Who hates the Jews now?

They’re at it again: the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world is back in session. The former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s recent claim that the modern-day Elders of Zion ‘now rule the world by proxy’ not only garnered loud applause at the summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), but most likely earned silent nods of approval worldwide. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the oldest hatred has been making a global comeback, culminating in 2002 with the highest number of anti-Semitic attacks in 12 years. According to public opinion polls conducted that same year, 28 per cent of people in Austria think that Jews are more willing than others to use ‘shady practices’ to get what they want, while in the United Kingdom 21 per cent believe that Jews have too much power in the business world.

Why now? Rising hostility toward Israel is certainly a significant factor. And when the United States attacked Iraq, anti-Semitism climbed on the bandwagon of the anti-war movement and rising anti-Americanism. How else to explain a war against a country that had never attacked the United States, it was argued, if not for a cabal of Jewish neocon advisers who had hoodwinked the US President into conquering Iraq to safeguard Israel? It is no coincidence that last month’s Euro-barometer poll ranked the United States just behind Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.

But another element of the new anti-Semitism, which has little to do with Middle East politics, is often overlooked: the backlash against globalisation. The timeframe for this resurgence of Judaeophobia corresponds with the intensification of international links that has been taking place since the 1990s. As public anxiety has grown over lost jobs, shaky economies, and political and social upheaval, Third World leaders, right-wing demagogues and left-wing activists are seeking solace in conspiracy theories.