On July 12th 2006, the second Lebanon War began – precipitated by a Hizbollah attack against an Israeli Military post on the Israeli side of the border, involving the killing of eight Israeli soldiers and the capture of two – Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

The retaliatory campaign launched by Israel was an unmitigated failure and a humanitarian disaster on three major counts: First, successive waves of Israeli air-attacks against Hizbollah-dominated areas in Southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and against the infrastructure of Lebanon itself – bridges, airports, electricity power stations, ports – failed to stop Hizbollah fighters firing thousands of missiles into Israel – some reaching as far as Haifa – that caused wide-scale damage to both Israeli and Arab agricultural land and buildings in the north of the country; second, over 1200 Lebanese civilians were killed, as well as over 100 Israeli civilians; third, the two abducted soldiers remain in captivity.

A few weeks ago, the long-awaited interim report of the Winograd Commission in Israel made it clear that both the politicians and the generals had committed a catalogue of errors. Even before the report was published on April 30th, Dan Halutz, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, lost his job in the midst of the fierce internal wrangles that beset the Israeli political and military establishment after the war (Ha’aretz, 15.02.07). Nevertheless, Ehud Olmert has hung on to power despite the report’s direct criticism of his role in the debacle. But the Israeli leadership did not simply mess up on a grand scale, much more important from the perspective not only of the Israeli public, but also of the Lebanese on both sides of the political/religious divide, Israel lost the war; for the first time in the life of the modern State of Israel, the Israeli army did not prevail. So, Hizbollah, armed – and re-armed – by Syria and Iran, remains a potent threat to Israel, and Lebanon remains divided, with Hizbollah still in control of the southern region of the country.

Israel failed to defeat Hizbollah – with all that that means for the on-going insecurity of the State. But although limited in scope to the territories of Lebanon and Israel, the impact of the war was not confined to those two countries. It wasn’t simply that media and governments alike around the globe criticised Israel’s conduct of the war, while failing to criticise Hizbollah. No, it’s not just that Hizbollah were let off the hook: some anti-war protesters, portraying Israel as the sole aggressor, also expressed their protest in anti-Jewish terms. Do you recall the placards on the anti-war demonstrations proclaiming that ‘We are all Hizbollah now!’? Do you remember the graffiti on the front-wall of our synagogue that appeared one day in the midst of the war? ‘NUKE THE JEWS’; KILL THE KIDS; JEWS YOU ARE NEXT’; with a hooked-nose caricature in profile to the left of the text – proclaiming the Nazi look-alike message in un-mistakable terms.

In the eyes of some, Jews are the enemy – not just Israel. And the fact is, for some, Israel is the enemy because it is a Jewish state. But the entanglement of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is tricky – mainly because those who condemn Zionism do so from very different angles: For far-Right anti-Semites, who demonise the Jewish people as an evil power controlling the world, anything Jews are connected with is to be despised and vilified; for Left anti-Zionists, Israel is by definition a racist, colonialist state; for Islamist extremists, who distort Koranic teaching – while buying into both far-Right Jew-hatred and Left critiques of western colonialism – Jews are demonic infidels and a Jewish presence in what they regard as Muslim land, is completely intolerable. And yes, as Richard Littlejohn’s Channel 4 documentary, ‘Britain’s War Against the Jews’, screened last Monday (09.07.07), revealed, an Arabic translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf can be purchased right now from a local shop in London’s East End, along with the daily paper and a bottle of milk.

How weird and disturbing is this: The far-Right, the Left – in various guises – and Islamist extremists – all natural enemies of one another – all lined up together against world enemy number one: Israel. The far-Right position is completely coherent and the extreme Islamist position is completely coherent – although they are very strange bed-fellows – but the Left: the natural home of so many idealist Jews intent on mending the world, from Marx and Trotsky onwards? With so many oppressive and tyrannical regimes to challenge around the globe, how is it that Israel has been elevated to the top of the Left hit-list?

The Left critique of Imperialism is also coherent – but on at least two counts, the Left vilification of Israel is anti-Semitic: First, Israel was not established as An American-backed European colonial outpost. The establishment of the State of Israel was the outcome of late 19th century political Zionist nationalism – itself a response to European anti-Semitism – meeting post-Holocaust guilt. Let us not forget, the newly-founded United Nations, voted, in November 1947, to partition the land still governed by the British mandate, into two states, Israel and Palestine – a solution that was rejected by all the Arab leaders at that time. Second, the Left vilification of Zionism and Israel is anti-Semitic because it denies the legitimacy of self-determination solely in the case of the Jewish people, while championing the self-determination of all other state-less peoples – including the Palestinians. ‘We are all Hizbollah now’: the sheer absurdity of liberals, socialists and pacifists attacking what they see as ‘racist’, ‘imperialist’ Israel, while supporting authoritarian, Shi’a extremists, intent on imposing a Theocratic dictatorship beggars belief.

Of course, beneath the layers of rhetoric, there are the Palestinians, oppressed, and denied their rights by an occupying power. But the illegitimacy of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands captured in the Six-Day War in June 1967 does not mean that the State of Israel is illegitimate. If the Left wants to demonstrate that it is not anti-Semitic, all it has to do is be pro-Palestine and pro-Israel, and support a two-state solution.

