When anti-Israel sentiment started to grow around the world at the beginning of this century, partly as a long-term impact of the UN resolution declaring Zionism as a form of racism in 1975, Natan Sharansky addressed the issue as to how identify such sentiment as antisemitism. Famously, he spoke of the three “Ds”, the demonization of Israel, the delegitimization of Israel, and the double standard applied to Israel.

Sharansky’s formulation has been very helpful over the years in framing that important question as to when criticism of the Jewish state spills over into antisemitism. Years later, today as antisemitism surges in a way that no one anticipated, that third category, the double standard, takes on greater relevance. Indeed, whether it is the collective Jew through the Jewish state or the individual Jew around the world, the signal characteristic of current antisemitism is the many ways how Jews are treated differently than most other peoples.

It starts with that 1975 UN resolution. The idea that the Jewish liberation movement in its historic homeland is inherently racist took hold over many years, vigorously promoted by Israel’s detractors, including the Soviet Union. The fact that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, the fact that minority rights are protected by the courts mattered........

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