In 1968, I found out that I had enough money to attend the Olympic Games in Mexico, so decided to both attend the games and visit my brother who was studying at an American University. I stopped for two days in New York City, and then travelled to where he was in the state of Illinois, before heading from there to Mexico. In New York, I was surprised to read in local newspapers about a local incident; its bottom line was that while a procession of one of the city's Jewish residents was passing through, some passers-by on the sidewalk began shouting that Hitler was right (in killing the Hews), which spurred a wide debate about anti-Semitism in a city where Jews constitute a large proportion of the population. It might be that Roger Cohen, the New York Times columnist, went back to the paper's issues of that week preceding the games in Mexico, and read the details of that incident, since I understood from reading one of his articles that he was in England in those days. His article is moving; it tells the story of the emigration of his father, the physician Sydney Cohen, from South Africa to London in the fifties, and how he [Roger] studied at the famous Westminster School near the parliament. However, he was not accepted to the Scholars' House, because he was Jewish. He then contests the reasons behind this, and refers to the film “An Education” starring Emma Thomson as a headmistress in the sixties, along with the film's numerous allusions to the racism prevailing at the time. I would not be commenting on Cohen's article, had it not reminded me of that old incident (with the hope that my memory is not playing tricks on me by setting the incident's date on the eve of the games in Mexico, instead of perhaps when I was visiting the United States at a later time, as I always start my trips in New York.) He also talks about the Westminster school where my eldest daughter studied in the nineties, before moving to Cambridge University-mentioned in Cohen's article-, and also where my son studied in the beginning of this decade, before enrolling in Oxford University. I never heard my son or daughter talk about anti-Semitism at school or at any of the two universities and I never heard their study colleagues complain. Most of my son's friends were Arabs, including Iraqis and Algerians, who used to visit our home, and I have never heard them protest about any form of racism against them. Does this mean that the old causes of anti-Semitism have all disappeared? I would not be so sure about it. While these causes might have changed in form and substance, the basis for anti-Semitism endures. I have experienced many forms of racism against Arabs in London, the south of France and Washington, mostly motivated by ignorance, to the extent of being comical. For instance, an American neighbour once asked me where we used to “park” our camels in our countries, when I have never ridden a camel in my life, even when I was touring the pyramids in Egypt. In fact, anti-Semitism in the West had underlying religious causes, since the Jews were accused of having killed Christ, with the rabbis telling the Romans “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” This racism was later on culminated with the Nazi holocaust and its six million victims. It then became difficult for the West to see the holocaust survivors around, because they were a constant reminder of what the West has committed against them, and it thus helped them occupy Palestine, rendering the Palestinians the next victims of the Christian West. Now, I do not deny that all our countries have witnessed anti-Semitic and racist practices for decades and centuries; however, these were motivated by ignorance before religion or anything else. When half of Europe's Jews were murdered, only one percent of North African ones were killed (See Robert Satloff's book “Arab Heroes of the Holocaust”). Oppression in our countries affected everyone, and its general rule was “In collective injustice, there is fairness to all”. Today, however, there are many Likudniks and neo-conservatives popularizing the idea that Jews were persecuted in Arab countries, as if Sunnis, Shiites, or even Christians were immune from persecution. This is not true at all, because everyone was oppressed ever since the beginning of the Ottoman Empire and its presumed Caliphates, until this very day. I thus argue that the religious causes for anti-Semitism in the West have receded, while the latent racism against Jews and all minorities survived. Then I also argue that the number one and most important cause for hatred against the Jews around the world today is Israel. This is one of the strangest paradoxes, as the country, which was established to house the world Jewry and protect it from anti-Semitism around the globe, has become the reason for the endurance of anti-Semitism. The original crime was the occupation of Palestine and the theft of its lands from its original inhabitants who were subsequently displaced; the crime then became the ongoing occupation, murder and destruction, to the extent that Israel's leaders today are wanted for war crimes in courts around the world. This situation shall not change until the reasons behind it are eliminated. [email protected]
