A key characteristic of demonization is that when both very positive and extremely negative remarks are made about people, the negative ones usually stick more, even if they are far less numerous. Frequent repetition of the negative remarks enhances the demonization.

The first major, long-lasting demonization campaign against the Jews, the Christian one, helps clarify the demonization process throughout the centuries. Van der Horst explains:

The New Testament contains some anti-Semitic passages. One finds them only in the latest documents. The main example is in the Gospel of John. It was writ- ten after the split between Christians and Jews had occurred. The anti-Jewish sentiment permeates the whole book, and it contains the most anti-Semitic verse in the New Testament.

John has Jesus distance himself completely from the Jewish people. He lets him speak about the Jews, their laws and festivals, as if he himself is no longer one of them. Worst of all, in a dispute between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, John has him say: “You have the devil as your father.”1

In later Christian literature, that expression is picked up.

This short but fatal remark has had lethal consequences over two millennia. It cost tens of thousands of Jewish lives in later history, especially in the Middle Ages. This verse was taken by Christian Jew-haters as a license to murder Jews. These murderers believed: “If Jesus said that Jews have the devil as their father, we should eradicate them as best as we can.”2

A Multifaceted Process

The current far-reaching demonization of Israel and widespread anti-Semitism result from a complex, multifaceted process. There is no large, well-coordinated attack on Israel or Jews from a single identifiable source, but a huge number of relatively small ones. These are sometimes coordinated by perpetrators, yet also often not. It is, another words, a “method of a million cuts.”

The demonization processes of Israel and the Jews have a number of com- mon ancient motifs, which have been transformed over the centuries. Better understanding the current hate-mongering requires analyzing the main verbal themes throughout the centuries and how they have mutated in our times. After that, the focus should shift to the various categories of demonization.

Jews and Israel Seek to Dominate the World

 The core motif of demonization, namely, that the Jews are absolute evil, has already been analyzed. Below we will detail some of the most common submotifs of this central theme and their contemporary mutations.

One major anti-Semitic motif is that Jews “lust for power.” The most ex- treme accusation that the Jews seek to dominate the world is contained in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Current versions of this theme are “The Ameri- can Jewish lobby controls the United States” and “Jewish money dominates the world.” In other contexts, however, Jews are regarded as mean and miserly.

Malcolm Hoenlein notes that European media are obsessed with “Jewish power”:

In every interview with the BBC and other European and Japanese media, the main question inevitably boils down to the influence of “the Jewish lobby.” They do not understand and, therefore, ascribe negative connotations to what is consistent with American democracy, which offers minorities a say if they choose to get involved.3

In its 2010 list of top anti-Semitic slurs, the Simon Wiesenthal Center put for- mer UPI senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas in first place. She said in 2010, “Jews should get out of Palestine. They should go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else . . .”4

Fiamma Nirenstein, as noted earlier, chaired a parliamentary Sub-Commit- tee of Inquiry on anti-Semitism of the Italian parliament. She wrote: “There has also been ample evidence of growing intolerance about our Sub-Committee of Inquiry, which is accused of being the long arm of the Jewish hold on Italy and its Parliament.”5

The fallacy of Jewish “lust for power” recurs in Arab television programs, a method of communication far more effective and encompassing than the writ- ten book. In addition, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is widely reprinted in the Arab world. It has also been published in many Western countries in recent years, Norway being one example,6 France another.7

As mentioned earlier, cartoons often offer rapid insight into widespread stereotypes. An Algerian American caricaturist, Bendib, “designed a monkey with a Star of David on its breast sitting on top of the globe on which small figures of the Pope and an Arab are drawn. The monkey [i.e., Israel] says: ‘Jerusalem: from New York City to Kuala Lumpur, undivided eternal capital of Israel; everything else is negotiable.’”8

In 2003, the Greek extreme leftist Mikis Theodorakis, a well-known com- poser, said at a press conference that the Jews are at the root of the world’s evil. Two government ministers were present and remained silent. Only after strong Israeli criticism did the Greek government distance itself from Theodorakis’ statement. Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas added, “Apart from our disagreement for this position, Theodorakis always remains high in our esteem for the work he has offered and for his great contribution to our culture and our country.”9

Radical Islam’s Lust for Power

The truth about contemporary conspiracies aiming to “dominate the world” is different: since the failure of Nazism and communism, the major contemporary forces seeking global rule come from parts of the Muslim world. Jihads and its various supporters are by far the main ideological movement actively conspiring to control the world. This aim has been stated by many jihad leaders.

