JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

74 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 3:71
antisemitic attacks of the postwar period—the attacks against the
Embassy of Israel (1992) and the headquarters of the AMIA
(1994). In both cases, the perpetrators could not have acted without
local support, and would remain unpunished helped by the concealment
provided by certain sectors of the state.
Antisemitism is characterized by a perennial process of adapting
beliefs and prejudices to changing situations, rather than analysis, and
results in blaming the Jews for their failures. For example:
The messianic eschatology of Christianity from the first century of
the Common Era postulated that in a few years the Messiah would return
and begin the messianic era of the redemption of mankind. When this
prophecy failed to come to pass through several centuries, the leaders of
the Catholic Church began to blame the “uncompromising stubbornness”
of the Jews, who do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, as the main
cause for the postponement of the return of Jesus. Similarly, some of the
founding fathers of socialism hoped that Judaism would disappear by
melting into the internationalist Socialist humanism. On the contrary,
however; instead of disappearing, Jewish identity revitalized with the
development of the movement of Jewish national identity. Zionism, at its
birth, developed and strengthened the Jewish people’s national liberation
movement, a party of the left-wing attitude is boycotting him, and finally
(instead of following the rest of the movements of national liberation)
end up unfairly accusing him of being racist and genocidal.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, some saw the Jews as creators of capitalism;
they understood this social system as the triumph of a supposed
“mercantilist spirit” of the Jew who would have migrated to Christianity
(Marx)—a virtual “judenization” of Christianity. Today, others (heirs and
later descendants of the first) changed their views and understand the Jews
(embodied in Israel) as the power driver of globalization through the Jewish-American
lobby (Petras), and others understand that the normalization
of the Jews through the Israeli state and the government of that state’s adoption
of neoliberal policies in the economic sector to be a Christianization of
the Jews (Rozitchner). As you can see, the essence of the process is the
same but the meaning of the equation is the reverse; the evil is that in both
equations the Jews are placed as evil and holding conspiratorial attitudes.
We see that this mechanism is repeated over and over again in Argentina.
Yesterday, the Jews were convicted in the same way that Israel is
convicted there today (regardless of its actions). What characterize the critical
judeophobia are hubris, its disproportion, and its injustice. Today, anything
is valid and credible in the case of Israel (the Jews); yesterday, it was
said that Jews killed Christian children to knead bread for Easter, now,