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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Dude, mommies with their kids are getting punched or killed on the streets of NYC. I really think the piece in question (at least the revised version) had little to do with the roots of Jew hating. How do you see this dreck article as actually responding to the Stephens’ piece?

Maybe you didn't get to this paragraph?

Unfortunately, the reaction to this renewed outbreak of anti-Semitism has partially served to reinforce it. First, consider Stephens and other Americans or Europeans who now equate harsh opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism. Stephens writes, “It’s no surprise that Jew hatred has made a comeback, albeit under new guises. Anti-Zionism has taken the place of anti-Semitism as a political program directed against Jews.” Personally, I consider a two-state solution, which would allow Palestinians’ self-government, the best of options, but if Israel continues to rule over the West Bank and indirectly over Gaza, the only other democratic option is to grant the Palestinian Arabs that Israel now subjugates the right to participate fully in Israel’s political and economic life. That would end the Jewish state as such, but if Israel continues its current colonial policies, it is the only just alternative. What Stephens and the Israeli government do is equate anti-Zionism with opposition to Judaism itself. In doing so, they don’t combat, but reinforce, the second kind of anti-Semitism rooted in the Israeli occupation. They are not foes, but enablers, of the growing anti-Semitism.

If it were true that anti-Zionism is surrogate anti-Semitism, which I do not believe, I nonetheless don't see it as motivating the attacks we have seen recently.