This week, the Spanish Foreign Minister felt compelled to defend Prime Minister Zapatero from charges of anti-Semitism.

Zapatero had donned the black-checked keffiyeh that is the symbol of Palestinian determination to destroy the Jewish State and criticized Israel for using “abusive force that does not protect innocent human beings.”1

It was all too familiar.

On any given day one can find some eminent European – a university professor, high-ranking churchman, a parliamentarian – gravely explaining to reporters that harsh and disproportionate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic.

And their protestations sound plausible. After all, this is not your grandfather’s anti-Semitism. Israel’s highly-educated critics do not refuse to dine in restaurants that serve Jews, use epithets like “kike,” or believe that Jews control the international financial markets and are more likely than others to engage in shady business practices.

At least that is what I assumed until someone did the study.

Two Connecticut professors got curious about the constant denials that extremely harsh critics of Israel were anti-Semitic. Edward H. Kaplan, the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences at Yale, and Charles A. Small, Director of Urban Studies, Southern Connecticut State University, decided to examine the issue in formal way. Their paper, “Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe,” appears in the August issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2

Kaplan and Small ask whether individuals expressing strong anti-Israel sentiments, such as the statement by Ted Honderich, Emeritus Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, that “those Palestinians who have resorted to necessary killing have been right to try to free their people, and those who have killed themselves in the cause of their people have indeed sanctified themselves,” are more likely than the general population to also support in such old-style anti-Semitic slurs as “Jews have too much power in our country today.”

The correlation was almost perfect. In a survey of 5,000 Europeans in ten countries, people who believed that the Israeli soldiers “intentionally target Palestinian civilians,” and that “Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians” are justified, also believed that “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind,” “Jews have a lot of irritating faults,” and “Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.”

The study’s other interesting finding was that only a small fraction of Europeans believe any of these things. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism flourish among the few, but those few are over-represented in Europe’s newspapers, its universities, and its left-wing political parties.

For Americans who do not read the European press, the level of raw anti-Semitism in European intellectual circles can be shocking.

A couple of years ago the French Ambassador at the Court of St. James, Daniel Bernard, told his companions at a London dinner party that Israel is a “shitty little country,” “Why,” he asked, “should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?”3

Those people? Moderates heard echoes of old-fashioned anti-Semitism. But the French Foreign Ministry stood behind their ambassador, calling assertions that Bernard’s remarks were anti-Semitic "malevolent insinuations."4

The British press agreed. Columnist Deborah Orr defended Ambassador Bernard in the Independent. “Anti-Semitism is disliking all Jews, anywhere, and anti-Zionism is just disliking the existence of Israel and opposing those who support it,” explained Orr, who holds “the honest view that in my experience Israel is shitty and little.”5

Columnist Richard Woods summed up the attitude of the European intelligentsia when he wrote that Ambassador Bernard’s remark was only “apparently anti-Semitic”.6

Kaplan and Small have shown otherwise. When you read, for example, the opinion of Marc Gentilli, president of the French Red Cross, that the idea of allowing Israel to join the International Red Cross and use the Star of David on its ambulances is “disgusting,”7 you can be pretty sure that he, along with Ambassador Bernard, Prime Minister Zapatero, President Chirac, and the rest of Europe’s harsh critics of Israel, are very probably the kind of old-fashioned anti-Semites who just don’t like Jews very much.

Post Script 7-23-06

After writing this essay, I learned that Zapatero may have had his own Daniel-Bernard-at-the-dinner-party moment. According to some reports, at a dinner party in late 2005, Zapatero loosed a tirade of extreme anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric that ended with the phrase:"Es que a veces hasta se entiende que haya gente que puede justificar el holocausto" which means:"At times one can even understand that there might be people who could justify the Holocaust."

The conversation was reported on a Spanish talk-radio program. This is the Spanish article that has been echoed on a number of Spanish language blogs:

Vidal Quadras habla del alegato antisemita del Presidente Zapatero.

En el programa radiofónico español ¨Mas se perdio en Cuba¨ de Intereconomia, Alejo Vidal Quadras dirigente del PP narro un suceso ocurrido hace unos meses entre el matrimonio Benarroch y la familia Zapatero. Por lo visto durante la cena, Zapatero profirió alegatos antisionistas y antisemitas de modo tan exagerado que los Benarroch (familia judía de peleteros) tuvieron que llamarle la atencion por el tono extremista de su discurso antisemita. Sin embargo, Zapatero estaba extasiado y continuo y continuo hasta que solto esta perla : ¨es que se entiende que haya quien justifique el Holocausto¨.

Despues de esta frase el matrimonio Benarroch se levanto y se largo de la Moncloa, donde se celebraba la cena, y desde entonces no han querido saber nada del presidente del Gobierno.

English translation:

Vidal Quadras Talks About President Zapatero's Anti-Semitic Tirade

"It is understandable that someone might justify the Holocaust."

On the program"Más se perdió en Cuba" on Spanish Radio Intereconomía, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, leader of the PP [Partida Popular or People's Party] told of an event that occurred a few months ago with Mr. and Mrs. Benarroch and the Zapatero family. Apparently during dinner Zapatero hurled anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic tirades so excessive that the Benarrochs (a Jewish family of furriers) had to call his attention to the extremist tone of his anti-Semitic discourse. Nevertheless Zapatero was ecstatic and kept on going until he threw out this pearl:"It is understandable that someone might justify the Holocaust."

After those words the Benarrochs got up and left the [Palace of] Moncloa, where the dinner was being held, and since then have wanted nothing to do with the President of the Government.

You can follow a link to a podcast of a Spanish radio broadcast in which Vidal-Quadras supposedly narrates the incident. The speakers are not identified, but listening to the podcast, it sounds as though the person who tells the story is one of the talk show hosts, not Vidal-Quadras.

And what he says on the radio is:"Es que a veces hasta se entiende que haya gente que puede justificar el holocausto." Not:"es que se entiende que haya quien justifique el Holocausto."

The quote on the podcast would translate as:"At times one can even understand that there might be people who could justify the Holocaust."

Notes

1 “Spanish Minister Objects – Says Criticism of Israel Not anti-Semitic” International Herald Tribune, July 20, 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/20/news/spain.php

2 Kaplan, Edward H. and Small, Charles A., “Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50 No. 4, August 2006, pp. 548-561 PDF

3 Tom Gross, “ ‘A Shitty Little Country,’ Prejudice and Abuse in Paris and London,” National Review, Jan 10, 2002. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross011002.shtml

4 “’Anti-Semitic’ French Envoy Under Fire,” BBC Dec. 20, 2001 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1721172.stm

5 Deborah Orr, “I’m fed up being called an anti-Semite,” Independent, December 21, 2001, cited in Tom Gross, “ ‘A Shitty Little Country,’ Prejudice and Abuse in Paris and London,” National Review, Jan 10, 2002. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross011002.shtml

6 Richard Woods in the, “When silence speaks volumes” London Sunday Times, December 23, 2001, cited in Tom Gross, “ ‘A Shitty Little Country,’ Prejudice and Abuse in Paris and London,” National Review, Jan 10, 2002. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross011002.shtml

7 Davis, Avi, “A Star-Crossed Resignation,” Washington Times, Jan 2, 2002, http://www.mideasttruth.com/mda2.html