Addressing the 2010 Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, the US State Department’s special envoy for monitoring antisemitism, spoke plainly:
[W]hat I hear from our 194 posts around the world, and from our close relationship with NGOs in the US in other nations, opposition to a policy by the State of Israel morphs into anti-Semitism easily and often. We record huge increases in anti-Semitism whenever there is activity in the Middle East. This form of anti-Semitism is more difficult for many to identify – but if all Jews are held responsible for the decisions of the sovereign State of Israel, when governments call upon and intimidate their Jewish communities to condemn Israeli actions, when academics from Israel are boycotted – this is not objecting to a policy – this is anti-Semitism. Our State Department uses Natan Sharansky’s framework for identifying when someone or a government crosses the line – when Israel is demonized, when Israel is held to different standards than the rest of the countries, and when Israel is delegitimized. These cases are not disagreements with a policy of Israel, this is anti-Semitism. The US is often the only “no” vote in international bodies who seem to have an obsession with condemning Israel.
Jeremy Corbyn so far has been allowed to repeat endlessly that antisemitism will not be tolerated in the Labour party. But someone in the media needs to pin him down on exactly what his understanding of antisemitism is. He should be put on the spot: Does he agree with with Hannah Rosenthal or not? If not, we can finally dismiss his protestations for the self-serving BS they are.
