A Left Wing Thing: Melanie Phillips Weighs In On the Jew Hate Du Jour

Re the latest version of "the longest hatred" she writes:

People on the left are shocked by Labour antisemitism. They cry: how can this have happened? The left is anti-racist and anti-fascist; antisemitism is a creation of the far right. So it's utterly baffling, no?  

No. Modern antisemitism is a creation of the left because it is inextricably connected to the left's default position: its animus against Israel and its belief in Palestinianism as the progressive cause of causes. 

This connection, however, is routinely denied. While the left condemns Jew-bashing on ethnic grounds as beyond the pale, Israel-bashing is seen as a legitimate political position. 

This suggests a failure to understand what antisemitism actually is. People think it is just a prejudice like any other, although with rather worse results in the past. 

Not so. In the Guardian, Howard Jacobson noted the unique nature of Jew-hatred through the ages and its link to Israel-bashing. "We need to talk about Zion", he cautioned. Too true; but as he observed, if Jews complain about Israel-bashing they are accused of trying to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.  

Israel-bashing based entirely on falsehoods, distortions and libels is not legitimate criticism.  

Jew-hatred is not a prejudice like any other. No other people or group is singled out as a demonic conspiracy, a malevolent force of quasi-supernatural powers. And this same derangement is directed against Israel. 

This cannot be admitted because of the deep antipathy against treating the Jewish people as special. Resentment over the idea that the Jews were "chosen" for supposedly preferential treatment is matched by resentment that they appear to be "chosen" for a special kind of hatred.  

Modern society is, after all, an equal opportunity hater; the mantra of equality demands nothing else. Jews just aren't allowed to be different. Yet that's the essence of the hatred against us; and it's the reason why that hatred is denied, too.

Update: The UN (largest voting bloc: the OIC caliphate) beclowns itself (again) with a raft of anti-Israel resolutions (10 in one day!).

Update: The British Left's Jewish Problem