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Friends, I understand, that in the world of diplomacy, with one, solitary, Jewish state
and scores of others, it is all too easy "to go along to get along" and single out Israel.
But such "going along to get along," is not a balanced approach, nor is it a sophisticated
one. It is, quite simply, weak and wrong.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we live in a world where that kind of moral relativism
today runs rampant.
And in the garden of such moral relativism, the seeds of a much more sinister notion can
be easily planted.
And so we have witnessed, in recent years, the mutation of the old disease of antisemitism
and the emergence of a new strain.
We all know about the old antisemitism.
It was crude, and ignorant, and it led to the horrors of the death camps.
Of course, in many dark corners, it is still with us.
But, in much of the western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated
language for use in polite society.
People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems
of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state
for the problems of the Middle East.
As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for
a boycott of Israel.
On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask underlying
realities.
But, this is the face of the new antisemitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting
Israel, and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable to a new generation.