If racism has become taboo, then too, would be anti-semitism, as it is merely a form of racism.

But many forms of racism still persist in the US and elsewhere, it's just the focus of racism has shifted. Once upon a time when it was black people who were margianlised and disenfranchised by white people, those same white people felt threatened that the fellow humans they oppressed would rise up against them. Thus they held racist nations about a 'black threat' or attempted to justify their ongoing immoral behaviour toward their fellow human on various spurious racist theories.

Then for various reasons and slowly over time, the oppression and marginalisation stopped (though many would argue not completely) and black people were absorbed into mainstream 'white' society (i.e the Cosbys rather than Black Panthers) and it became uncool to be racist towards black people.

Then there was the cold war and the Russians were the baddies, and ok, so there were no pogroms against Russo-American shopkeepers etc., There was no long tradition of it unlike against black people.

The cold war ended and the main 'threat' remained from Islamic fundamentalists / or the middle east in general (I'm over-simplifying here, and can't include the reasons for that 'threat' as the scope is too large, but suffice to say it wasn't like Arabs just went mad one day and just decided to go bad)

Then Arabs became the bad guys and especially after Sept 11th it became -if not actually ok - then at least not taboo to express racist attitudes towards Arabs (or Muslims in a wider sense). You don't have to look even too far away from here to see that.

So yes, there has always and probably will always be racism. There were always be people who feel there are other races of people in the world not quite as good - or much worse - than their own 'race'. And, in the end of the day, what is 'race'? Are we not all people? Humans? Germaine Greer, though I find fault with much of what she says, wrote in "The Female Eunuch" that if aliens were to invade we would suddenly find we had much more in common with those people some of us now hold in distaste (her actual words were a lot more biting) than with the life-form from Planet X. Maybe an alien invasion would do us some good!

When I was younger I often criticised the Soviet regime to my friends -at least those who felt communist Russia to be way superior to the decadent West. While they had some good points, I asked them what about suppression of the press, free speech (on that note: )
the suppression of religious freedom in service of the atheist state, the gulags, etc., we are all familiar with the failings of the Soviet Regime and I doubt anyone here would stick up for it. But neither would anyone say I was 'anti-Russian' or that I hated the Russian people. I think any normal, sane person in full possession of all their faculties would see that criticising the actions and foreign policy of the Soviet State was not an expression of hatred towards the Russian people or a desire to see them all gone from Earth.

No doubt there are some people unable to distinguish between the Soviet State, and the cheerleaders who supported its policies, and the Russian people at large. I have had dealings with many Russian people and I found them to be just like my own people - a mix of good and bad (in my judgement), a truism which hardly needs saying.

But such people are not going to respond to rational argument anyway.

Likewise, I find it tiresome in the extreme when it is suggested that criticism of the State of Israel and its actions or those of its supporters is tantamount to anti-semitism (as seems to be the case above). It also implies that all Jews around the world are complicit in the immoral actions carried out by the Israeli State (as opposed to the moral ones, which no doubt occur too). How in hell are all Jews around the world complicit in the immoral actions of the Israeli State? Just because they are Jewish? Even the ones that disagree with the actions of the Israeli State? Surely that's a racist viewpoint too?

If you disagree with me, you are simply revealing that you're an anti-Irish / pro-British-imperialist racist who probably wishes that we were all killed off during the potato famine and that we are not fit for self-government. That means I don't have to listen to you and you are probably a very disturbed person. Now that's a handy argument that should win them all. If you also happen to be Irish, it's because you hate your own race in addition to the points above.