The blanket Left vilification of Israel is anti-Semitism – pure and simple. But even when the Left is not attacking Israel, Left anti-Semitism sometimes rears its ugly head. Richard Littlejohn’s programme unearthed much anti-Semitism on all sides – including that infamous front-cover of the New Statesman: did you see it when it first came out on January 14th 2002; the one with a large gold Star of David piercing the Union Jack – and the caption ‘Kosher Conspiracy’? The editor, Peter Wilby, later apologised for ‘unwittingly’ giving ‘the impression that the New Statesman was following an Anti-Semitic tradition’ (Jewish Chronicle, 08.02.02). But can such blatant anti-Jewish images and words really be conjured up ‘unwittingly’?

Perhaps: after all anti-Semitism is so all-pervasive, paradoxically, it is quite possible not to notice it. The historian Robert Wistrich has called Anti-Semitism ‘The Longest Hatred’ (Anti-Semitism: The Longest Hatred, Methuen, 1991). But it’s not just that – a consuming hatred that spans millennia – it is a very particular kind of extreme antipathy, because the hated ones – the Jews – are not just despised, we are perceived to be the controlling force in the world, responsible for every tyranny – from Capitalism and Imperialism to Satanism and Communism – depending on the particular perspective of the Jew-haters concerned. Whatever is wrong with the world, Jews are, ultimately, what is wrong with the world. We are the eternal scapegoat – an expression derived, ironically, from the ancient Temple ritual for Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), when the High Priest would select two goats by lot – one to be slaughtered as a sin-offering, the other to be discharged to the wilderness as Azazel, bearing the sins of the community (Leviticus 16).

Moreover, because we are essentially wrong – in our essence – a malevolent force in the world ultimately responsible for all wrongs, any effective protest we raise against Jew-hatred, only reinforces this perception: Take the current Jewish-led campaign against the Left-led boycott of Israeli academics and products: our ability to mobilise against Israel’s detractors only goes to prove that Jews hold the power. Even after the Shoah, Jews are still perceived as the perpetrators, not the victims. Of course, Jews, any Jews, can do wrong, just like anyone else can do wrong. Of course, the Israeli government is acting oppressively towards the Palestinians, just like the Chinese regime is acting oppressively towards the people of Tibet. But that doesn’t mean that Jews are essentially wrong and that Israel is essentially wrong.

I don’t have the time today to explore in detail the causes and the development of ‘the longest hatred’ – but two linked factors may help to explain the extent and persistence of anti-Semitism during the last two millennia: the combined impact of Roman Imperialism on the last ancient Jewish state, and the empowerment of Christianity, following the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Rome in the 3rd Century.

Let me unpack this a little: The Roman Empire was the last colonial power to conquer the Jewish nation. In just over a week’s time, we will commemorate Tishah B’Av, the ninth day of Av, a date that marks the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. While a remnant survived the onslaught, the last vestiges of Jewish nationhood were destroyed by the Romans along with the Temple and the city of Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago – and large numbers of Jews went into exile, becoming refugees: The wandering Jews; an old, old story. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the division between Jews and Christians – which began with the Jewish followers of Jesus, and was augmented by Paul’s conversion of the Gentiles – was institutionalised. Thereafter, Christianity not only became the majority religion, pushing Judaism to the margins, it was also in a position to disseminate the message that the ancient covenant between God and the Jewish people was now defunct.

But despite this, Judaism and Jewish life persisted – and so remained a continual challenge to the veracity of Christian belief: The Jews of Jesus’ day had not only rejected him as the Messiah, the Jews continued to reject ‘the risen Christ’. Thus Christian Jew-hatred was born. And even after gaining political and economic rights in modern times, the majority of Jews failed to assimilate: still scattered as minority communities in other people’s lands, stubbornly clinging to our particular ways, ever-vulnerable to persecution.

Interestingly, with this week’s parashah, the double-portion, Mattot-Mas’ey, we conclude the reading of the Book of Numbers – and also come to the end of the first journey of the newly-formed people Israel – a forty year odyssey that began with the Exodus from slavery and ended on the Eastern shore of the River Jordan. That wilderness journey was supposed to be the last journey. But it wasn’t. The subsequent conquest of Canaan was supposed to be simple. But it wasn’t. And even once the native peoples there were subdued – more or less – successive foreign powers invaded and conquered the land; the Romans, who finally destroyed the ancient state once and for all, were the last of a long line.

In other words, living in the land our people first entered over 3000 years ago (c. 1250 BCE), has always involved living with uncertainty, just as living as a minority in the Diaspora remains insecure – to say the least: So, what are we to do? What we have always done – despite vilification and hatred, despite pogroms and genocide: Live. U’vacharta bachayyim! Choose Life! (Deut. 30:19). Refuse, in the words of Emil Fackenheim, to give Hitler ‘a posthumous victory (‘The 614th Commandment’ in The Jewish Return Into History, Schocken Books, New York, 1978). And choose not only to survive as Jews, but also to pursue the values of justice and peace that lie at the heart of Jewish life. May this be our will. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Ve’rei’ut

14th July 2007 – 28th Tammuz 5767