As for the claim of historical ‘Jew-hatred’ in the Islamic world, its validity has been repudiated by no less an authority than the veteran historian Bernard Lewis, a Middle Eastern scholar of impeccable pro-Israel credentials.

distinction highlighted by Lewis between the centuries-old European Christian prejudice with its demonic conception of the Jew and the more recent antipathy sparked off by a bitter, contemporary political conflict is compelling.

Imported into the Muslim and Arab worlds where once it was alien, the antisemitic ‘explanation’ is now increasingly embraced by disaffected people with mind-sets primed to be receptive to a simple, it’s-all-the-Jews-fault, answer to many problems.

charge of antisemitism against Palestinians

lumps together real antisemites

with genuine defenders of universal human rights

Some leading Palestinian figures have not only acknowledged the infiltration of antisemitism into Arab society but have been outspoken in their rejection of it.