Uri Avnery’s recent article, “The Fallacy of Rising anti-Semitism”, which was repub­lished on the “Aus­tralasi­an Muslim Times” on 5 March 2015, must be seen through the prism of Israeli domestic politics. Avnery, an Israeli citizen, wrote his piece as a long-standing critic of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and in the context of Israel’s impending election. Avnery berates Netanyahu’s call for European Jews to immigrate to Israel as a mere scare campaign.

If Avnery’s mindset could rise above the limited horizons of Israeli party politics he would not be able to deny so readily the reality of con­tem­por­ary antisemitism. Antisemitism is a separate issue to immig­ra­tion to Israel, yet in his zeal to score political points against Netanyahu Avnery wrongly conflates the two.

Worse, Avnery goes further, and tries to minimise and even justify and legit­im­ise violent attacks against diaspora Jews, at least when per­pet­rated by European Muslims of Arab descent. He asserts that such attacks are not motivated in any way by a hatred of Jews but rather by Muslim hostility to the State of Israel, its existence and/or its policies and actions.  He says, in effect, that if these attacks are removed from the stat­ist­ics of antisemitic incidents, then antisemitism is not increas­ing.

Avnery’s “analysis” is often unthink­ingly embraced by Muslims living in western societies. This is a dan­ger­ously short-sighted mistake. If it is accept­able to attack Jews, anywhere and every­where, for the real or imagined wrongs of Israel then it is equally accept­able to attack Muslims, anywhere and every­where, for what is done in their name, and in the name of Islam itself, by avowedly Islamic groups or by Muslim-majority states. It is simply not credible to condemn Islamo­pho­bia while attempt­ing to ration­al­ise antisemitism.

Prejudice is prejudice. It condemns the innocent along with the guilty, and is therefore morally indefens­ible. In the Jewish tradition, God promised Abraham that He would with-hold pun­ish­ment of Sodom and Gomorah, the most sinful of places, if there had been only ten righteous people living there. We are taught that the idea of punishing the innocent is so repulsive to God that God considers it prefer­able to let the guilty go unpun­ished.

Attacking or targeting people because of their race, religion, ethnicity, or nation­al­ity is a hate crime. Just as diaspora Muslims should not be attacked for the real or perceived actions of other Muslims whether in Australia or overseas, so too diaspora Jews should not be attacked for the real or perceived actions of other Jews whether in Australia or overseas. A hate crime is a hate crime regard­less of the eth­ni­cit­ies of the per­pet­rat­or or victim.

The murder of Jews in Mumbai, Toulouse, Brussels, Paris, Copen­ha­gen and elsewhere, by Islamist jihadis, even if motivated solely or in part by oppos­i­tion to Israel’s existence or Israeli gov­ern­ment policies, does not alter the fact that Jews were singled out and targeted because they were Jews. Nobody asked them for their political views or attitudes towards Israel. Targeting Jews because they are Jews is antisemitism.

And even if they did support Israel, so what? Is it morally accept­able to bash or murder Muslims if they happen to sym­path­ise with any par­tic­u­lar Islamic group or a Muslim-majority state? People are entitled to hold and express their own opinions. No-one has the right to be violent towards others merely because one does not agree with their opinions. Such violence is a con­spicu­ous sign of the moral and intel­lec­tu­al weakness of one’s own opinions.

Avnery really ties himself into knots when he attempts to rein­ter­pret his­tor­ic­al events through the lens of his con­tem­por­ary political agenda. He cites examples of antisemitism from segments of the Christian world, past and present, and from Christian religious texts but, like a man trying to force a square peg into a round hole, he limits Islamic antisemitism to Muhammad’s “wars with neigh­bour­ing Jewish tribes.”

Within Islamic religious texts there is a diversity of attitudes and inter­pret­a­tions, from passages and rulings which encourage tolerance of Jews to hostile pro­clam­a­tions that the Jews are the enemy of Islam.

Islamic history also demon­strates a wide range of treatment of Jews, from periods of massacres and official dis­crim­in­at­ory and degrading laws imposed upon Jews (and Chris­ti­ans), to periods of much more tolerance, albeit as second-class residents. Avnery cites the Golden Age of Islamic Spain famed for its tolerance and coex­ist­ence between Muslims, Chris­ti­ans and Jews. Yet even here, at its height, a Muslim mob massacred 4,000 Jews and crucified Joseph Nagdela, the Jewish vizier in Islamic Spain. Moses Mai­monides, to whom Avnery points as an example of Muslim enlight­en­ment towards the Jews, was in fact forced to flee Spain with his family after a Berber dynasty, the Almohads, conquered Córdoba in 1148, and gave the Jewish and Christian com­munit­ies the choice of con­vert­ing to Islam, death, or exile. Maimonides’s family, along with most other Jews, chose exile.

