A video clip sent to me by a British acquaintance of mine showing an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic group outburst at the National University of Ireland, Galway — one of several incidents that have become the norm — brought to mind my official visit a few years ago to the southern Indian state of Kerala.

During a TV interview there, the young presenter asked me: “Why do the Israelis love our country?”

When I answered, “I think because anti-Semitism never really existed in your country,” he responded: “Anti-Semitism? What’s anti-Semitism?”

I was so excited to have heard that sort of question, I hugged the interviewer and told him, “Because of that question, we love you.”

As I travelled back to New Delhi, I thought to myself, what TV presenter in any Christian or Muslim country would ever ask such a question? Even the most amateur interviewer would know anti-Semitism is alive in Europe, kicking among all the liberal principles that were supposed to mold the post-World War II and Holocaust world.

Let’s go back the clip my acquaintance sent me: The man, Alan Johnson, is an editor at a British, pro-Israel, level-headed Zionist journal, the kind that doesn’t eschew criticizing certain aspects of Israeli diplomacy. On March 5, he tried to explain his worldview to students at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

He had just opened his mouth when the student body started heckling and cursing, banging their tables and roaring verbal abuse. The onslaught was part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which supports a boycott against Israel and whose activists, among them Jews and Israelis, practice violence against the onstage appearance of any Israeli.

Read the article in full at Israel Hayom.