There are many themes in anti-semitism. A prominent one, at least in contemporary anti-semitism, is nazism and the holocaust: Israel and the Jews in general are often depicted as imitators of the Nazis, with the Palestinians in the role of the Jews and the Jews in the role of the Germans:
(source)
(source)
And then there’s this image, inspired by an iconic photo of the Warsaw ghetto:
This is the original:
Photo from Jürgen Stroop's report to Heinrich Himmler from May 1943, titled “The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!”. One of the best-known pictures of World War II.
Pingback: France’s Jews urged to take extra security measures « This Day – One Day
Just a point of curiosity: these cartoons are definitely anti-Israeli in nature…but are they anti-Semitic? The Palestinians are Semitic also, no? (Google definition: A member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs). Of course I am assuming here that it is the Palestinians (or some sympathisers of theirs) who are coming up with these disturbing images.
I apologize if this is too sensitive a topic – I have seen on other forums that this is a hugely divisive topic for people on both sides, and do not mean to provoke or belittle.
It’s odd, but someone made a similar point in the comments to a previous post in this series: http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/antisemitism-a-collection-of-images-3/
The images above do indeed originate from Arab media. While it’s possible to be anti-Israel without being anti-semitic – in the traditional sense of anti-Jewish – we do see in practice that this is often not the case. A lot of anti-Israel imagery uses traditional anti-semitic themes.
How is comparing Nazi Germany to Israel anti-semitic? It is not a “traditional” anti-semitic theme. Would changing the Star of David to the word “Israel” suddenly change your view? How exactly is the “Arab” media supposed to criticize Israel without being “anti-semitic”?
Perhaps the stereotype — that all people who oppose the actions by the Israeli government are anti-semitic — is itself anti-Muslim theme? At the very least, it seems like a way to demonize opposing views. It’s interesting that this blog remains silent about the injustice and violation of human rights in the Middle East — never mentioning the ongoing colonization and destabilization of the Middle East by Western powers. (Are such comparisons to imperial/colonial Europe “racist” or “anti-West”?)
I’m not among those who oppose or try to silence opponents of Israel (indeed I’ve criticized Israel’s human rights record many times on this blog). However, criticizing an opponent by calling him or her a Nazi is plain silly and not even proper criticism. And in the case of Israel and Jews, it’s obviously anti-Semitic since it harks back to the traditional theme of blood libel.