Which is not to deny that anti-Semitism enters the mix. But it is one ingredient in a complex situation, not the engine that drives anti-Zionism. When Chesler speaks of "the war against the Jews," and Foxman refers to "the resurgence of worldwide anti-Semitism," they give the impression that the monsters of the deep are stirring once again and that the 1930s are returning with a vengeance. Foxman says as much: "I am convinced we currently face as great a threat to the safety and security of the Jewish people as the one we faced in the 1930s--if not a greater one." But there is a world of difference between then and now, as there is between anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East.

In Europe, its original home, antiSemitism is an old and deeply rooted cultural trait that from time to time (as in the League of Anti-Semites) has found political expression. In the Arab and Muslim world today it is, roughly speaking, the other way around: The political conflict is what comes first and goes deep, while anti-Semitism is a secondary formation, a byproduct of aspirations and grievances that have nothing to do with a priori prejudice against Jews (although such prejudice was hardly absent from the Muslim world before the creation of Israel). Foxman says that anti-Semitism is "rampant in the world of Islam" and warns against its "spread" in Europe due to the burgeoning Muslim population. But without a doubt, it would not be spreading within Muslim communities in Europe were it not for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the current crisis that began in 2000 with the breakdown of the Oslo peace initiative and the outbreak of the second intifada.

In the scenario painted by Chesler, Foxman and others, no distinction is made between, say, the young Muslim immigrants who carried out the vast majority of physical attacks against Jews in France in 2002, and someone like the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir's speech to the tenth session of the Islamic Summit Conference this past October was an example of classical anti-Semitic discourse, with its peculiar combination of animus and admiration. Describing Jews as "the enemy," he warned, "We are up against a people who think." He went on to credit Jews with having "invented," among other things, human rights and democracy. "With these," he explained, "they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power." Mahathir was singing from the same anti-Semitic hymn book as Wilhelm Marr. But the evidence suggests that the perpetrators of the anti-Jewish attacks in France were animated by political outrage, not bigotry. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry itself, most of the incidents were a protest against inequities in the occupied territories.

"Nonetheless," someone might object, "the young Muslim immigrants who carried out these attacks are anti-Semites. For it's not the Jews of France who are occupying the territories, it's the State of Israel. If the motive for these incidents was purely political, why didn't the protesters attack the Israeli embassy? Why attack individual Jews and Jewish institutions? This is a clear case of lumping all Jews together and holding them collectively responsible. This is what makes these incidents anti-Semitic."

The objection, however, is misconceived, and the misconception goes to the heart of the complex situation in which Jews find themselves today. Israel does not regard itself as a state that just happens to be Jewish (like the medieval kingdom of the Khazars). It sees itself as (in Prime Minister Sharon's phrase) "the Jewish collective," the sovereign state of the Jewish people as a whole. In his speech at the Herzliya Conference in December, Sharon called the state "a national and spiritual center for all Jews of the world," and added, "Aliyah [Jewish immigration] is the central goal of the State of Israel." To what extent this view is reciprocated by Jews worldwide is hard to say. Many feel no particular connection to the state or strongly oppose its actions. On the other hand, in spring 2002, at the height of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, Jews gathered in large numbers in numerous cities to demonstrate their solidarity, as Jews, with Israel. Many Jewish community leaders, religious and secular, publicly reinforce this identification with the state. All of which is liable to give the unreflective onlooker the impression that Jews are, as it were, lumping themselves together; that Israel is indeed "the Jewish collective."

Not that this justifies, not for one moment, a single incident where Jews are attacked for being Jewish; such attacks are repugnant. But it does provide a context within which to make sense of them without seeing a global "war against the Jews." There is no such war. It is, in fact, as much a figment of the imagination as its mirror image: a Jewish conspiracy against the world. Jews have good reason to be concerned about growing hostility toward them. But while this includes the revival of hard-core antiSemitism, it is closer to the truth to say that anti-Zionism today takes the form of anti-Semitism rather than the other way round. As Akiva Eldar observed recently in Ha'aretz, "It is much easier to claim the entire world is against us than to admit that the State of Israel, which rose as a refuge and a source of pride for Jews...has become a genuine source of danger and a source of shameful embarrassment to Jews who choose to live outside its borders."

In defense of her assertion that there is a global "war against the Jews," Chesler wields the ultimate weapon. "In my opinion," she says, "anyone who denies that this is so or who blames the Jews for provoking the attacks is an anti-Semite." Since I deny that there is such a war, this makes me an anti-Semite. But since her argument empties the word of all meaning, I do not feel maligned. In his contribution to A New Antisemitism?, historian Peter Pulzer, faulting the way "the liberal press" sometimes reports the activities of the Israel Defense Forces in the occupied territories, makes a telling point about the misuse of words. He says: "When every civilian death is a war crime, that concept loses its significance. When every expulsion from a village is genocide, we no longer know how to recognize genocide. When Auschwitz is everywhere, it is nowhere." Point taken. But equally, when anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance.

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