Op-Ed: "Unlike classic anti-Semitism ... demonizing Israel is mainstream"

Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, writes in the Wall Street Journal:

This past weekend was the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 Nazi pogrom against German Jews, and European commentary focused predictably on the traditional anti-Semitic threats from the far right. The recent rise of openly anti-Jewish parties in Greece and Hungary shows that this remains a problem that authorities and civil society must confront without equivocation. 

But in many parts of the Continent, things are more complex. As German author Henryk Broder quipped, if after 1945 Europe experienced anti-Semitism without Jews, we are now experiencing anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. As a 2011 study in eight European countries by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation concluded: "Data show anti-Semitism often appearing in the guise of criticism of Israel." Unlike classic anti-Semitism, which is now largely taboo in polite company, demonizing Israel is mainstream.

More: WSJ