Anti-Zionism always equals anti semitism

The reaction to the fighting in Gaza — which may or may not be formally concluding soon with a cease-fire — continues to produce symptoms of Europe’s age-old disease: anti-Semitism. The latest evidence of this vile behavior not only raises questions about the precarious position of European Jewry but also gives the lie to the claim that one can be an anti-Zionist without slipping inevitably into Jew hatred.

The incident involves a branch of chain supermarket store called Sainsbury’s in central London’s Holborn neighborhood. The store was the object of an anti-Zionist protest that sought to remove all foods from its shelved of Israeli origin. Such efforts have become commonplace, especially in the United Kingdom and Ireland where anti-Israeli activists are no longer content to call for boycotts of the Jewish state but are now taking matters into their own hands and entering stores and removing the offensive goods from the shelves without permission. But at this particular Sainsbury’s outlet, the demonstrators became so aggressive that they scared the store management into going even farther toward ensuring that the store was off limits to anything with a Jewish taint.

According to the Guardian:

A Sainsbury’s branch removed kosher food from its shelves over fears that anti-Israeli protesters would attack it.

The branch manager of the store in Holborn, central London ordered the section to be emptied on Saturday afternoon, while protesters outside picketed it calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. The move prompted outrage after a photo of the empty shelves was posted on social media.

Colin Appleby, who took the photo, said the kosher section contained food made in the UK and Poland. He added that a staff member defended the decision, saying: “We support Free Gaza.”

“I didn’t try to point out that kosher goods were not Israeli goods but they walked away,” he wrote on Facebook.

This marks a new low in anti-Zionist agitation but also illustrates that despite the hair-splitting by some ideologues and their apologists the distance to travel between hatred for Israel and that directed at all Jews isn’t very far.

This protest also illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy of those claiming to protest Israeli actions in the name of human rights. Those who have taken to the streets against Israel as well as storming stores with Israeli or kosher goods say they support “Free Gaza.” But what, in fact, they are supporting is not a free Gaza but a Hamas-ruled Islamist state. Their protests are implicit endorsement not so much of the right of Gazans to go about their lives without being subjected to attack as they are backing of Hamas’ genocidal war on Israel. Were they actually the least bit concerned about the Palestinians who have been killed or wounded in the fighting they would, instead be directing their protests against the strip’s Hamas rulers who have squandered foreign aid on the infrastructure of terror including tunnels aimed at facilitating cross-border raids and an arsenal of thousands of rockets that have rained down on Israeli cities.

Protests against Israel’s efforts to defend itself against Hamas are, almost by definition, exercises in hypocrisy.

Even if one disagrees with Israeli policies on the West Bank, Hamas’s “resistance” against the “occupation,” has nothing to do with hilltop settlements on land that could theoretically become part of a Palestinian state but are, instead, focused on “liberating” all of pre-1967 Israel and evicting or slaughtering its Jewish population. But even if the Gaza protests were solely about what happens on the West Bank (which could have already become an independent Palestinian state had the Palestinian Authority been willing to say yes to peace offers in 2000, 2001, 2008 and this past spring), it bears pointing out that the frenzy that the fighting in Gaza has generated is out of all proportion to the scale of suffering there when compared to other conflicts. The fact that those who protest against alleged Israeli brutality have nothing to say about the fact that other Muslims in Syria and half a dozen other Arab countries are currently killing far more Muslims than who have died in Gaza is significant.

Anti-Zionists are ready to deny to the Jews the same rights of self-determination and self-defense that every other people planet is granted without controversy. As such, they are practicing a form of prejudice. Since the term of art for prejudice against Jews is called anti-Semitism, there is no doubt that those who agitate against Israel’s existence are anti-Semites.

Were these people merely seeking to rid supermarket shelves of Israeli products rather than anything kosher no matter its country of origin it would not be any more defensible. But when anti-Zionists start targeting anything connected with Jews they are merely pointing out that the gap between their positions and those of the Nazi-like Hamas is a distinction without a difference. Their zeal to target Jews shows they are rapidly absorbing the crude Jew-hatred that is being imported to Europe from the Middle East.

Europe’s streets have been filled with protesters against Israel’s anti-terror counter-offensive in Gaza spewing all kinds of hate speech and sometimes, as in Paris, morphing into anti-Semitic riots. But this behavior is also being encouraged by stunts like the decision of Glasgow’s City Hall to fly a Palestinian flag in a gesture of support for Hamas, it’s easy to see why some of the demonstrators are feeling free to vent their anti-Semitism rather than stick to more defensible behavior. A Europe that has come to view Hamas and its platform as acceptable is not only ready to believe anything, no matter how preposterous. It also showing that there may be no turning back from a descent into a new period of European barbarism toward Jews.