When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems – and they guarantee more ugliness.
If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.
That brings me to my second point: the importance of good relations between Israel and the United States.
Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel.
My view is the opposite.
Far from making peace more possible, we are making hostilities more certain.
Far from making things better for the Palestinian people, sour relations between the United States and Israel guarantees that ordinary Palestinians will continue to suffer.
The peace we all want will come when Israel feels secure – not when Washington feels distant.
Right now we have war.
There are many people waging this war. Some blow up cafes. Some fire rockets into civilian areas. Some are pursuing nuclear arms. Some are fighting the soft war, through international boycotts and resolutions condemning Israel.
All these people are watching the U.S.-Israeli relationship closely.
In this regard, I was pleased to hear the State Department’s spokesman clarify America’s position. He said that the United States recognizes “the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people.”
This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favor the gun over those who favor negotiation.
Back in 1937, a man named Vladimir Jabotinsky urged Britain to open up an escape route for Jews fleeing Europe.
Only a Jewish homeland, he said, could protect European Jews from the coming calamity.
In prophetic words, he described the problem this way:
“It is not the anti-Semitism of men,” he said. “It is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer.”
The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different.
But these threats are real.
These threats are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II.
And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.
Rupert Murdochis founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation, whose numerous worldwide holdings include the New York Post, Dow Jones & Company, The Times (London), Fox News Channel, HarperCollins Publishers and 20th Century Fox. This essay is adapted from his remarks upon being presented with the Anti-Defamation League’s International Leadership Award in New York on Oct. 13.