Israel Matzav

Proper British anti-Semitism

It's become fashionable to be an anti-Semite in England.

I am standing in a queue waiting to buy a train ticket from London to Canterbury. A well-dressed lady standing behind me informs her friend that she “can’t wait till Israel disappears off the face of the earth.” What struck me was not her intense hostility to Israel but the mild-mannered, matter-of-fact tone with which she announced her wish for the annihilation of a nation. It seems that it is okay to condemn and demonize Israel. All of a sudden Israel has become an all-purpose target for a variety of disparate and confused causes. When I ask a group of Pakistani waiters sitting around a table in their restaurant why they “hate” Israel, they casually tell me that it is because Jews are their “religion’s enemy.” Those who are highly educated have their own pet prejudice. One of my young colleagues who teaches media studies in a London-based university was taken aback during a seminar discussion when some of her students insisted that since all the banks are owned by Jews, Israel was responsible for the current global financial crisis.

Writing in the Spectator, Melanie Philips blames the silence of Britain's senior politicians for encouraging the anti-Semites to come out of the woodwork:

What is so terribly shocking is that in the face of this unprecedented wave of hatred and bigotry, Britain’s senior politicians have been all but silent. They have a duty not merely to condemn the anti-Jewish violence but also to condemn the blood libels about Israel that have been inciting it. Instead, ministers such as International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander have breathed upon the flames by condemning Israel’s behaviour as ‘disproportionate’ and regurgitating as fact the distorted propaganda of Hamas and its patsy, the UN, about the number of civilian casualties.

Repeatedly, Gordon Brown has said, as here, that ‘too many innocent people’ have died in Gaza without acknowledging these crucial points: that while all deaths of innocents in war are to be much regretted, the vast majority of those killed have been Hamas operatives; that Hamas deliberately falsify these figures by classifying terrorists as civilians; and most crucial of all, that Israel has gone to extreme lengths to avoid killing innocent civilians – lengths to which the British and Americans most certainly are not going in Afghanistan. For Brown to avoid stating any of this, and instead to lend credence to the libellous claims about Israel’s behaviour which have incited this wave of anti-Jewish bigotry and violence makes the British Prime Minister effectively an accessory to that bigotry and violence.

But then Britain has always tolerated anti-Semitism among its ruling classes, hasn't it?

On Sunday, another member of Britain's ruling class called for Israel to be "out of the country" and accused Israel of using weapons that will give 'Palestinian' children leukemia for decades to come. More here.

Just think Americans: These are the people whom the Hopenchange administration hopes to make love America....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:50 AM