Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] A BISL ANTISEMITIC? 285
control of the world’s finances and media, is ever-present, and whenever
Tennenbom hits upon a raw nerve with his questions they appear time and
again as a rudimentary defense mechanism. It is the matter-of-fact discussion
of these falsehoods that makes for some of the more disturbing
passages in Tennenbom’s book; for those individuals featured within this
volume, there is seemingly no shame in believing these appalling
stereotypes.
Tennenbom’s narrative comes to a head when, interviewing a guide
from the Buchenwald camp, he discovers that the guide has participated in
charity missions and protests in Nazareth and the West Bank, aiding the
Palestinians. The author discards his journalistic mask and confronts his
subject: “Gaza has the world’s highest concentration of people who believe
in driving the Jews into the sea. Why would anybody from Buchenwald join
them?” The lack of forethought, the depths to which this unthinking disrespect
plunges, destroy both parties’ ability to communicate with one
another. Preserving the Kill Zone has done little to warn people off the trail
of racial hate—how, we must wonder, can one presented daily with the
brutal facts go on to endorse such politics? The guide’s silence when challenged
is, perhaps, answer enough.
*Michael Bates is a graduate student at the School of English Literature, Language
and Linguistics, University of Sheffield.