A New Zealand journalist weighs in with a sneering, whining, utterly wrong-headed column, arguing that there’s no such thing as antisemitism. And if there is, well, it can be forgiven—especially if it comes from Arabs: Cemetery wreckers hurt us, not Israel. (Hat tip: Backspin.)

Anti-Semitism was a pathology, I think, of Europe before the global migrations of the last century. When Europeans lived in homogenous communities, Jews and Gypsies were probably the only distinct minorities they knew. With the washback from global colonialism those groups would have paled in comparison to new arrivals.

To find anti-Semitism in western societies today you need to go to the demented fringe of xenophobic politics or treat seriously the mindless paraphernalia of yobs and militaria collectors. […or read John Roughan in the New Zealand Herald. —ed.]

Many of the statements that groups such as the Jewish Council nowadays regard as anti-Semitic are in fact anti-Israel - there is a difference - and most of those that cross the line come from Arab or other Middle Eastern sources which, really, can be forgiven.