europe's Jews and communities as we witness today. The dream-Europe of the new millennium is already beginning to look like a fading mirage....

"Today we see that the Jews' situation in many European countries has worsened. In France this has happened despite the legal apparatus, and more recently the government's publicly stated 'zero tolerance' for anti-Semitic acts and its readiness to crack down on them. The authorities no longer deny the reality of anti-Semitism as they did two years ago. The first six months of 2004 show the situation has worsened substantially compared to 2003. Three-quarters of all racist acts in France are, in fact, directed against Jews.

"Thus even when state officials become more determined to be proactive in the fight against anti-Semitism, the results on the ground are questionable. In France the anti-Semitic demon is out of the bottle. It escaped some time ago, and the government cannot put it back again. Something similar is happening in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and even in Britain the mood is ugly....

"Anti-Semitism is a primary symptom of social pathology. Every society that becomes seriously infected by it is receiving a wakeup call about its social, cultural, and political health.

"However, one of the problems is that in today's Europe there is no agreement, neither among the political elites, the media, or the academy about what constitutes anti-Semitism. This makes it much harder, even for well-intentioned people, to come to grips with its root causes.

"The media, politicians, and society in general systematically castigate, reproach, heavily criticize, and even demonize Israel. They paint a negative and stereotypical picture of the Jewish state, especially on television and in the press. So, too, in academic institutions, the churches, the trade unions, and among the so-called chattering classes. All these sectors transmit anti-Israeli hostility on a daily basis.

"There is an obstinate and willful European refusal to put the Israeli responses to acts of terrorism in proper context. If these attacks occurred systematically in Europe, they would produce far more draconian responses as a result of public pressure. But at the present time, Europe has barely had a glimpse of the kind of merciless terror against innocent civilians that Israel has had to face for years. Madrid was the exception and it produced a knee-jerk reaction of appeasing the terrorists. But that would not work in the long run. For now, Europe prefers to single out Israel, to pretend that if only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved on Arab terms, terror would fade away….

"This is not merely double standards, hypocrisy, or blindness to the real problems that face Europe in terms of its own declining population and creeping weakness. It is a deep pathology - a suicidal syndrome.

"Part of the intense European hostility toward Israel is related to the EU's difficult relationship with the U.S. in recent years. The antagonism has become increasingly clear since the beginning of the second intifada, followed by 9/11 and, above all, the war in Iraq.

"There is a growing gulf between Europe and America on major issues of international policy. Israel is very much at its center as an important bone of contention between the two major constituents of the West. Europe has been making a geopolitical strategic choice that its undeclared alliance with the Arab world necessitates an anti-American, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli position. This is accompanied by a general tendency, domestically, to favor Muslim over Jewish communities wherever electoral and political considerations are involved. The different American position is viewed as an obstacle to Europe's ambitions and plans as a would-be Great Power. American support for Israel, deplored by so many Europeans, is often blamed on Zionist machinations.

"This leads to anti-Semitic claims that the Zionist/Jewish lobby has a fatal grip over American foreign policy that precludes a common Western position. In Europe, a softer version of the Muslim-Arab conspiracy theory that the Jews control America—also an old Nazi slogan—is now widespread.

"European policy toward the Arab world is de facto appeasement. In some respects it reminds one of the 1930s. European Jews find themselves again caught in a very sensitive and potentially dangerous situation. If they support Israel in this constellation of European appeasement of the Arab world--and Muslims in general—they are increasingly treated as 'warmongers' going against the political consensus. These are not only far-Left and far-Right accusations but also mainstream ones. They revive the old, seemingly unresolved question mark about the 'dual loyalties' of Jews.

"Some of the more articulate European Jewish intellectuals and journalists, who care about Israel, openly refer to a sense of isolation that they did not feel five years ago. It is transparently evident in many public debates that if one takes a position even mildly supportive of Israel's right to exist as an independent state, one is seen—even by some mainstream European media—as morally beyond the pale. That is a rather shocking development....