While much attention is given to the “Jewish lobby,” there is little interest in the Arab lobby in the United States. Mitchell Bard, author of The Arab Lobby,10 says:

The Saudis have almost unlimited financial resources, which they use to reward former officials in hopes of influencing those still in office. As Prince Bandar, a former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, once said, if the Saudis get a reputation for taking care of their friends when they leave office, you’d be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office.

The former government officials can guide the Saudis on how to manipulate U.S. policy makers. They can use the contacts they have developed during their government career to gain Saudi access to decision makers. As the media often call on them to comment on Middle East affairs as non-partisan experts, they also act as Saudi propagandists.11

Foreign governments, including Arab ones, also try to influence the American thinktanks by making donations. In September 2014, The New York Times published an analysis on how various countries finance American thinktanks. One example was that Qatar had made a $14.8 million, four-year donation to the Brookings Institution to help fund an affiliate of the institute in Qatar, and a study on the relations between the United States and the Islamic world. The paper said some scholars had said that it was implicitly understood that the institution that received the donation should not criticize the donor.

The Times quoted Saleem Ali, who had been a visiting scholar at the Brook- ings Doha Center in Qatar. He said he had been told during his job interview that he could not take critical positions on Qatar. He remarked, “If a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be aware—they are not getting the full story . . .”12

The Palestinian Lobby

Little is also being said about the existence of a Palestinian lobby in many Western countries. Its official part consists of organizations and individuals who identify themselves as such. For instance, in Britain there is an organized pro-Palestinian lobby in various parties, such as the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. There is also a Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

In Norway, for instance, there is a Palestine Committee. Its official logo is a picture of what they believe to be Palestine, without Israel existing. This organization was instrumental, for example, in the invitation of Hamas representatives to Norway under the Stoltenberg government.13 Similarly, there is a pro-Palestinian caucus in the Norwegian parliament.

Not only those who publicly identify as pro-Palestinian activists should be seen as part of the Palestinian lobby. There are also many others who in fact promote the Palestinian cause. This includes politicians, academics, journalists and media in general, trade unions, church leaders, NGOs, public intellectuals, and so on. This subject of the Palestinian lobby warrants a detailed analysis that goes beyond what is possible in this book.

Lust for Money

A derivative of the motif of “Jewish lust for power” is that Jews lust for money, and Jewish money dominates the world.

Kotek says:

Bendib draws God holding a fat bag of dollars. On it the names of major Jewish organizations are written: “ADL, AIPAC, ZOA.” God outstretches his hand to [President George W.] Bush, who slaughters a child on the altar of the Holland Foundation for needy Muslim children. The caption reads: “And the Almighty dollar [represented by God] said: ‘Sacrifice me a Muslim son or else.’ And George W. said: ‘You’ve got it Lord, if this improves my chances for a second term.’”14

At a session of the British Liberal Democrat Party Conference, former MP and present member of the House of Lords, Baroness Jenny Tonge, asserted, “The pro-Israel lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party.” She also repeated her earlier expressions of sympathy for Palestinian suicide bombers. More than twenty members of the House of Lords from the major parties condemned her language as “irresponsible and inappropriate.”15

Lust for Blood

Another anti-Semitic motif of Jews as absolute evil is that “Jews thirst for blood, infanticide and cannibalism.” While the blood libel did have precursors in the pre-Christian world, it mainly developed in Christian environments.16 There it was claimed that Jews needed the blood of a Christian child to make unleavened bread for Passover. Although rejected and discredited, this notion has not disappeared in the West, and is presently recurring in secular forms with respect to Israel.

