In the latest instalment of her enlightening Guardian vignettes of life in Israel, Linda Grant produces a sharp riposte to those who contend there is no connection between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. She relates a conversation with scientists who fled to Israel from the former Soviet Union, and who encountered antisemitism particularly in the universities which would not employ Jews. With astonishment, they note the same phenomenon happening in the west, but masquerading under a different name:

'Most devastating to the scientists has been the academic boycott of Israeli universities. Gregory, a mathematician who came to Israel in 1996, has been involved in the campaign against it: "It reminded us that there was no boycott against Russia because of the invasion of Afghanistan. At the moment, everything we read in the European media about Israel reminds us of what the Soviet Union said about it. Open Pravda in the 1970s and you'd read the same things, the same anti-Zionism, though at least with Pravda you knew it was lies.

"The European left has still not apologised for believing the propaganda about the Soviet Union instead of the facts, which were there for all to see. All the actions of anti-Zionism now have their prototype in the Soviet Union. Our daughter tried to apply for a PhD in the US and she was told, 'This university is good for Israelis, this one isn't.' It's just like the Soviet Union: 'This university is good for Jews, this one isn't.' Nothing has changed in that respect." '

Nothing has changed; except that the Jew-haters of the left (who include, complicatedly and tragically, Jews among their number just as in the Soviet Union) are not only to be found on American campuses but have come to dominate British and European universities, just as they dominate British and European politics and culture.