Wednesday, March 06, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
This story is from AFP but variants of it are all over Arab media.
A Moroccan atheist of Jewish descent but who describes himself as Arab and Berber is telling the world what the Israel-haters want it to hear:
For rights activist Sion Assidon, a Moroccan of Jewish descent who also describes himself as Berber and Arab, Zionism breeds anti-Semitism in today's Arab world but aversion to Israel's policies is not a form of racism.
"Anti-Zionism is a political position and if declaring oneself to be 'anti-Zionist' is seen as a racist act, that is serious," said the 70-year-old campaigner who opposes French President Emmanuel Macron proposal to turn anti-Zionism into a crime.
A keen historian and business owner based in Mohammedia, a city on the Atlantic between Rabat and Casablanca, Assidon believes "anti-Semitism is above all a form of Judaeophobia within the European space linked to the view of the (Catholic) Church" over the centuries.There is of course a long history of Arab and Muslim antisemitism, Not nearly as bad as in Europe but not trivial, either, with blood libels, pogroms and rampant discrimination. "Jews are descended from apes and pigs" is hardly a Catholic church doctrine.
"Coexistence between communities has worked quite well, but today there's a dangerous slide: the Jews, far fewer in number, are becoming an abstraction and their image, in the minds of the young, tends to be reduced to the one who is imposing the brutal occupation of Palestine," said Assidon.Assidon, ironically with the first name of Sion (Zion), is Jewish by an accident of birth but it is enough for him to make headlines "as a Jew" and to act as an apologist for Arab antisemitism, blaming it all on Europe - as if Arabs deciding to hate Jews is somehow less disgusting because part of it comes from the influence of Christian antisemitism.
As a result, according to Assidon, anti-Semitism in Morocco and other Arab countries is fed in part by the resurgence of conspiracy theories born in 19th century Europe and reinforced by "the total impunity granted to Israel" despite its policies of "bloody repression" censored on numerous occasions by the United Nations.