A glaring weakness in Avnery’s view is his failure to recognise that much of Islam’s animosity towards Jews is rooted in religious super­ses­sion­ism – the belief that Islam has super­seded Judaism (and Chris­tian­ity), that Judaism by rights should no longer exist, and certainly should not be as suc­cess­ful as it continues to be. Anti­semites see Jewish power­less­ness and vul­ner­ab­il­ity as the natural order of things which they seek to restore. Much of the rage directed against the modern State of Israel and the Jewish people arises from the fact that the Jews, far from dis­ap­pear­ing, are stronger and more vibrant and creative than ever. It is precisely when Jews defend them­selves suc­cess­fully, as Israel has done, that Jews disprove the his­tor­ic­al role that Islam has assigned to them and that the rage against them is at its most intense.

Many Islamist writings, from Sayid Qutb onwards, and some past and con­tem­por­ary Islamic clerics, designate Jews as the enemy, regard­less of the existence of the state of Israel. Such positions encourage and permit Islamist extrem­ists to attack diaspora Jews. For example, Mohammed Merah, who killed three French soldiers (of North African and Caribbean back­grounds) and four Jews, including three young children, in Toulouse in France in 2012 was raised on hatred for Jews, as verified by his brother.

Avnery denies that Muslim antisemitism has any con­nec­tion to ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. Both ‘The Protocols’ as well as Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’’ are highly popular reads in the Arab world. Islamists fre­quently cite the fantasies and fab­ric­a­tions in ‘The Protocols’ as facts. Hamas endorses ‘The Protocols’ in its Charter.

All the evidence, from the police services of European countries to the American FBI, and others who monitor hate incidents, shows that antisemitism remains a major force espe­cially in Europe, and that it is increas­ingly more prevalent, violent and murderous. In Britain, antisemitic incidents more than doubled in 2014 from the 2013 figures. In France, Jews comprise only 1% of the pop­u­la­tion, yet 50% of racist attacks are against Jews. In the USA, for the past ten-year period, attacks against Jews comprise 60 – 70% in the religious hate category. Even in rel­at­ively peaceful Australia, there was a 35% increase in antisemitic incidents, including har­ass­ment and assault, during the 2014 period compared to the previous year.

It is ordinary Jewish people being attacked and murdered in syn­agogues, Jewish schools, Jewish museums, kosher super­mar­kets, and other Jewish venues. They are targeted and attacked because they are Jews.

Muslims should be the last people to support Avnery’s assertion that the victims of racism and bigotry are to blame for the attacks against them. Victims of racist or bigoted attacks, whether Jews, Muslims, women, or others, are not to be blamed for being attacked just for being a member of that par­tic­u­lar segment of humanity.

Avnery posits other arguments that are irrel­ev­ant to his central claim. He notes that the Jew-hater, Wilhelm Marr, who coined the term ‘antisemitism’ had never met an Arab, but then asserts that the term also applies to Arabs because they are also Semites. In fact, the term, ‘antisemitism’ was used to replace the term ‘Juden-hass’ (Jew-hatred). It was invented to apply only to Jews.

Arabs in Europe may well be “despised, humi­li­ated and dis­crim­in­ated against”, as Avnery claims. But then so are Roma, Jews, Africans, and others. Yet none of these groups has produced terrorist groups and indi­vidu­als in their host countries who commit polit­ic­ally or ideo­lo­gic­ally motivated violence and murder against other ethnic com­munit­ies.

In the final analysis Avnery’s views are irrel­ev­ant. The fact is that even before Netanyahu called on Jews in Europe to come home to Israel, they were already leaving Europe, some for Israel, others for the USA, Canada and Australia, due to violent and murderous antisemitism.  Avnery can assert that they have nothing to fear from antisemitism but they are answering him by voting with their feet.

The sad fact is that antisemitism is increas­ing through­out the world, and that a pro­por­tion of those violent attacks are per­pet­rated by segments of European Muslim com­munit­ies. Hiding these facts, denying or min­im­ising antisemitism, does not help Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Europeans, Israelis, or Palestini­ans. The logic of denying or min­im­ising antisemitism can equally be applied to denying or min­im­ising Islamo­pho­bia. The end result is the under­min­ing of all genuine efforts at coun­ter­ing acts of bigotry and hatred of any kind.