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Robert Wistrich, the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of the University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, is one of the world's leading experts on anti-Semitism. His book "Antisemitism, the Longest Hatred" is a classic work on the subject.

In his new encyclopedic volume, "A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad," Wistrich notes that "Hitlerism did not really die in April 1945 nor, unfortunately, was Auschwitz truly 'liberated.'" Nazi hatred of the Jews became part of the ideology of the former Soviet Union and especially that of the Arab-Muslim world, where virulent anti-Semitism systematically libeling Israel and the Jews was widely disseminated and officially sanctioned.

This book describes the intensity of this "culture hatred" that pervades the Islamic media, the Internet, sermons by their prominent religious leaders, and their educational system in a way that we have not seen since the Nazi regime.

Wistrich fears that the demonic imagery that are widely propagated through the Islamic world are so "radical in tone and content" as to represent "a new warrant for genocide." They blend the blood libel of medieval Christian Europe with Nazi theories that Jews strive to control the world and Islamic quotations about Jews being the "sons of apes and donkeys" that are so dehumanizing.

Add to this mix the conspiracy theories that Jews and the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, were responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001. The false charge of the omnipotent Zionist lobby fuels the belief that Jews are "draining the lifeblood of Arabs and Muslims, gratuitously inciting the American war against Iraq, and pursuing their sinister plans for global conquest."

This conspiratorial view, which is a foundation of Islamist ideology, is similar to the Nazi worldview, with its obsession to eliminate the clandestine Jewish influence that seeks world domination. Just as the Nazis believed the Jews to be a satanic force leading them into the abyss, the Muslim body politic has assumed this worldview during the last 40 years. Now the "collective Jew" is represented in the Jewish state.

Anti-Semitism is often confused as merely prejudice or discrimination against Jews. Would that it were so. Anti-Semitism regards Jews individually and as a group as the hated "other." Hatred and fear drive those who despise Jews.

Wistrich analyses this loathing as part of the "culture of hatred" in the West that created an almost inexplicable dehumanization of the Jewish people. The study explores the anti-Semitic stereotypes that for centuries were a vital part of Christianity. This legacy remains. One in five Americans and Europeans, for example, still believe that Jews killed Jesus.

Wistrich reminds us that Zionism did not reduce or cause anti-Semitism to vanish as Zionists had anticipated after the establishment of the state. Many people still refuse to accept the idea that the enmity Israel encounters with the Arabs is not natural. The assumption is that this is what one might expect, given that two national movements are in a fight over the same piece of land.

He points out that this conflict is not typical of a traditional clash between states that can be resolved through bargaining and negotiating. With the Arabs there is no way to reconcile differences because you cannot compromise with people who do not even recognize your right to exist.

What emerges from this study is that the Jewish people and Judaism were viewed in Christian and later Muslim theology as the symbol of the dark forces in this world that wield secret powers with the ability to thwart the success of their "dogmatic and universalist creeds." The Jew is now "the Antichrist, Satan and master conspirator all rolled into one -- a primary obstacle to universal redemption."

This tradition has become the legacy of the jihadists, "the warriors of the Muslim apocalypse" who see the end of the Jewish people as irrevocably linked with the downfall of the U.S. and "the decline of the West."

Wistrich's book provides a serious primer on the development of anti-Semitism throughout history and how it affects all of us today.

Dr. Alex Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. He is the author of a number of books, including "Nations United: How The U.N. Undermines Israel and The West," "Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?" and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish state.