The blood libel in Christian Europe has its historical origins in Britain. It was invented in the twelfth century in Norwich. At that time, it was falsely claimed that Jews had killed a twelve-year-old Christian boy named William for ritual purposes. The story kept circulating. A few decades later, as in many other areas of England, all of the Jews in Norwich were murdered. From Brit- ain, the blood libel about the Jews spread to other Christian countries. Once the first such false accusation had been made, it recurred from time to time in Europe until our days. From the Christian world, this European anti-Semitic theme spread much later to the Muslim world.17

The blood libel continues to appear in many forms. In the middle of the previous decade, Michael Howard, a Jew, was leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, which was then in opposition. In April 2005, The Guardian published a cartoon by Steve Bell depicting Howard with vampire teeth, one of which was dripping blood, and holding a glass of blood. The caption read: “Are you drinking what we are drinking? Vote Conservative.”18 To add insult to injury, Annabel Crabb of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation praised Bell for this cartoon in a television interview.19 Later Bell again drew Howard with vampire teeth in The Guardian.20

Millions of people saw a Syrian-produced movie on television that, among other things, showed a child’s throat being cut. This was made to appear as being done by a Jew, and using cinematic techniques, the image showed blood streaming into a piece of matzo.21

The Al-Dura Blood Libel

The classic blood-libel motif has mutated in various ways from anti-Semitism into anti-Israelism. One example is the calumny that Israeli soldiers intention- ally killed the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura at the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. According to an array of researchers, if the child was even killed at all, it was done by the Palestinians. Israel has paid a very heavy price for dealing so incompetently with Arab propaganda in this case.22

Charles Enderlin, head of the Jerusalem-based Middle East Bureau of the French television station France 2, first broke the story, blaming Israel for al- Dura’s death. Since 2000 there have been investigations of Enderlin and his sources by the Israeli government and military, in addition to independent investigative reports and documentaries on this topic. Yet the fallacy that al- Dura was killed by the IDF continues to be disseminated.23

In 2012 a French court overturned a libel conviction against David Yehuda, an Israeli medical doctor who was sued for libel by al-Dura’s father after going public with the knowledge that wounds on al-Dura’s torso were actually from a surgery Yehuda himself performed. The surgery had to be done because of a Hamas assault on the al-Dura family in 1994 for allegedly collaborating with Israel.24

In May 2013, an Israeli committee tasked with reviewing the al-Dura inci- dent found that Israel was not responsible for killing or injuring the boy.25 Yet, a month later, Philippe Karsenty, a French media analyst and leading critic of France 2’s fallacious coverage of the incident, was convicted for libel by a French court for accusing Enderlin of fabricating parts of the segment.26

Landes remarked, “It’s hard to think of a single news item that did this much damage, not only to Israel’s image in the world, but to the very fabric of global civil society. It opened the door to the mainstreaming of the comparison of Israelis to Nazis.”27

Arab Responsibility for September 11

An important indicator—not directly related to Jews—of the widespread be- lief in conspiracy theories among Muslims concerns the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. In 2002, Gallup published a survey it undertook in six Muslim countries. It asked whether Arabs were responsible for these attacks. In Turkey 46 percent of those polled believed Arabs were responsible; 43 percent believed they were not. In the other countries surveyed the figures were: 42 percent versus 58 percent in Lebanon, 20 percent versus 74 percent in Indonesia, 15 percent versus 59 percent in Iran, and 11 percent versus 89 percent in Kuwait. In Pakistan only 4 percent of those surveyed believed Arabs were responsible for September 11, while 86 percent believed they were not.28

In 2006, the Pew Research Center presented the same questions to Muslims in ten countries. These were both countries with Muslim majorities and coun- tries in the West. In the Muslim world, the lowest figure of those who did not believe Muslims were responsible was now found in Pakistan, with 41 percent, and the highest was found in Indonesia with 65 percent.

