Anti-Semitism: a Zionist Illusion

History in the West is dominated by Zionist propaganda. In what is described as a liberal media, any hostility towards Judaism per se or of the Jewish contribution to the World is strictly prohibited, yet conversely, hostility towards Islam and Muslims is routine. Even criticism of Zionism is routinely suppressed with hypersensitive and dishonest allegations of "anti-Semitism". For the Western media and politicians alike, this proves a most expedient mantra, although it does not find so much resonance with the public, who are rather more apathetic to the charge – a phenomenon that is itself, rather fraudulently, decried as evidence of rising anti-Semitism. This point has recently been picked up on by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in an article in the Guardian on the 4th March 2005. The Mayor has invoked furious criticism from the Zionist lobby, which is now trying to have him barred from holding public office upon the strength of fallacious allegations of anti-Semitism – he accused a truculent Jewish reporter from the Evening Standard of behaving like a Nazi concentration camp guard. Although, the allegations are more likely prompted by the Mayor’s anti-Zionist politics; he has accused Ariel Sharon, the head of the Zionist government, of being a "war criminal" and the Zionist entity of "ethnic cleansing" and has had the audacity to give financial support to non-Zionist Jewish groups.

It is ironic that the term anti-Semitism should be used as a denouncement of all perceived anti-Jewish prejudice, particularly as the term anti-Semitism was coined in the mid-Nineteenth century by an anti-Jewish polemist, Wilhelm Marr, to describe his objection to people, whom he disparaged as Semites, living in Germany. During this period in Germany, philology and ethnology had led to theories that ethnic distinctions could be made along the linguistic roots of one’s heritage, thus because the German language is Aryan-Germanic, all Germanic peoples, were thought to be racially Aryan (Iranian), whereas Marr, despite Yiddish, the lingua Franca of the Ashkenazim (European Jews), being a Germanic language, perceived them to be Semites. Marr erroneously presumed that the Ashkenazim had a common ancestral heritage with the Sephardim (Oriental Jews); in fact, there is considerably more Sephardic ancestry amongst the European aristocracy, (including the Hapsburgs) than there is amongst the Ashkenazim. Pope Paul IV described Phillip II of Spain rather unflatteringly as a Marrano because of his Jewish ancestry. Yet the majority of European Jews in the mid Nineteenth Century were ethnically of Slavic-Turkic descent, which is to be expected since European Jewry owes its linage not to the Mediterranean Jews of Spain and Portugal but with the Khazar kingdom, situated in what is now Russia.

The Khagan (king of the Khazars) adopted Judaism as the state religion in 740 and the kingdom remained a Jewish enclave in Eastern Europe until the Twelfth Century, although Khazar migration through Europe began after the Kingdom was crushed by Svyatoslav, the ruler of Kiev, in 965. However, intermarriage between European and non European Jews and non-Jews over the last five hundred years and the acceptance of Jewish converts makes the concept of a Khazar race as untenable as a Jewish race.

Quite apart from the fact that one’s religion is not biologically determined (unless of course one rejects the concept of freewill) there is no biological evidence to support the concept of a single Jewish ethnicity. Jews are drawn from many different ethnic pools; this is largely because like the other Abrahamic religions, Judaism has spread through conversion. It is also rarely mentioned that there is no historical evidence to support the belief that the Judeans of the First Century, were the descendants of the Hebrews or Israelites, in fact there is clear evidence that much of the Torah is plagiarised from the Babylonians, Egyptians and Iranians, and that the Judeans were historically later converts to monotheism, therefore it is most unlikely that Judeans were the progeny of Abraham. Furthermore, by the beginning of the First Century the majority of ethnic Jews were Hellenised and lived outside Judea, even Judea itself was multi ethnic.

Moreover, contrary to popular belief Judaism is a post Christian religion, the concept of Judaism originates with the Roman Emperor Constantine, who used it to contrast with Hellenism; yet he applied the term generically and liberally to all the various Abrahamic monotheist cults, most of which were more Hellenistic or Zoroastrian than Judean. For Constantine the concept of Judaism had nothing to do with race and everything to do with belief, Judaism was more acceptable than Hellenism because it was monotheistic and Abrahamic. However, it was only after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud in the Sixth Century, that Talmudic Judaism gained ascendancy, and not until the Tenth Century, that one can talk of a single Judaic faith. Already by the Sixth century, the majority of Jews were converts with no geographical or ancestral link to Palestine.

It is fair to say that Judaism would no longer exist in Europe were it not through inter-marriage and conversion. Therefore, the whole racial basis of anti-Semitism is flawed. This said there are still those who hold racially prejudiced Jews against Jews upon the basis that they are a single race or a hybrid race and therefore racial distinct from themselves, however such racism is only anti-Semitic if it is applies to all Semitic races. The use of the phrase anti-Semitism exclusively in reference to anti-Jewish prejudice is a great disservice to Arabs – after all, Arabs are the true Semites, whereas few Jews are.

Thus anti-Jewish prejudice, is religious prejudice unless its is deliberately couched in racist language, for it is possible to be racist to religious group, if in error, one perceives that group to be a race. In Western Europe religious prejudice is more commonly directed at Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, who are less likely to be of European descent.

