At last we know what Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic about. He doesn’t abhor Jews because they killed Christ, though his film clearly depicted them that way. It’s because they have a veto (he thinks) on his Hollywood projects.

And now, due to his drunken outburst on a California highway, more Lebanese villagers will be bombed and uprooted. I mean this symbolically, in the sense that generations of Arabs have had to pay for two millenniums of Christian anti-Semitism in Europe, once “the West” decided it owed a debt to Jews for the Holocaust.

And I mean it literally: He reinforced a sense that an ancient, ineradicable hatred of Jews lurks behind the current strife. One Hollywood agent said: “At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements.” Notice the link.

The history of anti-Semitism, crowned by the Holocaust, is so odious that a mere mention tends to override other factors, and even facts. For instance, this week, Marcus Gee, in The Globe and Mail, condemned “the refusal of the Arab world to accept a Jewish state in its midst.” Yet, at a 2002 summit, the Arab world offered a comprehensive peace with Israel if it returned to its 1967 borders. He writes as if that never happened. It’s as if a horror of anti-Semitism can eclipse reality itself, and Gibson-like outbursts help keep the fear active.

Anticipation of anti-Semitism can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. For years, Israel isolated and humiliated Yasser Arafat, holding him responsible for all resistance to its occupation, an implicit anti-Semite, though I think the evidence shows he was desperate to make a deal with Israel. When he died, resistance actually increased, under the leadership of Hamas, a far more obdurate foe. The “refusal” to accept Israel intensified; the fear acquired new reality.

A tendency to see anti-Semitism underlying everything can also lead you to miss possibilities for peace that are there. Take Hamas. It has always opposed an Israeli state in principle but been willing to compromise in practice. Its former leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, assassinated by Israel, said in 1999: “Let’s solve this problem now, on the basis of the 1967 borders. Let’s end this conflict by declaring a temporary ceasefire. Let’s leave the bigger issue for future generations to decide.” As an elected government, it agreed to the “prisoners’ document” for a settlement. It stuck to a self-imposed ceasefire for 16 months.

As for Hezbollah, U.S. political scientist Robert Pape found that a large majority of its suicide bombers were not Islamic fundamentalists but Lebanese nationalists who enlisted under Hezbollah to fight the Israeli occupation. Hezbollah is constrained by this constituency, which is now even larger. It is worth testing these possibilities for peace, but not if you see Hitler and the Holocaust, linked to ancient Christian anti-Semitism à la Mel Gibson, everywhere. In that case, why bother?

If you perceive history in terms of unchanging, eternal stereotypes like anti-Semitism, you may also be doomed to repeat it. Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon says those who do not leave their homes in southern Lebanon will be considered terrorists — i.e. anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

This recalls another moment, in 1948, when many Palestinians fled their homes, and were never allowed back. Official Israeli history long claimed that they left in response to appeals by Arab governments. But Israel’s new historians revealed that they left when word spread about massacres of Palestinians by Israeli forces. This week, a Lebanese farmer told The New York Times: “They want to do to us what they did with Palestinians in 1948.” The peoples of the region have long memories. In this way, patterns and resentments are perpetuated, one generation to the next.

The Mideast conflict is not about anti-Semitism, though elements of anti-Semitism may insinuate themselves. Far more is involved. For the sake of some clarity, in the service of a humane resolution, it would be best to leave Mel Gibson retching and kvetching by the side of the road.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.