Monday, May 01, 2006

Anti-Semitism test

Ronny Naftaniel wrote an article about the "Report of Anti-Semitic Incidents in the Netherlands for 2002 and January-May 2003" and in it he quotes Peter Pulzer, former Professor of Political Science and Modern History at the Oxford University, who suggested a test to check whether a certain statement is a legitimate criticism or an anti-Semite criticism. Among the questions one has to answer in this test is the following:

Does the artist or television producer use the Star of David to identify Israeli military equipment?

Ronny Naftaniel adds:
This happened at the anti-Israel demonstration in Amsterdam on 13 April 2002. Some of the ca. 15,000 demonstrators compared Sharon to Hitler and equated the Star of David with swastikas.
My general impression after intensive reading about Stars of David is that we are dealing here with a symbol that is so powerful that there are millions of people who love it with all their hearts while other millions hate it with all their hearts. This dualism is the main theme in the design of this emblem: one triangle pointing straight to the skies (love) while the other is pointing straight to hell (hate). These twins accompany mankind from the dawn of history and I don't expect the sudden disappearance of any of them.

2 comments:

zeevveez said...

"There is a tendency by certain political groups to portray the Star of David as a Zionist political symbol and therefore 'fair game'. Signs and graffiti equating the Star of David with a Swastika are commonplace"
see: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=527344

Anonymous said...

I love the Star of David with all my heart!