In truth, there is considerable difference between racism, anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism, although it suits the Zionist agenda to conflate the three. Anti-Jewish racism is virtually non-existent in Western Europe; it can sometimes be found amongst white supremacist groups, however it is certainly not a feature of right-wing extremism, or the current resurgence in nationalism or xenophobia. In fact, it is quite apparent that most of what is described as anti-Semitism is nothing of the sort; it is anti-Zionist, which is itself a racist ideology: Zionism as an ideology advocates Jewish hegemony and colonisation of the Middle East upon racial grounds, which is clearly racial elitism. Hence Zionist will try to present legitimate Muslim grievances, against the Zionist occupation of Palestine and Zionist terrorism, as essentially racist, omitting to mention of course that many of the Arabs living in the Middle East, including many Palestinians (the principle victims of Zionism) are themselves the descendants of Jews. Indeed, many Jews take the absurd position that even if Zionism is a racist ideology, any criticism of it must still amounts to de facto anti-Semitism because the majority of Jews are Zionist; therefore any criticism of Zionism is a criticism of the majority of Jews. Thus equating anti-Zionism with the anti-Semitism provides a veil or respectability for a racist ideology.

Again we find the same pure sophistry employed in equating criticism of Judaism with anti-Semitism. For instance, the edicts of expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1497 and Navarre in 1498 are routinely portrayed as anti-Semitic, yet this is fundamentally untrue; they were predicated on religion not race. It is often forgotten that many Marranos (Christianised Jews) were permitted to stay in Spain, Portugal and Navarre, if they converted to Christianity, and were demonstrably able to intermarry with old Christian families: thus, like many other European aristocrats, King Phillip II of Spain, was of Sephardic Jewish decent. Even the Sixteenth Century laws of "limpieza de sangre" (purity of the blood) which obliged a candidate for ecclesiastical or government appointment to demonstrate that their ancestry was unsullied by Jewish or Muslim blood, were religious and not racial motivated; in 1556, despite being of Jewish descent himself, King Phillip II accepted that "all the heresies in Germany, France and Spain have been sown by descendants of Jews", in this regard both the descendants of Conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity) and Moriscos (Muslim converts to Christianity) were distrusted because it was, with considerable justification, supposed that they might be still practising their respective faiths. Hence, what was is clearly an act of religious intolerance is fallaciously presented as an act of racial intolerance. The reality of course is that this Catholic religious intolerance no more applied to Jews than it did to Muslims, and in neither case was it racist, the doctrine of universalism pointed rejects racial exclusivity, hence Catholic intolerance to Jews and Muslims has always been theological not racial.

Again, any depiction of Talmudic Judaism as a satanic cult or a perversion of the true Abrahamic religion is immediately denounced as anti-Semitic, yet this is exactly the position that Rushdie took in respect of Islam, although of course Rushdie compiled the injury and insult, by publishing his defamatory "Satanic Verses" in predominately Muslim countries, resulting in the death of over thirty people, the majority of whom were innocent anti-Rushdie protestors. Although the Rushdie case is presented in the West as epitomising freedom of expression and the superiority of Western proto-Christian values to Eastern Islamic values, it is notable how such freedom does not apply to the criticism of Judaism. For instance, the Protocols are condemned by every Western government, and in some case banned. Yet no Western government has ever criticised Rushdie, least of all banned his faith baiting tract.

One only has to look at the French reaction to the broadcast of the film “Al-Shatat” by Al Manar, which whilst certainly anti-Zionist, was less anti-Judaic than Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was anti-Islamic. However because “Al-Shatat” offends Judaism it is equated with anti-Semitism. It was not.

It is no more racist to assert that Judaism is evil than to assert Islam is evil. To assert such, is an assessment of the morality of a particular religion and perhaps its adherents. Thus, to attribute Meyer Lansky’s criminal and terrorist activities to his Jewish upbringing is not racist, for as well as being the most prolific American Jewish crime boss he was also an Orthodox Jew. One could argue, with some evidence that Lansky was no exception: in 1909 the New York Police Commissioner announced that half of all crime committed in the city was attributable to Jews, also it is well attested that organised Jewish criminality was a pervasive phenomenon throughout Europe, throughout the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century.

Consider the following, it is not rare for columnists to espouse the view that Islam is barbarous and incompatible with Western European values and that the Muslims live by different value system to other Europeans, for example, Zionist polemist, Melanie Phillips, writes in the Sunday Times, 4th November 2001: “We have a fifth column in our midst…thousands of alienated young Muslims, most of them born and bred here but who regard themselves as an army within, are waiting for an opportunity to help to destroy the society that sustains them. We now stare into the abyss, aghast.”

Yet any suggestion that Jews have a different ethos to other Europeans, let alone that their ethos might be inferior to other Europeans are denounced as racist. As a consequence of conflating criticism of Judaism with racism, debate is being stifled: in the West where blasphemy law are all but obsolete, Judaism stands alone as the only religion that is not subject to serious moral scrutiny. Thus, accusations of anti-Semitism are used disingenuously to repudiate legitimate criticism of Talmudic Judaism, which is used to promote: racially elitism, nihilism, genocide and religious intolerance. Thus if one looks beneath the accusations of anti-Semitism, one rarely finds any evidence of racism; yet conversely Zionist frequently engage in anti-Arab and Anti-Iranian racism.