High percentages of Muslims in the Western world also did not believe Arabs were responsible for the September 11 attacks. This included 46 percent of French Muslim respondents, 44 percent of German Muslims, and 35 percent of Spanish Muslims.29

The Norwegian Blood Libel

Another variant of the blood libel has been widely promoted in Norway. During the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Operation Cast Lead in 2008, two Norwegian physicians and pro-Hamas activists, Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, went to Gaza and took part in treating wounded Gazans. NORWAC, an organization financed by the Norwegian government, paid for their trip. Gilbert and Fosse, frequently interviewed by the international media, claimed that Israel was attacking civilians and compared it with the God of the Dead and the Underworld, Hades of Greek mythology.30

Although the Gazan hospital where they worked was used as Hamas headquarters, the Norwegian physicians did not mention this once in their multiple international interviews. Gilbert and Fosse did, however, develop a contemporary secular mutation of the blood libel. In their book Øyne i Gaza (Eyes in Gaza), they wrote that Israel entered the Gaza Strip with the goal of killing Palestinian women and children.31 They also recounted that Labour Prime Minister Stoltenberg called them while they were in Gaza and expressed support on behalf of the government and the Norwegian people. “We are very proud of you,” said Stoltenberg.32

Then-Labour Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre wrote a back-cover blurb for this hate-mongering book, praising the authors for their role during their stay in Gaza. Former Conservative Prime Minister Kåre Willoch also wrote a back-cover blurb.33 In 2013, King Harald V made matters even worse, awarding Gilbert and Fosse the Royal Order of St. Olav (St. Olavs Orden), which is “A reward for excellent merit for the fatherland and humankind.”34 Fosse was awarded the medal for his “medical and societal efforts”;35 Gilbert was given it for his “broad efforts in emergency medicine.”36 The Norwegian king thereby ignored the two physicians’ anti-Semitic hate-mongering.

The Cannibalistic Variant

 A cannibalistic variant of the infanticide motif has also emerged. In 2003, the British daily The Independent published a cartoon by Dave Brown depicting then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a child-eater, a new mutation of the medieval blood libel. Even after receiving numerous complaints, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) decided that the cartoon did not breach its ethical code.37 It subsequently won the Political Cartoon Society’s Political Cartoon of the Year Award for 2003. This award was presented by former Labour Party cabinet minister Clare Short at the headquarters of the prestigious weekly The Economist in London.

Then-Israeli Ambassador to the UK Zvi Shtauber asked The Independent’s Jewish editor, Simon Kelner, whether the paper had ever published a similar caricature of a public figure. Kelner had to search back eighteen years to find one.38

In 1994, the Jordanian paper Al-Dustur published a caricature of late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin pouring blood onto the carpet of peace.39 Kotek notes that Palestinians in anti-Israeli cartoons are primarily depicted as children or babies. This overlaps with the motif of the Jew as child killer.40

Organ Harvesting

Accusations of organ harvesting by Israel are yet another variant of this post- modern blood libel. On August 17, 2009, the culture section of the largest Swedish daily, the Social Democrat Aft bladet, published an article by Donald Boström titled “Våra söner plundras på sina organ” (“Our Sons Are Plundered of Their Organs”). Boström recounted how a young Palestinian man, wanted for terrorism, was shot dead soon after the launch of a donation campaign in 1992, and how his body was returned to his family a few days later for burial. Boström then claimed there were rumors that the IDF was killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs for transplants—in collusion with the Israeli medical establishment. The article ends by saying it is time to look into this macabre activity, and urges the Israelis to investigate the allegations.41

Baroness Tonge has also insinuated that Israel harvests organs. She has a long anti-Israeli record. As a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Com- mons from 1997 to 2005, she attacked Israel on many occasions. In 2003, after visiting Gaza with Labour MP Oona King, she described the situation there: “You are almost getting a situation like the Warsaw ghetto—people can’t get in or out. They can’t work, they can’t sell anything. There is this gradual squeeze.”42 The following year she declared that, if she found herself in a situation like that of the Palestinians, she would consider becoming a suicide bomber.43

When Tonge became a member of the House of Lords in 2005, she used this position as a platform for continuing attacks on Israel. In February 2010, the Palestine Telegraph, a newspaper Tonge was a patron of, published an article accusing the IDF of harvesting organs following the Haitian earthquake.

