Robert Wistrich, Professor of European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Manfred Gerstenfeld that globalization has given rise to an anti-globalist left that is "viscerally anti-American, anti-capitalist, and hostile to world Jewry."Gerstenfeld, Manfred. "Something is Rotten in the State of Europe": Anti-Semitism as a Civilizational Pathology. An Interview with Robert Wistrich", Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, Institute for Global Jewish Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 1, 2004. He argues that the decade that preceded the current increase in antisemitism was one that saw accelerated globalization of the world economy, a process in which the losers included the Arab and Muslim worlds, and who are now the "major consumers of anti-Jewish poison and conspiracy theories that blame everyone except themselves. Israel is only one piece on this chessboard, but it has assumed such inflated importance because it serves a classic anti-Semitic function of being an 'opium for the masses'."
