“Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism.”

— George Soros

On Israel, America and AIPAC (2007)
Context: One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it.
Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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George Soros 99

Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanth… 1930

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“However, [Novick] does not account for the reality that views of Israel as being "beleaguered" are part of the same Zionist and Israeli strategy positing rising anti-Semitism to garner more support and immigration to Israel after the pool of immigrants had dried up in the mid-1950s. His point is that the perception of anti-Semitism is what led to more talk of the holocaust. However, it is this causal relationship that is suspect. One could posit that perceptions of a "beleaguered Israel," "oppressed" Soviet Jews, and the new "anti-Semitism," as well as talk of the holocaust, are all part of the same phenomenon rather than being caused by each other. One could further posit a different causal relationship with much of the same evidence Novick provides: namely, that it is Zionism, Israel, and America's use of past Jewish victimization to advance the Zionist agenda that informs the exaggeration of the relatively mild Soviet discriminatory policies against Jews (among other national and religious groups facing similiar discrimination) as holocaustal, the presentation of Israel as a victim of the new Arab "anti-Semites," or the condemnation of any criticism of American Jewry's support for Zionism or any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

“I'm not anti-Semitic. My Gospels are not anti-Semitic. I've shown it to many Jews and they're like, it's not anti-Semitic. It's interesting that the people who say it's anti-Semitic say that before they saw the film, and they said the same thing after they saw the film.”

Mel Gibson (1956) American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter

"Gibson: I'm not anti-Semitic", Tom Tugend, Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2004

“Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.' The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It's to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It's a role reversal – the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It's no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it's the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9035
Other sourced statements

“There are a large number of claims circulating about rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. When you go actually go through the records, talk to the schools, speak to the deans and so forth, all of these claims turn out to be fraudulent. There’s just no record of this so-called rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. The most striking example is Columbia University where […] pro-Israel outsiders were disrupting the classrooms of these professors [falsely accued of anti-Semitism], secretly video-taping their lectures and being turned, as the Columbia Report put it, into informers for the pro-Israel lobby. The real story was the harassment of professors who were critical of Israeli policy.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://www.peuplesmonde.com/article.php3?id_article=381 Interview with Norman Finkelstein]
Other sourced statements

“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, You are talking anti-Semitism!”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

In a discussion at the home of Marty Peretz in Cambridge, Massachusetts (27 October 1967), as quoted in The Socialism of Fools : The Left, the Jews and Israel by Seymour Martin Lipset in Encounter magazine (December 1969), p. 24; in the anecdotal recounting of the incident Lipset writes:
: One of the young men present happened to make some remark against the Zionists. Dr. King snapped at him and said, "Don't talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism!"
The accuracy and authenticity of this quote was disputed at "The Use and Abuse of Martin Luther King Jr. by Israel's Apologists" by Fadi Kiblawi and Will Youmans at Counterpunch (17 January 2004) http://www.counterpunch.org/kiblawi01172004.html and there is also said to be a speech attributed to King based on this quote which is a hoax, as well as a report which includes criticism of Wikiquote's labeling of this controversial quotation as "Disputed" in "Sorry, Dr. King Did Not Consider You an Enlightened Anti-Zionist. Deal With it." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-anthony-cooper/martin-luther-king_b_1091950.html by Douglas Anthony Cooper at The Huffington Post (18 November 2011). Further corroboration of Lipset's account of such remarks by King has been made in research done by Martin Kramer posted in "In the words of Martin Luther King…" in his Sandbox (12 March 2012) http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2012/03/in-the-words-of-martin-luther-king. In this he states that he wrote to Marty Peretz "to ask whether the much-quoted exchange did take place at his Cambridge home on that evening almost 45 years ago. His answer: 'Absolutely'."
Disputed

“I have somehow something like "influence" ... In the Anti-Semitic Correspondence ... my name is mentioned in almost every issue. Zarathustra ... has charmed the anti-Semites; there is a special anti-Semitic interpretation of it that made me laugh very much.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

As quoted in "Idea of Anti-Semitism Filled Nietzsche With Ire and Melancholy" in The New York Times (19 December 1987) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0D91E3EF93AA25751C1A961948260

“I are very concerned, however, to make sure there can be open and proper debate about Israel and its foreign policy, and about the future for Palestinian people. Hence there has to be that space for debate, you cannot shut that down. But it can never, ever be conducted in an anti-Semitic way.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Jeremy Corbyn condemns ex-Labour MP's comments in anti-Semitism row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-45244081, BBC News, 20 August 2018
2010s, 2018

“As for the Jews, their explanation of anti-Semitism is more characteristic yet. In addition to the usual cliche, "with hatred and savagery" - naturally with no motive, they do not care to discuss motives - according to them, anti-Semitism is a madness, an intellectual degeneration, an affliction of the spirit.”

A.C. Cuza (1857–1947) Romanian politician

From "Ştiinţa antisemitismului" ("The Science of Anti-Semitism"), Apararea Nationala ("The National Defense") No. 16, Nov. 15, 1922, lst year.

“European anti-Semites, Zionism believes that European Jews, unlike European Christians, are not Europeans but foreigners who need to leave Europe to its 'real' people and be 'repatriated' to their own state in Palestine. Today's Israeli Jewish supremacists are reviving anti-Semitic ideas of the turn of the century that had accused Jews of seeking to control the world. From the infamous czarist Protocols of the Elders of Zion to genocidal Nazi propaganda, Jews as a 'power-hungry' people was a notion that was part and parcel of the anti-Semitic lexicon. Today's Israeli Jewish supremacists seem to agree with the anti-Semites that, if Jews do not control the world, they at least control America.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

“Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

"Anti-Semitism: Reply to an inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States" (12 January 1931)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U. S. S. R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U. S. S. R. active anti-Semites are punished with death.

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