In an interview with The Telegraph about this calumny, Tonge stated, “To prevent allegations such as these—which have already been posted on YouTube [sic]—going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.” For disseminating such notions Tonge was dismissed as the health spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats.44

In February 2012, Tonge was reprimanded by her party after she attended an Israel Apartheid Week event. She had sat next to former U.S. Marine Ken O’Keefe and made no attempt to distance herself from his statements, including that “Israel must be destroyed” and that the Mossad was “directly involved” in the September 11 attacks. Following his remarks, Tonge announced to the crowd that Israel “would not last forever” and that Israelis would “reap what they have sown.” Additionally, Americans would “tell the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.” British police investigated these remarks.45

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg gave Tonge an ultimatum to apologize or lose the party whip. She refused and became an independent member of the House of Lords.46

More Blood Libels

 In a cartoon that appeared in 2001 in the leading Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, an Arab is being put through a mill by two Israeli soldiers wearing helmets with Stars of David. The Arab’s blood seeps out, and two Jews with skullcaps drink it as they laugh. This is yet another illustration of how anti-Semitism and anti- Israelism converge.47

A Greek cartoon also displays such convergence. It was published in the Greek daily Ethnos in 2002, which is close to the then-ruling, Socialist PASOK party. The caricature shows two Israeli soldiers dressed like Nazis with Stars of David on their helmets, stabbing Arabs. The text reads: “Do not feel guilty, my brother. We were not in Auschwitz and Dachau to suffer, only to learn.”48

In 2013, the British weekly The Sunday Times published an anti-Semitic cartoon on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The drawing by Gerald Scalfe showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall us- ing what appeared to be the blood of Palestinians as cement. The caption read, “Will cementing peace continue?” Later the paper offered apologies and stated that the cartoon “was a mistake and crossed the line,” admitting that it reflected “historical iconography that is persecutory or anti-Semitic.”49

Poisoners

Another anti-Semitic submotif of “absolute evil” characterizes Jews as poisoners. This theme has been around since the early fourteenth century, when the notion that Jews were poisoning wells was propagated in parts of Germany and France.50 A Palestinian variant of the poisoning libel has been described by Raphael Israeli in his book Poison: Modern Manifestations of a Blood Libel. It analyzes the mass hysteria that erupted in the northern West Bank in March 1983. A number of girls at a junior high school in the Arab village of Arrabeh fell sick. Symptoms included fainting, drowsiness, nausea, headaches, stomach aches, and vision disturbances. Almost immediately, Palestinians accused Israel of responsibility. During the following weeks the number of patients, mostly young women, rose to nearly a thousand in the West Bank. Investigations carried out by both Palestinians and Israelis did not find any traces of poison. Gradually it came to light that many of the later “patients” had faked their illnesses, often at the prompting of Palestinian leaders.

The Israeli authorities called in experts from the Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, a world leader in epidemiology. They concluded that most of the patients’ illnesses were of “psychogenic origin and induced by stress.”51 They noted that the initial Arrabeh case could have been caused by a low concentration of hydrogen sulfide gas from a poorly cleaned latrine at the school.

In one of its initial articles on the event, the Israeli daily Haaretz implied that there were indications Israel had used nerve gas. The secretary-general of the Arab League accused Israel of using poison gas against Palestinian students. The Jew-as-poisoner motif also recurs in contemporary European mainstream media. A cartoon from the German Stuttgarter Zeitung in August 2013 shows Netanyahu poisoning the Middle East peace process. He sits on a park bench holding a piece of bread to feed peace doves, which he is poisoning with liquid from a bottle labeled “settlement construction.”52

On November 11, 2013, the memorial day for Kristallnacht, another regional German paper, the Badische Zeitung, published a cartoon depicting Netanyahu as killing the nuclear talks with Iran by poison. An editor of the paper said that he saw no connection between the cartoon and the medieval accusation against the Jews of poisoning wells. Most likely he did not want to see it.53

Jews as Subhuman

 Yet another extreme motif is being subhuman. The Koran calls the Jews “apes and pigs.” This motif of Jews as subhuman mutated, for instance, in the Nazi accusation that Jews were subhuman and had a “severe genetic deficiency.” Christian teachings said the Jew was born guilty because the forefathers of Jews were reputedly responsible for the death of their religion’s originator. Christian anti-Semitism, however, had an escape clause: Jews could convert and thereby, if all went well, rid themselves of this “birth defect.”

