Of course much of the book describes hatred directed towards the Jewish State. Chelser answers the question of whether anti-Zionism is a part of the new anti-Semitism with a resounding yes.
Chesler explains how so many of the new Anti-Semitism practitioners portray Israelis as the new Nazis; they cloak themselves with the view that anti-Israelism is really a form of anti-Nazism. She also discusses current artillery, such as the BDS (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) movement, and how it gained footing, assisted by the piously righteous leftists, especially on the campuses. Edward Said, Noam Chomsky and the like are put in their rightful places as legitimizers of the hatred.
Sadly, Chesler is also able to provide us with a ringside seat to what she refers to as Academic McCarthyism. This intense and growing hostility to the Jewish State on campuses is apparent to all those paying attention. But even today too few are paying attention, and too many of those too few are convinced that appeasement and understanding is the best response. That only begets more brazen attacks and more exaggerated demands.
Chesler helps make the case that Jews have been singled out by providing intriguing counter-examples. Why, she asks, weren’t the Bosnian Serbs held up for special vilification? The ferocity of their attacks, the gang-rape and murder of children has been virtually unsurpassed, at least in Europe. But those acts have not similarly moved those who attack Israel for real or imagined barbarism. So too, with Saddam Hussein and his vile, sadistic sons, who barely raised eyebrows, let alone entire movements.
As Chesler points out, the fact that a Jewish state exists, which can defend itself, has no intention of leaving the neighborhood, and has begun to settle in territory it conquered in the 1967 war of self-defense has escalated the Jew-hatred into a “near psychosis.”
Chesler gives us a manifesto to follow, for those of us less gifted in expressing ourselves:
One cannot claim to be an “anti-racist” and, in the same breath, condemn Zionism. One cannot claim to be an “anti-colonialist” and, condemn Zionism. Israel was the very first FORMERLY colonized state reclaimed by the UN, which determined that the Jews had a prior right and deserved to live there. The Jews were viewed as Israel’s original inhabitants (since 1250 BCE) whose land had been occupied, first by Babylonia, then by Greece, Rome, Persia, the Christian Crusaders, the Mamluks, the Turk/Ottomans – and finally, by the European powers.
Along with all the other treasures contained in this new edition of The New Anti-Semitism, the author not only lays out a chapterful of steps people can take, she also provides a lengthy list of excellent resources. For those who finally realize they are not getting the full story from the mainstream media, Chesler offers a panoply of web sites to visit for accurate information.
This book is not just a road map, it is a survival tool.
When the first edition of this book came out this reviewer was so overjoyed to see that someone else was seeing what she was seeing that she purchased a dozen of the books and handed them out to friends and family members. It is heartily recommend others do the same; it just may help increase the number of those still-too-few who “get it.” So go get it.
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JUST BEFORE THIS REVIEW WAS PUBLISHED, The Jewish Press was able to elicit responses from Phyllis Chesler to questions raised by the recent horrors in France: the massacre at Charlie Hebdo and the attack on the Kosher supermarket.
TJP: Given what has just happened in France, and the outpouring of support for the slain cartoonists, do you believe there will be a long-lasting response which is less towards appeasement and more towards security?
Chesler: I do not believe that government leaders, the intelligentsia, will move swiftly enough since they are still more concerned with potential, imaginary “Islamophobia” than with the slaughter of French civilians, including French Jews. As Gaza goes global, the citizenry will become more aware of who the enemies of freedom and a Western way of life are. But this will take time and blood and as we know, the clock is ticking fearfully.
TJP: And in what way, if any, do you see what happened at the kosher market in Paris as eliciting a different response?
Chesler: Friday, French Muslims prayed at the Grand Mosque. Jews were told to stay home and not pray at the Grand Synagogue.
The Charlie Hebdo satirists were executed for what they had done and they were named, one by one. As to the Jews—religious Jews, any religious Jews would do. The Jews were massacred for who they are: Kuffars, infidels, Jews. While some European leaders have noted that the massacre in the kosher supermarket was an “anti-Semitic” act, French authorities have not offered the Jews any necessary protection.
In fact, this is no longer a matter that the police can handle. A war-level effort is required and the West is still reluctant to fight back, still in denial about whether a handful of “criminal,” “lone wolf,” “mentally ill,” “impoverished,” men (and women) who happen to be Muslim, who happen to have been trained in Syria, Yemen, or Iraq, really represent a modern-day Army.
In effect, these are people who still believe that Hamas’s soldiers who dress in civilian clothing or who hide behind civilian shields really constitute an Army. I am not sure whether France or Europe understands that those who slaughtered the Charlie Hebdo satirists and the Jews in the supermarket are the same kinds of Jihadists who have been murdering Jews for the last one hundred years in Israel.