"In most European countries, serious discussion of Islamic Judeophobia is rare and risks the instant countercharge of 'Islamophobia.' All researchers know that in several West European countries, young radicalized Muslims are the major perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts. This is the case not only in France but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and increasingly in Great Britain. In the UK there is open and often violently expressed anti-Semitism in parts of the Asian-Muslim community—mainly among those from Pakistan….Muslim anger creates a climate of hostile anti-Israel opinion that is backed by the very influential liberal mainstream and left-wing media. There is, moreover, much sympathy for the Palestinians who are presented as the ’absolute victims’ of Israeli injustice. Irrespective of the facts, the liberal mainstream's response to events in the Middle East will be in accordance with that a priori determination.

"Europeans are not entirely blind to the dangers emanating from the radical Muslim world—for example, Iran's feverish program for nuclear armament. After a lot of prompting and pressure, they have outlawed some terrorist organizations. They do crack down on terror cells linked to Al-Qaeda. There are limits to the convergence between Europe and the Arab world. Europe, however, still believes that a forceful policy toward Islamic radicalism is mistaken. Even the reassertion of its own cultural values has become problematic, as if Europeans had to renounce their own core identity out of some misplaced idea of political correctness....

"In the West, educated Arabs who live with all the accoutrements of freedom of expression are reluctant to call into question the flawed assumptions about Israel. They will privately acknowledge the grave faults of Arab regimes, for instance, the lack of freedom and democracy. But greater fairness and objectivity about Israel is lacking even among more sophisticated Arab and Muslim intellectuals in the West. There is a deadening conformity and lack of courage to break with the majority when it comes to Zionism and Israel.

"The main sources of Islamist anti-Semitism in Germany are different from those in France. The majority of the Muslims in the Federal Republic are from Turkey. One Turkish fundamentalist organization, Mili Gürüs, is, however, becoming increasingly infected by anti-Westernism, fundamentalism, and anti-Semitism. Since far-Right radicalism in Germany is still quite a significant factor, the balance of anti-Semitism is different….

"A new German nationalism and national consciousness have been emerging since reunification. This seems to involve playing down the concept of Germans as major perpetrators of genocide, and pushing away the constant reminder that Jews were prime victims of the Germans. We have seen a sharp shift in the last four years toward the proposition that the Germans themselves were the victims of World War II. I believe that this concept has a great future before it. Its long-term implications extend far beyond the Jews. All of Europe should ponder this shift.

"One serious problem for Jews and Israelis is that part of the slowly gestating European identity is being forged against the United States. This is accompanied by defamation of Israel, which is a convenient and relatively easy target for unanimous condemnation. It is also a cheap and cowardly way of gaining favor in the Arab world, which Europe sees, economically and politically, as a major strategic partner for the future. Such a Euroarabian identity is dangerous for the Jewish people. Here I agree with Bat Ye'or's argument that Europe has been engaged in a self-inflicted capitulation to Islamist demands in the name of a misconceived multiculturalism.

"All this reflects the denial by Europe of the core values of its own civilization. Despite the problematic nature of the term, these are 'Judeo-Christian' values, based on the Ten Commandments, a Covenantal concept of democracy, the rule of law, human equality, and the central importance of freedom. These values, rooted in biblical morality, are being drowned in a morass of relativism, nihilistic trendiness, and self-abasing masochism when faced by Islamist totalitarianism….

"Europe prides itself on having learned the lessons of fascism, Nazism, the Holocaust, totalitarian Communism, and white-settler colonialism, which were all products of its civilization. It also claims to have overcome the anti-Semitic virus, but unfortunately, this is not true. That ancient plague has come back to haunt all of us.

"In today's Europe a Jew wearing any visible manifestation of his Jewish identity such as a caftan, a skullcap, or even a Star of David becomes a potential target for vilification or aggression in the street, in the metro, and in schools. Jews in Europe now face an unprecedented level of personal and communal insecurity. That represents an ugly stain on Europe's record only sixty years after the greatest crime in human history was perpetrated on its soil by millions of willing Europeans."

Robert S. Wistrich is professor of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University. Manfred Gerstenfeld will be publishing an extended version of this interview in a forthcoming book. A longer version of the above interview was published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.