Anti-Semitism

This a series of posts explores anti-Semitism, its origins, the motivations behind it, its various manifestations, its consequences, and its possible future. The series also proposes a method for determining when an act or statement is anti-Semitic and concludes with some suggestions for remedying the consequences of anti-Semitism. A series of discussion questions is also included.

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 30 of 33, continued the discussion of a process for determining if an act or statement is anti-Semitic and was the first of three posts using examples to illustrate the process.

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 31 of 33, continues the discussion of a process for determining if an act or statement is anti-Semitic and is the second of three posts using examples to illustrate the process.

 Determining Anti-Semitism

The following examples are presented to illustrate these motivation and context elements.

Applying the foregoing process to acts of the United Nations, the UN appears to be anti-Semitic. In the Fall of 2015, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly and observed that while the President of Syria, Basheer Assad, used chemical weapons on his own people and has driven hundreds of thousands of his own citizens from their homes and into refugee camps, not one single UN resolution has been passed condemning these horrendous actions. On the other hand, he observed that the UN has passed over twenty resolutions condemning Israel. This episode was simply the latest in a long series of actions taken against Israel which are disproportionate to actions taken against other states (like, for example, there has been no condemnation of China for overrunning Tibet and attempting to obliterate that state and its religion; see the tests stated above: applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, and  Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis)^[1]. The UN has no reason such as the Arab States for such actions. Thus, it would seem that the only motivation of such severely skewed bias against Israel must be hatred of the Jewish State…..the basic reason from which all other actions are measured in making the determination of whether or not an act is anti-Semitic.

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 32 of 33, continues the discussion of a process for determining if an act or statement is anti-Semitic and is the third of three posts using examples to illustrate the process.

[1] Between 2001 and 2006, the UN General Assembly’s plenary and main committees adopted over 120 human rights-related resolutions focused on the State of Israel while adopting only ten resolutions about North Korea, Burma, and Sudan combined. The list of actions taken against Israel specifically while not taking similar actions against any other state goes on and on and on.