35 Winter 2015-2016 societies in which they exist but also for theorists and practitioners of law whose task it is to oppose them with legal instruments and definitions. They are also a challenge for prosecutors and judges who have to decide in specific situations how a given utterance or statement, publication or action should be classified. As we know, antisemitism is commonly understood as beliefs and attitudes based on the feelings of reluctance toward, and hostility, hatred and contempt for Jews, pseudo-rational and pseudo-scientific justifications of defamation, discrimination and persecution of Jews as well as actions deriving from such justifications.5 Jews are targets of antisemitic hatred as individuals and as a national, ethnic, religious or cultural community. It is precisely this distinguishing, community-based factor: the manifestation of extreme hatred of Israel and Israelis, that nowadays targets Jewish minorities in Europe. All over the world, Jews are a community that is directly and closely associated with Israel, whether intentionally or not. For a number of reasons, Jews living in Austria are associated with Israel much more than Poles living in Austria are associated with Poland. Protection of individuals against this “community-oriented” character of hatred and discrimination, which affects them as individuals somehow connected with the State of Israel, remains a challenge for theorists and practitioners alike. Is any legally valid and binding definition capable of guaranteeing such protection? Diagnosis of the Phenomenon It is necessary to make a caveat at this point: the view according to which every criticism of Zionism or policy of Israeli authorities is a manifestation of antisemitism must be rejected as completely unfounded. Such criticism is not only admissible but actually advisable, since a critique is needed by each state and society committed to the principles of democracy and respect for human rights. It is inadmissible to use and abuse accusations of antisemitism directed at everybody who criticizes Israel. At the same time, if one is a careful observer of the attitudes and behaviors recorded in particular in Arab states and in many states of Western Europe, one cannot fail to notice that criticism is often unambiguously motivated by antisemitic beliefs and is manifested in the manner practiced for centuries by antisemites. Extremely violent protests against Israel’s military operation in Gaza staged by Scandinavian leftist movements in January 2009 in Oslo turned into hate-filled riots charged with intensity unheard of in Norway for decades. This is but one example of this trend. The slogans chanted against Israel very quickly degenerated into antisemitic slogans; the aggression was directed at the buildings of organizations and companies believed by the demonstrators to be “Jewish.”6 It is not possible to make an a priori assumption that anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel have never constituted manifestations of antisemitism, when in the context of the Middle East conflict Jews are called “Zionist Nazis,” a “true image of Satan,” “blood-thirsty barbarians” and “the source of rottenness,” while Israel is described as the “carcinogenic ulcer of the world” or a “stinking corpse.” This is how the problem was approached in a “Le Monde” editorial of November 6, 2003: Those who practice a discourse of systematic and one sided denunciation consisting in demonizing Israel, as is customary in some European circles, do so beyond the area of criticism of government policy. With this rhetoric we are led to believe that a state of such a criminal character should be excluded from the family of nations. This is an almost unnoticeable transition from the criticism of government to the refusal of its right to exist.… It is a fact that anti-Israeli anger is excellent food for new antisemitism.7 Research has confirmed that this “anti-Israeli anger,” most often connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, more broadly, the Middle East conflict, can be the direct cause of a growing number of verbal and physical manifestations of aggression against Jews who live outside of Israel.8 As indicated in the report of the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency, released in November 2013, as many as 73% of French Jews pointed out that the ArabIsraeli conflict and its repercussions (such as the boycott movement) significantly affected their feeling of safety in France.9 In turn, nearly 60% of Belgian and Italian Jews 5. Based on the definition proposed by Helen Fein, Explanations of the Origin and Evolution of Antisemitism, in THE PERSISTING QUESTION: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF MODERN ANTISEMITISM (Helen Fein ed., 1987). 6. Eirik Eiglad, THE ANTI-JEWISH RIOTS IN OSLO (2010). 7. Quoted in Andre Glucksmann, ROZPRAWA O NIENAWIŚCI, [THE DISCOURSE OF HATE] 82 (2008). 8. E.g. DECIPHERING THE NEW ANTISEMITISM (Alvin H. Rosenfeld ed., 2015). 9 "Discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States: experiences and perceptions of antisemitism", FRAREPORT, Nov. 2013, available at fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2013/ discrimination-and-hate-crime-against-jews-eu-memberstates-experiences-and (last visited Dec. 13, 2015).
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