Antiglobalism’s Jewish Problem... [View All]

[cantwealljustgetalong]

Anti-Semitism is again on the rise. Why now? Blame the backlash against globalization. As public anxiety grows over lost jobs, shaky economies, and political and social upheaval, the Brownshirt and Birkenstock crowds are seeking solace in conspiracy theories. And in their search for the hidden hand that guides the new world order, modern anxieties are merging with old hatreds and the myths on which they rest.

There is no shortage of symbols representing peace, justice, and economic equality. The dove and the olive branch. The peace sign. The rainbow flag. Even the emblem of the United Nations. So why did some protesters at the 2003 World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, display the swastika?

Held two months prior to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, this year’s conference—an annual grassroots riposte to the well-heeled World Economic Forum in Davos—had the theme, “Another World is Possible.” But the more appropriate theme might have been “Yesterday’s World is Back.” Marchers among the 20,000 activists from 120 countries carried signs reading “Nazis, Yankees, and Jews: No More Chosen Peoples!” Some wore T-shirts with the Star of David twisted into Nazi swastikas. Members of a Palestinian organization pilloried Jews as the “true fundamentalists who control United States capitalism.” Jewish delegates carrying banners declaring “Two peoples—Two states: Peace in the Middle East” were assaulted.

Porto Alegre provides just one snapshot of an unfolding phenomenon known as the “new anti-Semitism.” Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the oldest hatred has been making a global comeback, culminating in 2002 with the highest number of anti-Semitic attacks in 12 years. Not since Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led pogrom against German Jews in 1938, have so many European synagogues and Jewish schools been desecrated. This new anti-Semitism is a kaleidoscope of old hatreds shattered and rearranged into random patterns at once familiar and strange. It is the medieval image of the “Christ-killing” Jew resurrected on the editorial pages of cosmopolitan European newspapers. It is the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement refusing to put the Star of David on their ambulances. It is Zimbabwe and Malaysia—nations nearly bereft of Jews—warning of an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world’s finances. It is neo-Nazis donning checkered Palestinian kaffiyehs and Palestinians lining up to buy copies of Mein Kampf.

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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13958