Anti-Semitism Now Directed Against Israel as a Nation

British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks recently alerted the world to a new kind of anti-Semitism. In a London area lecture he warned: "Antisemites have attacked our religion and our race. Now they are going after the Jewish nation."

In other words, another mutation of this virulent spiritual disease has risen to plague mankind. As Sacks explained, "Unlike its predecessors, the new anti-semitism focuses not on Judaism as a religion, nor on Jews as a race, but on Jews as a nation" ("We Face a New Kind of Hatred," The Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 16, 2007, p. 30).

Some people believe that the Jewish people are the only ethnic group not entitled to have a state of their own. Referring to a quote from Israeli historian Amos Oz, Sacks wrote: "In the 1930s, antisemites declared, 'Jews to Palestine.' Today they shout, 'Jews out of Palestine' . . . they don't want us to be there; they don't want us to be here; they don't want us to be" (ibid.). GN