Following publication of my first article in our series on anti-Semitism, in which I argued that protests against Israel are often interpreted as an expression of anti-Semitism, a reader reminded me that the Holocaust took place before the establishment of the State of Israel and decades before the occupation of the territories. Quite true. Anti-Semitism, just like other forms of racism and hatred for “the other,” including blacks, gays and Muslims, is an age-old phenomenon.

The Zionist movement and those Jews identified as its supporters were always the punching bag of neo-Nazi movements on the right and of anti-Zionist Marxists on the left. Unfortunately, it does not appear that these despicable phenomena will pass from the world in the foreseeable future. They are deeply rooted in the European past and continue to serve extremists on the left and right in their current attacks.

“We are not living here as if we were at the end of the 1930s,” says Simone Susskind, a Jewish left-wing activist from Belgium who supports a two-state solution, “but one cannot ignore the rise in symptoms of anti-Semitism in Europe.”

Susskind, who was just elected to the Brussels district parliament, explains in a conversation with Al-Monitor that Europeans feel more comfortable voicing anti-Semitic discourse and justify it by Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinians. “The growing expression of negative sentiment toward Israeli government policy stems, in part, from classic anti-Semitism, which did not disappear after the Holocaust but was silenced.” According to her, Europeans, like many Muslims, do not differentiate between “Jewish” and “Israeli” and claim that they have a right to oppose Israeli policy in the territories without feeling like anti-Semites.