by HADAS THIER ZIONISMTHE political movement to create an
exclusively Jewish state in Palestinehas always accused its
critics of anti-Semitism. Today, as the racism and brutality of
the Israeli state reaches increasingly grotesque proportions, a
Zionist propaganda machine is churning out a flurry of articles,
books, and arguments that declare the rise of a "new anti-
Semitism." This has served as a convenient smear against
advocates of Palestinian rights. In a front-page article called
"The Return of Anti-Semitism," New York magazine opened with the
lines, "Israel has become the flash pointand the excusefor a
global explosion of an age-old syndrome. Why has hating the Jews
become politically correct in many places?"1 And in Never Again?
The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, Abraham Foxman says, "I am
convinced we currently face as great a threat to the safety and
security of the Jewish people as the one we faced in the 1930sif
not a greater one."2 Foxmans argument can be summed up as
follows: Zionism simply ref