Thursday, November 27, 2014

A Decade Later, "The New Anti-Semitism" Comes of Age



The Phyllis Chesler Organization

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A Decade Later, "The New Anti-Semitism" Comes of Age

by Fern Sidman
Israel National News
November 26, 2014
Originally written after 9/11, the updated version of this important work shows how much worse Jew-hatred has become. It cannot be wished away.
When I began reading Professor Phyllis Chesler's updated book "The New Anti-Semitism", I seemed to hear a collective sigh saying "this hasn't come a minute too soon." And thanks to the excellent research and prophetic analysis of the acclaimed author, lecturer and activist, the reader is afforded the necessary context and perspective with which to understand the invidious phenomenon of contemporary Jew hatred.
Originally written over a decade ago, Chesler's premise was and still is that classical anti-Semitism as espoused by such nihilists and evil madmen as Hitler and the scores that preceded him has now been deemed to be "politically correct" by the trendy denizens of Western academia and the "intellectual" crowd.
Chesler was among the first to have seen and denounced the suicidal alliance between Western intelligentsia and fundamental Islam. The anti-Semite needed a new and more acceptable veneer and the tiny place on the globe known as Israel could serve as the perfect cover. So Zionism does not equal racism, but anti-Zionism does. In fact, it is part of what makes the new anti-Semitism "new."
The al Aqsa intifada and the traumatic events of 9/11 served as the impetus for Dr. Chesler, as she drew a correlation between the kind of terrorism that had become endemic to the state of Israel and the Jihadic terrorism that was let loose upon the world. "War and a new kind of anti-Semitism had been declared," she writes.
In the decades prior to 9/11 and the advent of al Qaeda, Chesler was acutely aware of the festering increasingly ubiquitous anti-Semitism and details major events that she personally encountered during her years as part of the vanguard of the second wave feminist movement. The reader can palpably feel the resentment she encountered from those who championed the "politically correct" cause against Israel, now known as liberalism.

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