There is a link between what Lucy Dawidowicz called the "war against the Jews" in Europe and its new front lines along Israel's borders.  That link can be traced to antiquity.  Anti-Semitism has been around as long as the Jews.  Presciently, Balaam, the Moabite priest sent to curse Israel, remarked that "Israel is a nation that dwells apart" (Numbers 23:9).  Josephus's "Against Apion" reveals that the ancient Romans held fantastic notions about the Jews.  Anti-Semitism has always characterized Jewish life.  It has over time adopted theological, racial, and political paradigms.

There is the kind of anti-Semitism that is open and violent.  Then there is a new, more subtle kind of anti-Semitism appearing to be humanitarian in outlook.  It is expressed not as hatred of the Jew, but as concern for the human rights of those trying to murder Jews.  This kind of anti-Semitism does not belong to skinheads, Klansmen, or Hamas.  They hate openly.  This kind of anti-Semitism is expressed not in violence, but in the charade of nonviolence.  It is constructed upon a perverse interpretation of human rights in which the Jew as poisoner of the wells reappears as a human rights-violator.  With European and American assistance, Palestinians created a romance of victimization and occupation.  The theme of the "Palestinian" who suffers because of the Jews echoes the earlier and deeper motif of the "suffering servant," the one who suffered for our sins.  Just as the Jews denied Christ, they deny the poor Palestinians their home.

This kind of anti-Semitism is buttressed by Holocaust denial, the epitome of unreason.  The claim is made that only Palestinians suffer but do not cause any suffering.  In many ways it is consistent with the ersatz liberation theology that has alternately claimed that Jesus was black or Palestinian, but certainly not a Jew.  Like any other delusion, anti-Semitism constitutes the victory of faith over reason.  Thus, people speak of "occupation" in a territory in which not one Jew is allowed to live peacefully.  The territorial expanse of Palestine was to be shared by Jews and Arabs.  The fact is that over half the population of Jordan claim to be Palestinians.  The fact is that Jordan's non-Palestinian ruler occupies more than 50% of territorial Palestine.  The fact is that these truths are ignored by the activists shouting, "Free Palestine."  The occupation, actually the consequence of the Jordanian war against Israel in 1967, has become a slogan.  If we were to apply the scruples of moral philosophy, we may ponder whether those areas called Judea and Samaria are occupied or liberated.  The "occupation" has become a dogma in the religion of the politically correct.  And it is much easier to be guided by dogma than by the effort of critical thinking.

Gordon Allport clarified how stereotypes lead to prejudiced attitudes.  In a sense, a stereotype is a form of dogma – a percept that cannot be challenged because it is an article of faith.  As in any other mental process, dogma distorts reality.  The fact that anti-Semitism is as much an element in the philosophy of the left as it is the right means that it attracts some sort of consensus within Western civilization. It is not simply a matter of bigotry or a biased opinion that can be challenged.  It is a matter of faith.  In this sense, it is no longer a Jewish problem.  

Modern anti-Semitism has assumed the language and style of political philosophy, but its power is derived from long repressed articles of faith.  It was conceived when people desperately began to realize that their systems of salvation were defective – that believing was not enough to make the world into the kingdom of Heaven.  Excuses were passed off as explanations.  But blaming others for one's weaknesses is more than a neurotic defense.  The communists and the Germans employed the dogma but changed the liturgy.  Ruth Wisse points out that anti-Semitism constitutes an attack upon liberal democracy and that the purpose of anti-Semitism is to draw attention from the weaknesses and failures of one's own ideology.

Judaism taught repression and sublimation.  It refused to deify man's needs and desires as the Greeks did.  And it insisted upon responsibility rather than vicarious atonement.  In a word, it condemned narcissism.  Inasmuch as theology offers ultimate answers to the ultimate questions, it remained relevant even when religion was rejected.  Both Nazism and communism like most other isms constitute a religious cult with a savior and a devil.  And like most religious cults, they maintained the ancient Greek worldview of dualism.  Just as there is matter and energy, there is good and evil.  Without the Jew as an explanation of failure, the defeat of Germany, failure of communism, or the bondage of the Muslims, people would have to confront themselves.  Anti-Semitism defends them against the self-doubt that accompanies intellectual honesty.  It relies upon authoritarianism – an unresolved obedience to a tyrannical father or ruler.  Hence, whether the diktat emanates from Iran, from the intellectual tyranny of political correctness or from any other authoritarian cult, weak people find courage in hate.

We cannot heal the heart of the anti-Semite.  We cannot offer psychoanalysis to every Jew-hater.  But we can address the etiology of anti-Semitism.  As is often the case in illness, and anti-Semitism is a spiritual disease, there is a matter of secondary gain.  Without the Jew, how would people explain their own failures?