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Strange Bedfellows - Anti-Semitism
and Zionism

By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
11-24-3


Jewish billionaire George Soros was criticized recently for saying that Israeli policies provoke anti-Semitism. Yet it is well known that Zionist extremists like Ariel Sharon have fomented anti-Semitism over the years for one fundamental reason - Israel needs more Jews.
 
"There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe," Jewish billionaire George Soros told the Jewish Funders Network (JFL) in New York on November 5. "The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that," he said. "If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish."
 
While most observers would say that Soros was merely stating the obvious, his comments reportedly caused "major shock" in the Jewish community as American-Jewish leaders reacted with "unusual vehemence."
 
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Soros' comments were "absolutely obscene." Soros' view is a "biased and bigoted perception of whatís out there," Foxman said.
 
Foxman revealed his own bias during a recent ADL speech when he compared the world's assembled Islamic leaders to animals, saying, "Heads of state, kings, potentates stood on their hind legs and gave him [Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammad] a standing ovation."
 
Malcolm Hoenlein, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations said Soros' statement "reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about anti-Semitism. It's ridiculous and unacceptable to say that attacks on Jews are related to Bush or Sharon's policies," Hoenlein said.
 
Mark Charendoff, president of JFL, supported Soros saying he was "enormously frank" and "candid."
 
Soros, however, is not alone. Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive echoed Soros in his Nov. 17 editorial "The Return of Anti-Semitism."
 
"Distressingly, the hard-line policies of Ariel Sharon are only fueling this anti-Semitism. By repressing Palestinians day in and day out, by continuing to build settlements, and now by building a wall into Palestinian territory, Sharon is providing footage for the next bin Laden video," Rothschild wrote. "Sharon's policies also breed new anti-Semites every day. That's the undeniable connection that he ought to examine himself."
 
Rothschild is apparently unaware that Sharon, like all Zionist extremists, understands the "undeniable connection" between anti-Semitism and Zionism very well. Zionists have long exploited anti-Semitism as a tool to construct an artificial ethnic state for the Jews.
 
While anti-Semitism is generally defined as prejudice or hostility toward Jews it has been redefined in the recent past to mean anything that opposes the policies and interests of Israel, according to Allan C. Brownfeld, editor of Issues, the journal of the American Council for Judaism.
 
This redefinition of anti-Semitism was evinced by Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon, who cited a recent European poll in which 59 percent of respondents said Israel was the greatest threat to world peace as evidence that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe.
 
While it may seem odd, Zionists have fomented and promoted anti-Semitism over the years as a means to compel Jews to move to Israel.
 
"What few Americans understand is that there has been a long historical alliance ñ from the end of the 19th century until today ñ between Zionism and real anti-Semites," Brownfeld wrote in an essay "Zionism and Anti-Semitism: A Strange Alliance Through History."
 
Theodore Herzl, the Hungarian Jew who is seen as the father of the Jewish state, wrote in his diary: "The anti-Semites will become our most loyal friends, the anti-Semite's nations will become our allies."
 
The Israeli historian Benny Morris said Herzl saw in anti-Semitism a force that could be "harnessed" for Zionism. "The European political establishment would eventually be persuaded to promote Zionism," Morris wrote. "Herzl recognized that anti-Semitism would be harnessed to his own - Zionist purposes."
 
The seemingly perverse alliance between Zionists and anti-Semites is based on a shared view that considers Jews to be a race, a "foreign people" ñ that cannot be assimilated ñ living in "exile" outside of the "Jewish state."
 
"Zionism and anti-Semitism share a view of Jews, which the vast majority of Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the world have always rejected," Brownfeld wrote.
 
The late Israel Shahak, author of Jewish History, Jewish Religion wrote: "Close relations have always existed between Zionists and anti-Semites." The Zionists, Shahak wrote, "use the anti-Semites for their own purposes."
 
As a new global campaign against "anti-Semitism" is launched, the way Zionists use anti-Semitism needs to be understood: Zionist extremists like Ariel Sharon have always fostered and fomented anti-Semitism for one primary reason ñ to compel Jews to come to Israel. Without anti-Semitism pushing more Jews to Israel the Zionist project is doomed to fail.
 
Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, in her book The Fate of the Jews, wrote: "Zionism's success is based on a Jewish misery index; the greater the misery, the greater the wish to emigrate."
 
Only two days after three suspect "anti-Semitic" incidents occurred on Saturday, November 15, European and Israeli political leaders swung into action to confront what Israel's prime minister called "a great wave of anti-Semitism."
 
An unused upper level of a Jewish school near Paris, which had been under construction, was damaged in a mysterious pre-dawn arson attack and two bombs detonated "near" synagogues in Istanbul during the Jewish Sabbath.
 
