is the title of a thoughtful review essay in The Nation. I ultimately disagree with what I think is the author’s crucial assertion, that Islamic anti-Semitism is the product of a political conflict, and will dissipate when that conflict is resolved. Rather, I think anti-Semitism in the Moslem and Arab world has taken on a life of its own, and will persist, perhaps less virulently but still dangerously, even if the Israel reaches a peace agreement with its relevant neighbors. Ironically, many of the early Zionists themselves were under the mistaken impression that anti-Semitism could be undermined by getting rid of its purported root causes–in their case, they internalized the prevalent leftist notion that the cause of anti-Semitism was Jews serving as exploitative middlemen in capitalist Gentile societies, rather than having their own Socialist state in which Jews would become a “normal nation.” Irony abounds.
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