Why Not Israel?

I noted that Israel wasn't mentioned as a victim of terrorism in the UK Sun. Apparently, neither Israel nor Iraq were mentioned in a Tony Blair speech. Michael Ledeen suspects that antisemitism had a role to play:

The final component of British blindness on the subject of the Middle East is one we are not supposed to talk about in good company: the Jews. Yet I don't know any country this side of the Levant in which there has been so much anti-Semitism, so many complaints that "Zionists," "Likudniks," "Jewish hawks," and — the single epithet that sums up all of the above — "neocons" had manipulated America and its poodle Blair into the ghastly blunder of Iraq. The BBC has devoted hours of radio and television to slanderous misrepresentations of places like the American Enterprise Institute, where I sit, and of such Jewish luminaries as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, and Paul Wolfowitz. Sometimes it seemed one was reading translations from the Saudi or Egyptian or Iranian press, so total was the hatred of the Jews.

This fit nicely with the desire of the British establishment to carry on their special relationship with some Arab leaders, and many British elites often seemed a micro-step away from saying that the world would be a better place if only Israel weren't there. The Middle East would be so much easier, you know. And when London was bombed, you can be sure — indeed you can read it — many of these people blamed Israel and the Jews, both those in the Middle East and those in New York and Washington. Indeed, within minutes of the attack, a story appeared according to which the Israelis had advance notice, and had instructed Finance Minister Netanyahu to stay put, instead of going to give a speech. The story was as false as the one according to which Israelis had stayed away from the World Trade Center on 9/11, but they both reflected a state of mind. An anti-Semitic mind. [Where does Iraq play a part? He then goes on to describe Iraqis are "the new Jews" and points out that Ahmed Chalabi is often tarred as a neocon.]

I don't know if I'd go that far. Certainly, there are those to whom "neocon" means "Jewish conservative whom I don't like" but that's not always the case and it's a nasty trick to tar all anti-neocons with the same antisemitic brush (though more than a few can be tarred with the "crazy conspiracy-theorist" brush... and those groups have a lot of overlap -- this goes for Pat Buchanan on the right [if you can call him a member of the "right" anymore] and Juan Cole on the left). I think Blair may have just wanted to avoid mentioning politically-divisive issues in his speech (which, as far as I know, was regarding the recent terrorist attacks in Britain) and the British views on Iraq and Israel are certainly divided.

That antisemitism is quietly increasing in intellectual and political circles once again, however, is a point worth considering and studying...