Rising from the Muck: The New Anti-Semitism in Europe

Rating:
Summary: A frightening revelation of new trends
Review: There's a powerful new strain of anti-Semitism on the loose, blending old routines of hatred with new arguments and anti-Israel feelings: this movement is on the rise in France and elsewhere, reveals Radu Ioanid in his foreword to Pierre-Andre Taguieff's Rising From The Muck: The New Anti-Semitism In Europe. This impressive written and presented treatise by Pierre-Andre Taguieff (a philosopher, historian, and research director who teaches political studies in Paris) is a frightening revelation of new trends and the informational resource to go to when seeking a survey of anti-Jewish incidents and attacks on Jewish symbols. Rising From The Muck aptly documents hundreds of attacks against French Jews in the last few years, considers the underlying sentiments and methods of these new attacks, and studies these case histories as evidence of the rise of a new antisemitism in Europe as a whole.


Rating:
Summary: Characterizes modern Judeophobia
Review: This short but well-annotated book makes some worthwhile points. It starts by showing that the repulsive "zionism" opposed by modern antisemites is an imaginary construct. Actual Zionism "has always been the national movement of a Jewish people deprived of support, a hunted people, a victim of genocide which risked annihilation if it made a mistake." Meanwhile, the international pampering of Arafat's anti-Israelis is "without precedent in modern history," a fact that has encouraged Arabs to reject compromises and peace proposals.

Taguieff supplies us with six main features of the "new global Judeophobia." They are (1) massive and virulent use of anti-racism for anti-Jewish purposes (such as at the infamous Durban conference in 2001), (2) denunciation of the "Holocaust industry," (3) radical critiques of neoliberal globalization, (4)massive uncritical reception of the myth of innocent Arab victims of Jewish persecution, (5) extreme Israelophobic discourse, and (6) monopolization of the words "racism" and "genocide" to benefit Muslims and Arabs and to obliterate the history of their victims.

All in all, it is a scholarly discussion of the ideas behind modern antisemitism.