The U.S. State Department released a report on March 13 from the Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. It follows up on a 2005 document and was dedicated to the memory of U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the only Holocaust survivor to have served in Congress. The Hungarian-born Lantos died last month of cancer at age 80.

“Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event,” the document said.

U.S. embassies have noted an increase in attacks on Jewish people, property, institutions, and religious facilities in the last decade, the report said.

Unfortunately, the report accomplishes the opposite of its intent by trivializing anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism and even criticism of Israeli policies.

“The distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that — whether intentionally or unintentionally — has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel’s perceived faults to its Jewish character,” it said.

This was common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but was even encouraged by some activity at the United Nations, the report said.

Various U.N. agencies are asked each year to investigate what are often “sensationalized reports of alleged atrocities and other violations of human rights by Israel,” the document said.

According to the report, such unremitting criticism of Israel “intentionally or not encourages anti-Semitism.”

The logical implication here is that one therefore cannot criticize Israel or Israeli policies, no matter how far beyond the human pale they lie. Doing so, it is being claimed, could foment anti-Semitism.

The truth is that Israeli policies themselves, unless humanized and brought into the realm of civilized nations, will ultimately foment the worst anti-Semitism. 

To stop holding Israel to a higher standard because of a fear of anti-Semitism is an insult to the Jewish state. To allow any behavior the human mind can conjure without criticism is the surest way to condemn the state. Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The report continues to say that this hostility can translate into physical violence, as in the surge in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide during the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah.

Again, the logical conclusion here would be that Israel’s monstrous behavior in that war was not the cause of world condemnation, but rather a result of a new form of anti-Semitism.

This is the most dangerous statement the U.S. could make to a state it considers its ally.  Give Israel more rope, and it’s going to hang itself.