It is perfectly possible, of course, to take a critical view of Israeli policies, and of their support in Washington, without being anti-Semitic. It is equally possible to be critical of American policies without being irrationally and emotionally anti-American. Just so, you can be opposed to capitalism, or ''globalization,'' without wishing to unleash or condone suicide attacks on Manhattan. What is disturbing, however, is the way these views now increasingly come together in a hostile cocktail. Most mass demonstrations in Europe, and elsewhere, against the war in Iraq contained banners in support of the Palestinians, even the religious extremists of Hamas, and against the global symbols of capitalism. For some people on the left, being opposed to Israel, or Zionism, goes beyond specific policies in Gaza or the West Bank; Israel is seen as the colonial Western presence in an Arab world, an American client state locked into global capitalism. Even if the Israelis treated the Palestinians with the most scrupulous generosity -- which they do not -- this impression would persist.

Not every demonstrator against Ariel Sharon's government or American imperialism is an anti-Semite, to be sure, but the ready identification of Jewish interests with the United States or, in the past, with Britain is old and loaded with prejudice. Since the early 19th century, many Europeans associated the City of London, as Wall Street is today, with financial power, materialist greed and economic imperialism. To ethnic nationalists in Germany and elsewhere, Britain and France, with their relative openness to immigrants, were seen as mongrel nations, where citizenship could be bought for a crock of gold.

This is what Hitler meant when he called France, Britain and the United States ''Jewified.'' He took the view, popularized by all manner of third-rate scribblers, that a Jewish cabal was manipulating Western powers behind the scenes. French universalism and Anglo-Saxon capitalism, so it was believed, threatened the unique values of culture and race. And behind all this were the Jews, pulling strings in their cosmopolitan network of banks, newspapers and movie companies.

The United States is now the biggest capitalist power in the world. To the extent that it is an empire, it is driven by economic interests, but also, these days, by a mission to spread ''American values,'' as if they were universal. Hollywood is seen in the outside world as part of this, and so are Wall Street, the Pentagon and the International Monetary Fund. This, alas, is precisely the kind of thing anti-Semites have always associated with Jewish conspiracies. And since Israel is America's most favored ally in the Middle East, and the Palestinian cause has become the universal litmus test of liberal credentials, the idea that Jewish interests are driving American foreign policy is even more widely believed, if not always openly stated. American foreign policy and ancient prejudices are reinforcing each other in a vicious circle.


For Israel, the American embrace is an ambiguous advantage. Although perhaps vital for the nation's survival, it also makes Israel the hub of global hostility toward the United States. It is, in any case, doubtful that the fate of Israel is best served by its dependence on an alliance with Christian fundamentalists and people on a mission to liberate the world with military force. It may well be that Israel's interests coincide with those of the United States for the moment, but this should not be a given, never to be examined or reassessed.

The first condition for a reasoned examination would be to disentangle Israel's politics from all the anti-Semitic myths and other leftovers of a murderous past. This is not so easily done, since Israeli leaders have too often abused history themselves. The Israeli bomb attack on an Iraqi nuclear installation in 1981 might have been justified in many legitimate ways, but to say, as Prime Minister Menachem Begin did, that it was to protect ''the children of Israel,'' asking foreign reporters, ''Haven't you heard of one and a half million little children who were thrown into gas chambers?'' is to dangerously confuse the issue. The same was true when Prime Minister Sharon warned the United States last year not to repeat the mistakes of 1938 and sell out Israel like Czechoslovakia. Such false analogies serve only to invite equally odious comparisons from Israel's critics.

Disentangling American and Israeli interests and government actions is, if anything, even harder. To see Israel as nothing but a cat's paw of American imperialism in the Middle East is a crude distortion. And to hold Washington responsible for every Israeli action against the Palestinians is equally misguided. But it is neither anti-Semitic nor blindly anti-American to point out that the United States could have done much more to stop Israel from humiliating the Palestinians by turning the occupied territories into a kind of Wild East of gunslinging settlers and hounded natives.

Finally, the politics of the Middle East may be murderous, but it is not helpful to see them as an existential battle between good and evil. As long as such a view persists, among zealots in Washington, Jerusalem and Nablus, the struggle between Jews and Arabs will be forever obscured by a fog of noxious myths and fantasies. Religious fanaticism is confounding the politics of Israel, as well as that of its enemies. And its influence is felt in the United States as well. Americans are right to support Israel's right to exist in peace, but criticism of Israeli policies should not be stifled by Christian visions of Armageddon, right-wing zealotry or memories of the culture wars in Brooklyn. This would not be good for America, and it is certainly not good for the Jews.