While the Turkish bombings took more than twice as many Muslim lives than Jewish, and in spite of the fact that no one had claimed responsibility for the school fire, the politicians and mainstream media were quick to label the incidents as "anti-Semitic" attacks.
 
"The attacks in Istanbul and Paris are not isolated incidents, they are symptoms of growing anti-Semitism," Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said after the incidents. "When Jews cannot pray in synagogues without fear, we are all in danger. Europe has a moral obligation to make sure anti-Semitism is stamped out."
 
While France has the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe, the number of attacks against Jews or Jewish property in France has actually decreased in 2003. During the first 8 months of this year there were 247 anti-Jewish attacks compared to 647 for the same period in 2002.
 
There are about 600,000 Jews and some 5 million Muslims among the French population of 60 million. French officials say most anti-Semitic attacks during the past three years have been committed by Muslim youths angered by Israel's brutal military occupation of Palestinian land.
 
After the fire at the Jewish school near Paris, the Israeli Ambassador to France Nissim Zvili said the "climate of fear" was compelling 2,500 Jews to emigrate from France to Israel every year.
 
"I think they're really exaggerated," Roger Cukierman, head of France's Jewish community said about Zvili's figures. "The Israelis need immigration, so one can understand that they want to see a maximum number of Jews coming to their country."
 
Before suspects and motives for the attacks could even be discussed, Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon flew to Rome for a three-day visit with the president of the European Union, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Sharon said that Italy was Israel's best friend in Europe and that the issue of anti-Semitism would be "central" in his talks with Italian leaders.
 
"If Israel is weakened," Sharon said, "the Jews worldwide will not be able to live the lives they live today. We are witness to a great wave of anti-Semitism," Sharon said, "and apart from the usual anti-Semitism against Jews, there is today the added hate of the collective Jew, which is Israel."
 
Sharon's comments reveal the Zionist logic about anti-Semitism: "The best solution to anti-Semitism," Sharon said, "is immigration to Israel. It is the only place on Earth where Jews can live as Jews."
 
Sharon's goal today is the same as it has always been for Zionists ñ to bring more Jews to Israel. Sharon, who has called for one million Jews to immigrate to Israel, is facing decreasing immigration figures. "Aliyah [coming up, or immigration to Israel] is the main answer to our problems, whether security or economic in nature," Sharon says. "Without aliyah, Israel cannot exist."
 
Jews, however, are clearly not responding to Sharon's appeal. Jewish immigration to Israel, the "cornerstone of Zionism," has fallen by 30 percent since last year and there has been a steady decline in the number of new immigrants to Israel every year since 1999. During the first half of 2003 a mere 8,000 Jews immigrated to Israel.
 
"Immigration is in a tailspin," Absorption Minister Tzippi Livni said in June. "It's impossible to remain indifferent to what is going on," she said, adding "immigration will define the strength of the state of Israel." One-in-two Israelis is an immigrant.
 
Mike Rosenberg, director of the Jewish Agency, the body responsible for bringing Jews to Israel, told the AP last June that he noted "perceptions of growing anti-Semitism in France" and the "uncertain economic situation in Argentina" and "believed that adverse conditions for Jews elsewhere in the world would push them to Israel."
 
"There is still a very great reservoir of potential immigrants for Israel," Rosenberg said. "Our job is to create the conditions to harness it."
 
Israelis, however, are leaving the Jewish state in droves. While statistics from the Israeli government obscure the fact, between 1997 and 2000 nearly three times as many Israelis left for extended stays abroad than returned. Current figures are not available but the situation is not likely to have improved given the on-going violence and economic depression in Israel.
 
While the numbers through 2002 are rounded and the figures provided by the Israel government "are suspected of being incomplete," it is quite clear that many more Israelis are leaving the Jewish state ñ at least 20,000 per year ñ than are returning.
 
A recent poll of Jewish settlers living in the occupied territories found that more than one-in-five would leave "Israel" if they could secure a "reasonable life in another country."
 
Furthermore, the Palestinian population in Israel and in the occupied territories is increasing at more than twice the rate of the Jewish population. Barring ethnic-cleansing by the Israeli military, the Palestinian population will at some point ñ if it has not already ñ overtake the Jewish population in Israel-Palestine, Andrew Killgore of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs wrote recently.
 
Israel's rapidly increasing Palestinian population - and its political power - is seen as a threat to the very existence of the Jewish state. "In their hands lies the power to determine the right of return or to decide who is a Jew," Arnon Soffer of the Center for National Security Studies at Haifa University said. "In another few years, they will be able to decide whether Israel should continue to be a Jewish-Zionist state or whether it should 'turn into a state of all its citizens.'"
 
"The proportion of all non-Zionist groups will reach 50 percent of the population of Israel by 2020," Soffer said.
 
"Palestinians see time and history on their side," Asher Susser of Tel Aviv University said recently. "It's working for them and there is precious little Israel can do about it."
 
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