SATIRE
Our media have no trouble identifying ‘racists’ – disagree that the Treaty of Waitangi gives Maori sole ownership of the nation’s water, oxygen and road signs and you are one. However, they do have great difficulty spotting the anti-Semites among us. Or rather among them.
Time to offer a helping hand.
HOW TO SPOT AN ANTI-SEMITE
1. Their vocabulary
Defenders of Israel and the Jewish people are often said to label any criticism of the state of Israel as anti-Semitic. But it’s not the criticism, it’s the abuse. And the particularly nasty form the abuse takes. Calling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide’ for example. If the Israelis are attempting genocide they are doing it all wrong – the population of Gaza is young and booming. This is shown every time an Israeli bomb goes off and takes out a family of eight particularly photogenic toddlers. At least according to Hamas. If Israel really wanted to exterminate every last Palestinian in the Gaza Strip, the IDF could do it in a weekend.
It is also claimed that Gaza is a ‘concentration camp’ – a concentration camp with shopping malls, swimming pools and ice cream shops. I don’t remember anyone in Belsen getting to enjoy a double scoop of rum and raisin while floating on a lilo.
So why use these terms? They (including half the Green party’s MPs) are indulging in the long-established anti-Semitic practice of Jew-baiting: taunting the Jews with their tragic past.
2. Their only concern is Israel
Your typical anti-Semite has a strange (or not so strange) obsession with the perceived transgressions of Israel that leaves no time for outrage at the many other injustices that bedevil the peoples of the world. Saudi Arabia has killed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Muslims in Yemen. Not a word from the Chloe Swarbricks of the world. No mention from them either of the plight of the Uyghurs in China, the Christians in Syria, the Rohingyas in Myanmar or the Wigistanis of southern Zankari. OK, I made the last one up but they wouldn’t know that because they maintain a complete ignorance of any conflict in the world not involving Israel.
3. They make excuses for the enemies of Israel that they never extend to Israel
When Hamas starts raping women and children (yes, AND children) it’s due to the ‘brutalisation’ of Palestinians by Israel. When Hamas kill 260 young people at a music festival it is, in the words of Massey University lecturer Mohan Dutta (rhymes with ‘nutter), ‘a powerful exemplar of decolonizing resistance’. But Israel, founded by a traumatised people reeling from an attempt to exterminate them and surrounded by nations and groups intent on a repeat performance, is expected to act with the restraint of an elderly yoga instructor.
4. They have ‘questions’ about the Holocaust.
Questions are all fine and good in the pursuit of knowledge. I have many myself. What’s the best single-malt whiskey? (I’m prepared to devote the rest of my life to answering that one) What can a middle-aged man do to attract the attention of twenty-something part-time models working at Starbucks? (no answers yet) Where did I put my glasses? (usually on my head). Less reasonable are questions about smoke stacks, Zyklon B and how many Jews were gassed in Auschwitz versus how many were worked to death, accidentally on purpose.
5. They have no sense of humour
The Jews invented funny. And also modern physics and bagels. Well, physics has been a mixed blessing (cough…nuclear bomb) and they can keep those indigestible little rings of gluten, but my life would be poorer without Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Groucho Marx. Anti-Semites on the other hand are only funny accidentally. Like when Mel Gibson drunkenly claimed ‘Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world’ before calling the arresting female officer ‘sugar tits’.
5. They notice ‘bad Jews’ but never ‘good Jews’.
This is seen on the Right where Karl Marx’s Jewish origins are often remarked on, but seldom Ayn Rand’s or Milton Friedman’s. George Soros’s influence is decried but casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (who spent $250 million on conservative causes, 75 of it going to a Trump Super Pac) is forgotten. For every immoral Harvey Weinstein, there is a Ben Shapiro who makes a boy scout look like Hugh Hefner.
6. They are…nuts.
Often anti-Semitism is just the most obvious manifestation of a more general struggle with reality. Musical ‘artist’ Kanye West claimed he was going ‘death con 3 on Jewish people’. The same guy who named his children North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm. When he isn’t naming his kids after places on Google Maps he’s claiming to be ‘one of the world’s most powerful humans’ and running for president for ‘the Birthday Party’ because ‘when I win it’s gonna be everyone’s birthday’. Famous Jew hater Ezra Pound spent many years in a lunatic asylum in Washington DC and his last year completely silent, which if you have ever heard one of his poems must be considered a blessing. The most fervent anti-Semite among the top Nazis, Heinrich Himmler, even unsettled Hitler himself with the belief he was the reincarnation of a medieval King called Henry the Fowler.
That is always the question when considering the motives of the anti-Semite: are they mad or merely, as in the case of ‘Queers for Palestine’, unbelievably stupid? Or worse, possessed of a political cynicism so dark it deserves to be called evil.