In recent decades the genetic motif has mutated even further; it is Israel that is “inhuman” or “inferior.” This translates into anti-Israelism in the form of: “Israel was born in sin, and thus has no right to exist.” The anti-Semitic accusa- tion that “Israel was born in sin by driving out the Palestinians” is heard mainly from Arab and Western left-wing circles. Yet in the eyes of these accusers, all other states have the right to exist, even the most brutally criminal ones such as Syria, Iran, and so on.

This is one of many attacks on Israel’s fundamental legitimacy. The Holo- caust denial of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stems from the fallacy that Israel’s establishment was the direct result of the Holocaust. He thought that if one could undermine the European narrative about the mass murder of Jews by claiming it was a fabrication, then the basis on which the state of Israel was established would disappear.

Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri remarked ironically about Israel’s “birth in sin”: “This is in contrast to the Arab states having been immaculately conceived.”54 The anti-Semitic character of the accusation becomes clearer when one considers that if a second Palestinian state should arise in addition to the first one in Jordan, its origins will lie in genocidal propaganda, terrorism, war crimes, and corruption.

The motif of Jews as inferior beings manifests itself in various ways. One is the contemporary perception, also held by many Muslims in the West, that “Jews are apes and pigs.”55 The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of the top ten anti-Semitic slurs in 2013 includes an example: “Iraqi cleric, Qays bin Khalil al Kalbi, said during a U.S. visit: ‘Allah chose you to be the most wretched of all people. Allah chose you as the best to become pigs and apes . . . Allah chose Hitler to kill you, so who is better, you or him?’”56 Other examples are the many, mainly Arab cartoons where Jews are portrayed as animals.

In the 2006 Iranian Hamshahri cartoon competition, a widespread anti-Semitic motif was the depiction of Jews and Israel as animals. The Iranian Mehdi Sadeghi drew a beetle with a Star of David on its back pushing along a giant ball of excrement with a swastika on it. It was a variation on the Nazi motif of calling the Jews “vermin.” The zoomorphism theme also appeared in a cartoon by Sadic Pala of India that showed a religious Jew with vampire teeth next to a vampire bat hanging from a branch above the Al-Aksa Mosque.57

Kotek observed:

Israel, an entire state of these “inferior creatures,” has won military victories against the Arab world. By their logic, this was only possible, they believe, be- cause Jews are “satanic beings.” In the cartoons I collected, the Jew is depicted as inhuman and an enemy of humanity. This dehumanization is necessary to justify the hoped for elimination.58

The Deicide Motif

 Deicide, the Jew as “murderer of Jesus,” is also a hate motif used until today. In November 2013, the Anti-Defamation League released the results of a survey asking Americans about anti-Semitic attitudes. It found that 26 percent of respondents believe that the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus. These numbers were down from a 2011 poll where 31 percent of respondents believed this fallacy.59 The results were, however, up from 2004, when 25 percent of respondents believed this statement.60 These findings show that demonization motifs that have permeated into societies for almost two millennia cannot be eliminated.

