Needed Time

According to a 3-22-08 Marketwire report from TORONTO, ONTARIO, National Post newspaper carried an ad signed by 125 faculty from University of Toronto. The ad protested the University’s annual “Israeli Apartheid Week,” observance. The advertisement states, “We, the undersigned faculty members of the University of Toronto, oppose the hosting of the Israel Apartheid Week at our Institution, and request that the administration stop this hateful and divisive event from returning to our University in future years.” The advertisement identifies faculty signers by name, title and department.

In a statement released over the CCNMatthews wire service, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) spoke in support of the University of Toronto faculty members and the publication of the advertisement.
“We applaud these courageous University of Toronto faculty for taking a bold stand against this annual hate fest,” said Avi Benlolo, President and CEO of FSWC. “By publicly challenging the University’s decision to host Israeli Apartheid Week, they have clearly demonstrated that freedom of speech trumps intimidation. Our hope is that faculty at other universities across Canada and around the world follow in their footsteps and present a united front in opposing the hatred being fueled against Israel and the Jewish community.”

About Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies: Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies is a Canadian human rights organization dedicated to fostering tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action. It has 25,000 members across Canada, and confronts important contemporary issues including racism, antisemitism, terrorism and genocide. The Center is affiliated with the world-wide, Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, an accredited Non-Government Organization with status at international agencies, including the United Nations, UNESCO, OSCE and the Council of Europe. With over 400,000 members of all faiths around the world, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has offices in New York, Miami, Paris, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires and Toronto. Simon Wiesenthal died in 2005 after devoting his life to preserving the memories of the victims of the Holocaust, while simultaneously seeking justice for the war criminals. Visit: www.fswc.ca.

The New York Jewish Week of February 22, 2008 carried a thought-provoking article by staff writer, Tamar Snyder: “Hatred on the Web: Anti-Semitism 2.0 Going Largely Unchallenged.” Among the signs of the times Snyder enumerates are demands to revoke the classification of Israel as a nation-state and “Truther” cloned 9/11 Jewish Conspiracy theories ranging from the vile to the ridiculous.

Anti-Semitism has been called “the oldest hatred” by classic writers on the problem. A noxious strain of the original has found the worldwide web to be quite hospitable, exploiting this vulnerable host. Anti-Semitic slander and incitement are a plague now routinely introduced into the matrix of crowded online communities.

Can the people who are exposed to this barrage of hate avoid carrying the assumptions and attitudes into society at large? Concern is growing that the public could be infected by constant exposure to the unchallenged lies and distortions spread by these viral rats in the bilge.

Anti-Semitic attitudes and conspiracy theories easily jump ship, allowing a haze of bias and slander to fog public awareness and political discussion. Perhaps the most visible real-world evidence is the prevalence of disturbingly anti-Semitic signs now present at anti-war rallies everywhere.

Internet venues are easy, in a sense allowing everyone to pose as a pundit and change agent. Because it is free, public and very easy, internet crusading easily morphs into reflexive hatred. Hatred is rife, a sort of political STD, now rampant on the overcrowded network of web logs.

The public internet services like YouTube, Facebook, the blogs, have been carriers of distortions and hidden agendas from various political extremes. The young demographic sector of the U.S. is technically precocious, but in too many instances remains intellectually untutored. They are uniquely vulnerable among the overall populace. Even as they swim the great cyber ocean with ease, too often they fall prey to the internet’s predatory species. Among those predators are the haters.

What passes for political satire can be easily uploaded for all to see, user content produced by millions of amateurs, anonymous, devoid of filters to provide accountability or common sense. These toxic little Petrie dishes have spread subtle and overt anti-Semitism. The oldest hatred has gone viral. Public indoctrination by this means into reflexive Israel hatred and crude stereotyping of Jews is an internet pandemic. As the New York Jewish Week article rightly concludes, it is past time for savvy and reason-based outreach to counter the spread of “Anti-Semitism 2.0”