What were the "measures studied?" Four statements/questions addressed to five hundred respondents in each of ten different European countries. Three blame Israel for exacerbating Israeli-Palestinian relations and the fourth justifies the attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers. Any respondent who answers all four by condemning Israel or exculpating the Palestinians is deemed to be extremely anti-Israel.
According to Kaplan and Small, the more severe a person's anti-Israel sentiment, the more likely was the respondent to affirm anti-Semitic beliefs, such as "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind," "Jews have too much power in the business world," "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country," or deny that "Jews are just as honest as other business people." [Ibid, p. 551]
And, as their data shows, "only 9 percent of those with anti-Israel index scores of 0 report harboring anti-Semitic views, but the fraction of respondents harboring anti-Semitic views grows to 12, 22, 35, and 56 percent for anti-Israel index values of 1 through 4, respectively." [Ibid, p. 555] Thus, their conclusion: "When an individual's criticism of Israel becomes sufficiently severe, it does become reasonable to ask whether such criticism is a mask for underlying anti-Semitism." [Ibid, p. 560]
Wow! Even if we put aside questions about Professor Fish's weak links connecting attacks on the Israel Lobby to attacks on Israel and, thus, the Kaplan/Small study linking severe anti-Israel sentiment with anti-Semitism, the Kaplan/Small study still has some explaining to do.
And, no, I'm not disputing their contention that individuals who agree with disparaging generalizations about Jews are anti-Semitic. Were someone to tell me, "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind," I'd want to immediately disabuse that individual of his anti-Semitism, if he was a close friend or relative, or try to avoid his company in the future.
But, I'm troubled by the Kaplan/Small data that shows: "Even among Jewish respondents, one sees an increase in anti-Semitic responses as the anti-Israel index increases."[p. 555] Do they really mean to suggest that, if you are a Jew and you are troubled by Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians, you're probably an anti-Semitic Jew?
More significantly, let's imagine how the Kaplan/Small conclusion -- "When an individual's criticism of Israel becomes sufficiently severe, it does become reasonable to ask whether such criticism is a mask for underlying anti-Semitism." - would stand up, were Israel to do something absolutely despicable.
Let's imagine -- simply to test the Kaplan/Small conclusion -- that Israel not only acted on the "Clean Break" recommendations made by Messrs. Perle, Feith and Wurmser, but actually rolled back Arab forces by using nuclear weapons. Could the predictably enormous and relentless anti-Israel outcry that followed be dismissed as merely "a mask for underlying anti-Semitism?" I don't think so.
Getting back to reality, would the world be engaging in widespread anti-Semitism, were it to respond very negatively to an Israeli preemptive nuclear attack on Iran's nuclear facilities? Or, put another way, would Kaplan and Small ever be justified in using negative answers to the question, "Would Israel ever be justified in launching a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran's nuclear program?" to record anti-Israel sentiment as a predictor of anti-Semitism? As soon as one contemplates that question, it becomes painfully obvious that it really does matter how precisely questions purporting to measure anti-Israel sentiment are crafted. Yet, nothing found in the Kaplan/Small study demonstrates such precision.
Such, then, are the limitations of the Kaplan/Small study and Stanley Fish's embrace of it. But Professor Fish would also do well to keep one additional consideration in mind. Many of the critics (including this critic), who opposed the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq and who were disgusted by the Israel Lobby's role in promoting it, were the same critics who gladly acknowledged that the majority of American Jews opposed going to war.
Thus, one can hardly be considered an anti-Semite for excoriating the policy advanced by a handful of American Jews while applauding the policy supported by the majority of such Jews.
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