Kotek notes that, somewhat surprisingly, the deicide motif appears recur- rently in the Arab world. In Islam, Jesus is a prophet, but not the son of God. Among the many Arab examples of cartoons using the deicide motif is a 1991 Jordanian cartoon showing Jesus on the cross, the nails through his hands dripping with blood and forming the Star of David.61 A cartoon by the Jordanian Jihad Awrtani in the Hamshahri cartoon competition combined two anti-Semitic motifs by drawing a bleeding Arab crucified on a cross made of the letter T from “Holocaust.”62

One of the European cartoons based on the deicide motif, though intended as anti-Israeli, leaves room for an anti-Christian interpretation. At the time of the Israeli siege on Palestinian terrorists hiding in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in spring 2002, one of Italy’s leading cartoonists, Giorgio Forattini—in what is considered one of the country’s quality journals, La Stampa —showed the child Jesus in a manger while an Israeli tank, bearing the Star of David, waited outside. The drawing’s title is “Tanks at the Manger.” The child Jesus is saying, “Do you want to kill me again?”—a reference to the accusations of deicide leveled at the Jews for centuries. However, the terrorists taking refuge in the Bethlehem church were Muslims. Did Forattini imply that in his view Palestinian murderers are the sons of God? Or was he likening the founder of Christianity to these criminals?63

