Since 1945, antisemitism has rarely been an issue in the national politics of the US and the UK. Today, at least for Jews, it is a real concern in both countries.
In both cases, it is tangled up with anti-Zionism, or even misoziony, the extreme and irrational hatred of the Jewish state. There are still some “paleo-” antisemites who will admit that they just hate Jews for the same old reasons that have been animating their type for thousands of years, but they are considered outside the limits of acceptable discourse. They are the ones who perpetrate mass murders, so we have to take them seriously; but we don’t have to listen to their stupid arguments. Then there are special kinds of antisemites, like the ones who follow Louis Farrakhan in the belief that the Jews aren’t the real Jews (blacks are). They are also violent, but their arguments can be dismissed as well.
The more serious problems – at least from an intellectual point of view – both in the US and the UK, revolve around those who say that they don’t hate Jews, they are just “critical of Israeli policy.” They often insist, further, that they believe in Israel’s “right to exist” but only want it to stop “oppressing Palestinians.” Sometimes they claim that they oppose the “racist” or “colonialist” ideology of Zionism.
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