Jewish World Review Jan. 21, 2005 / 11 Shevat, 5765

Harry Shirt flap obscures real anti-Semitism

By Jonathan Tobin

The fact that the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center is pushing for Harry to go to Auschwitz speaks volumes about the failure of some of those who seek to represent Jewry to understand the problem

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month on Jan. 27 may well have been ignored by much of the mainstream press, if not for a costume party attended by British royalty.

The pictures of Britain's Prince Harry — who ranks third on the list of those who might one day replace Queen Elizabeth II — wearing something that resembled a World War II German army uniform, replete with a swastika armband, not only engaged the royalty-mad English tabloids but made headlines around the globe.

And the subsequent suggestions that Harry might be forced to attend the memorial ceremony at Auschwitz as some form of penance has elevated the anniversary from the back page to the front page.

Some hope the firestorm of anger directed at the second of the late Princess Diana's sons might help those who wish to promote Holocaust education. Presumably, Harry's shirt will serve as an incentive to worry more about Holocaust denial and the need for even more teachings about Nazi horrors.

But as much as the dimwitted royals deserve the abuse they are receiving, permit us to observe that all this carrying-on over a 20-year-old's sick joke is obscuring the real story about anti-Semitism in the Europe of 2005, not that of 1945.

The fact is, you don't need an invitation to a royal costume party to see vestiges of the culture of Jew-hatred these days. Much worse things than the sight of a tabloid celebrity wearing a swastika are available to be heard and seen in London, Paris, and in many other European and Asian capitals, not to mention the United Nations.

As a U.S. State Department study reported last week, anti-Semitism continues to plague Europe. In particular, the willingness of many in the European media and other members of its intellectual elite to demonize the State of Israel and foment hatred of Jews continues without much notice.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, traditional European anti-Semitism was spread to the Arab and Islamic world. But in the last few decades, immigrants from the Islamic world have become a bridgehead for Jew-hatred in Britain, France, Germany and other European nations.

But rather than focus on this virus, the same sources who howl about Harry have either downplayed the rise in anti-Semitism or become willing accomplices to a movement that seeks to delegitimize Jewish national identity and Israeli self-defense. For all of the condemnations of the famous prince, anger over slights to dead Jews is but cheap talk when it is not matched by fury at Islamist and Palestinian terrorism, whose end goal is the annihilation of the descendants of Hitler's victims.

Those who truly care about the memory of Jewish martyrs don't need Prince Harry or any other intellectually challenged British royals marring the Auschwitz anniversary with crocodile tears. The fact that the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center is pushing for Harry to go to Auschwitz speaks volumes about the failure of some of those who seek to represent Jewry to understand this problem.

This month, we should embrace Auschwitz's survivors and remember the millions who perished there. But we also have the right to demand that the international media pay at least as much attention to the very real and dangerous symptoms of contemporary anti-Semitism as it does to Harry's shirt.