Notes

1. Gospel of John 8:44.
2. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Pieter van der Horst, “The Origins of Christian Anti-Semitism,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 81, May 5, 2009.
3. Malcolm Hoenlein, personal communication
4. Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2010, “Anti-Semitism Goes Mainstream,” Simon Wiesenthal Center
5. Introduction by the Chairperson of the Sub-Committee of Inquiry into Anti- Semitism, the M.P Fiamma Nirenstein, October 14, 2011, http://www. jewishresearch.org/quad/10-11/images/documents/Antisemitismo_introduc- tion%20Nirenstein_EN.pdf.
6. Erez Uriely, “Jew-Hatred in Contemporary Norwegian Caricatures,” Post-Holo- caust and Anti-Semitism, 50, November 1, 2006.
7. Guy Millière, “France: Anti-Semitism Now Mainstream,” Gatestone Institute, October 30,
8. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Joel Kotek, “Major Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 21, June 1, 2004; Joël et Dan Kotek, Au nom de l’antisionisme: L’image des Juifs et d’Israël dans la caricature depuis la seconde Intifada (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 2003), (French)
9. Herb Keinon, “Greece repudiates Theodorakis’ anti-Semitism,” The Jerusalem Post, November 14, 2003.
10. Mitchell Bard, The Arab Lobby (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
11. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Mitchell Bard, “The Powerful Saudi Lobby in the United States,” in Demonizing Israel and the Jews (New York: RVP Press, 2013),
12. Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, and Nicholas Confessore, “Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks,” The New York Times, September 6, 2014,
13. “The Palestine Committee of Norway,” Palestine Committee of Norway.
14. Joël et Dan Kotek, Au nom de l’antisionisme, 71.
15. Jenny Booth, “Offensive words,” The Times Online, September 23, 2006.
16. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Pieter van der Horst, “The Egyptian Beginning of Anti-Semitism’s Long History,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 62, November 1, 2007.
17. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Meir Litvak, “The Development of Arab Anti-Semitism,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 5, February 2, 2003.
18. Steve Bell, “Are you drinking what we’re drinking? Vote conservative,” The Guardian, April 7, 2005.
19. Insiders, TV program transcript, “Cartoonist follows UK contest,” Annabel Crabb takes Talking Pictures to London and chats with the Guardian’s Steve Bell, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May 1, 2005.
20. Steve Bell, “Michael Howard and the Tory party,” The Guardian, October 5, 2005.
21. “Anti-Semitic Series Airs on Arab Television,” ADL archive website, January 9, 2004.
22. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Richard Landes, “The Muhammad Al-Dura Blood Libel: A Case Analysis,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 74, November 2, 2008.
23. Ibid.
24. Avi Issacharoff, “Israeli physician acquitted of libel against Mohammed al-Dura’s father,” Haaretz, February 16, 2012.
25. Yonah Jeremy Bob, “Committee finds IDF didn’t kill Palestinian al-Dura,” The Jerusalem Post, May 19, 2013.
26. Times of Israel Staff and AP, “Leading critic of French al-Dura coverage convicted,” The Times of Israel, June 26, 2013.
27. Gerstenfeld, interview with
28. Gallup Poll Editorial Staff, “Blame for 11 Attacks Unclear for Many in Is- lamic World,” Gallup, March 1, 2002.
29. “Pew Global Attitudes Project: Spring 2006 Survey,” Pew Research Center, 2006, 40.
30. Gjermund Glesnes, “Sammenligner Gaza med dødsriket Hades,” Verdens Gang, January 4, 2009 (Norwegian)
31. Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, Øyne i Gaza (Oslo: Gyldendal, 2009). (Norwegian)
32. Erlend Skevik, “Regjeringen støttet Gaza-legene,” Verdens Gang, September 18, 2009. (Norwegian)
33. Ibid.
34. “St. Olavs Orden,” Det Norske Kongehus, November 6, 2012. (Norwegian)
35. NTB, “St. Olavs Orden til Mads Gilbert,” Verdens Gang, May 6, 2013. (Norwegian)
36. Ida Louise Rostad, “Gilbert får kongens medalje,” Nordlys, May 6, (Norwegian)
37. politicalcartoon.co.uk/html/exhibition.html.
38. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Zvi Shtauber, “British Attitudes toward Is- rael and the Jews,” in Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss? (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Adenauer Foundation, 2005),188.
39. Al-Dustur (Jordan), April 4, 1994; Arie Stav, Peace, the Arabian Caricature: A Study in Antisemitic Imagery (Tel Aviv: Gefen, 1999),
40. Gerstenfeld, interview with Kote
41. Donald Boström, “Våra söner plundras på sina organ,” Aftonbladet, August 17, 2009 (Swedish). See also Mikael Tossavainen, “The Aftonbladet Organ-Trafficking Accusations against Israel: A Case Study,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 95, March 1, 2010.
42. Press Association, “MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw ghetto,” The Guardian, June 19, 2003.
43. Nicholas Watt, “Lib Dem MP: Why I would consider being a suicide bomber,”
    The Guardian, January 24, 2004.
44. “Baroness Tonge fired over outburst against Israeli soldiers in Haiti,” The Tele graph, February 13, 2010.
45. Marcus Dysch, “Police to probe Tonge’s Israel Apartheid Week rant,” The Jewish Chronicle Online, February 29, 2012.
46. Janet Daley, “Jenny Tonge loses the Lib Dem whip for anti-Israel rant—and about time too,” The Telegraph, February 29, 2012.
47. Al-Ahram (Egypt), April 21, 2001; see Joël Kotek, Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media (Edgware, UK: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008), 6
48. Toliadis, Ethnos, April 7, 2002; Kotek, , 129.
49. “Sunday Times apologizes for Netanyahu cartoon,” Ynetnews, February 3, 2013.
50. Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (Cleveland: Meridian, 1961), 15
51. Raphael Israeli, Poison: Modern Manifestations of a Blood Libel (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002).
52. “German newspaper shows Netanyahu as Peace Poisoner,” JTA, August 8, 2013.
53. Benjamin Weinthal, “German anti-Netanyahu cartoon sparks anti-Semitism row,” The Jerusalem Post, November 14, 2013.
54. Remark made in broadcast and confirmed in personal communication with this author.
55. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Samar, “Dans Les Coulisses De L’Antisémitisme Musulman Aux Pays-Bas,” Lessakele, October 23, (French)
56. “2013 Top Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs,” Simon Wiesenthal Center, 2013.
57. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Ahmadinejad, Iran, and Holocaust Manipulation: Methods, Aims, and Reactions,” Jerusalem Viewpoints, 551, February 1, 2007.
58. Gerstenfeld, interview with Kotek.
59. JTA, “Poll: 26% of Americans believe Jews killed Jesus,” The Jerusalem Post, November 1, 20
60. “ADL Poll: One in Four Americans Believe Jews Were Responsible for the Death of Christ,” Anti-Defamation League, February 23, 2004.
61. Al-Rai (Jordan), December 26, 1991; Stav, Peace, 161.
62. Gerstenfeld, “Ahmadinejad.”
63. Giorgio Forattini, La Stampa (Italy), April 3, 200 See Kotek, Cartoons.