MP Michael Grove: Anti-Semitism is finding new allies on both Right and Left

Michael Gove, a Conservative Member of the British Parliament, writes in the Times (UK):

"What is it that has marked the most sustained terror campaign in the Middle East? What was it that characterised [Klaus] Barbie's period in charge of security in wartime Lyons? What drove the arguments made by those survivors of the Baader-Meinhof gang who are still politically active today, such as Horst Mahler? And what tie binds Carlos the Jackal, the renegade terrorist of the 1970s, to Tariq Aziz, the Establishment face of prewar Iraq?

One thing unites them all: anti-Semitism. ...

Whether it comes from the hard Left or the wildest shores of the Right, whether it masquerades as liberation rhetoric or brave truth-telling about hidden power brokers, anti-Semitism is finding new allies, making new connections, gathering new force. Something is clearly awry in our culture. The Iranian Government holds conferences to discuss the historical truth of the Holocaust, yet some newspapers try to minimise the danger from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defend him from "misquotation". Learned magazines devote thousands of words to the pernicious nature of Jewish influence on Western governments, and senior commentators then celebrate the delicious courage of this novel argument. Academics, without apparently being conscious of the irony, argue for a boycott of Israeli thinkers in the name of freedom. It is one of the grave distempers of our times, this prejudice towards the Jewish people, their nation and their collective identity. And one of the tasks of our times is its exposure, its combating and its defeat."
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