It came as more than a shock to open The Post over breakfast on a brief visit to the American capital last week, and to read in the column of a respected conservative journalist that having murdered Jews by the millions in the 1930s and ’40s, Europe now practiced “anti-Semitism without Jews” and was playing its part in the “second — and final? — phase of the struggle for a ‘final solution to the Jewish question’ ” [George F. Will, op-ed, May 2].

How could someone I had previously regarded as well-informed and sane write this obscenely offensive rubbish? Questioned on the point, a Washington-based colleague responded that it was a pretty typical piece. He had seen plenty more like it, and there was similar muttering on Capitol Hill. So what is going on?

A few facts first. The Holocaust is one of the darkest stains on Europe’s history, a crime against humanity that heads too long a list of totalitarian barbarities in the last century. The rise of its Nazi perpetrators was resisted by some, but there were others, including a distinguished American ambassador to London who fathered a president, who looked the other way.

My own father, like so many others, spent six years of his life fighting this wickedness; my wife’s father was killed after D-Day. America’s intervention in the war was decisive. Evil was repelled. And afterward, British servicemen continued to do what they believed to be their duty, fulfilling the United Nations mandate in Palestine, where many were killed by terrorists who were not Palestinian.

Since then, Europe has rebuilt democratic societies based on pluralist values and the rule of law. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall we have extended democracy across our continent. That democracy has occasionally been challenged by xenophobic extremism — anti-immigrant, anti-outsider and doubtless sometimes anti-Semitic. Like the politics of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. Any attack on a synagogue is outrageous. But there have also been many attacks on the symbols and followers of Islam. Mr. Le Pen appeals to those who are hostile to North African immigrants. To regard this bigot’s success principally as a recrudescence of anti-Semitism is ill-informed.

Anyway, what should we conclude about Europe from this pustulation? When a couple of years back there was an outbreak of arson attacks against African American churches in the United States, should we have leaped to the conclusion that the Ku Klux Klan was heading for the White House?

Anti-American prejudice in Europe is repugnant. It comes as a shock to me to find in a country I love and admire the mirror-image of this — a visceral contempt for Europe. Hunting for reasons for this, do we have to come back to poor Israel? A senior Democratic senator told a visiting European the other day: “All of us here are members of Likud now.” So any criticism of the policies and philosophy of Likud condemns one as an anti-Semite?

There will be no settlement in the Middle East without the creation of a viable Palestinian state and an Israel that can live secure within recognized borders. Israel must have the assurance that it will not be overwhelmed by returning refugees. The terrible suicide bombings must end; they are wicked acts, and it is a disgrace that they have not been more strongly condemned by Arab leaders. But a Palestinian state will require a return to the 1967 borders, or something very close to them, and it cannot be holed by settlements like a Swiss cheese. Without such an outcome the madness will continue, children will be murdered, blood will flow. And the blame will not be all on one side. Much hangs on the international conference that Colin Powell announced at the end of last week.

As a British minister I used to try to persuade American congressmen to take a tougher line on the funding of Irish terrorism. I would argue — usually to polite disagreement, I recall ruefully — that terrorist acts were always wrong. I would begin my set piece by saying that the beginning of wisdom in Ireland was to recognize that there were two authentic cries of pain and rage. Well I still believe it. And the same applies in the Middle East.

It is not anti-Semitic to say that, any more than it is to suggest that we will do our common campaign against terrorism irreparable damage if we allow it to be hijacked by Likud. Heaven help Israel, heaven help Palestine, heaven help all of us, if this mad and grotesque assault on reasoned debate continues. But heaven, I fear, will have its work cut out.

This piece ran in the Washington Post on May 7, 2002

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