THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE

The Wall Street Journal says that anti-semitism is still prevalent in Europe, just not in ways you might expect:

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," that Russian forgery purporting to reveal a Jewish cabal bent on world domination, may not be acceptable dinner conversation any more. But repackage the sentiment as criticism of Israel, and say that the Jewish lobby controls U.S. foreign policy against "true" American interests, and voilà, you are no longer dabbling in nasty old tropes about sinister Jewish power, but in bold political analysis.

Thus, when former British foreign minister Jack Straw, during a conference last month in the House of Commons, listed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its allegedly "unlimited" funds among the greatest obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, he thought nothing controversial about it. For many Europeans, U.S. support for Israel—the only democratic ally in a sea of dictatorships, terrorism and civil war—remains so unfathomable that they can only explain it as the product of nefarious Jewish money for equally nefarious purposes.

If a Labour MP can speak publicly like this without triggering any rebuke from his or other parties or from the mainstream media, one can only imagine what is said privately in daily European life.

Particularly in Britain, where this is almost a norm. To be sure, a lot of the anti-semitism in Europe now is the product of Muslim communities. But, even among indigenous Europeans, it's still obviously a terrible problem, one that may still take centuries to repair.