In his astute assessment of the current state of anti-Semitism, Alon Ben-Meir quotes H. L. Mencken: “Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority… All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them.” I think this gets to the heart of the problem. All sides (all who are involved in fanning the flames of hatred, whether toward the Jews or Palestinians) have been guilty of adamantly adhering to their own moral superiority without ever considering that they may be wrong or partly wrong.

With this in mind, Ben-Meir wisely advises Israelis not to “dismiss anti-Semitism simply as an incurable disease when in reality it is practicing ‘anti-Semitism’ against a large segment of its own population. The responsibility of diminishing anti-Semitism falls squarely on the shoulders of the Israeli political leaders and the public. Israel must embrace the moral values on which it was founded; its future, if not its very survival, may well depend on it.”

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