We’re in Trouble
25th February 2024
When I was a kid, my dad and I would often talk antisemitism.
“What would we do,” I once asked him, “if the National Front came to power?”
“That’s easy,” he replied, “if they got a single MP into parliament, we’d be on the next plane to Israel.”
It seemed like a perfectly natural conversation for a 10 year old Jewish boy in Glasgow to have with his father. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, that’s how we most readily identified Jew hatred, goose stepping in from the right, brandishing a swastika.
Antisemitism has evolved since then. The version that is growing in Britain right now doesn’t come at us in jackboots, it’s different. But in the end, not completely different.
Because I think we’re in trouble here, folks. All of us. Everyone needs to start paying very close attention. Old certainties are disintegrating with alarming speed.
Lets start with us Jews. We’re certainly in a spot of bother. That whiff of antisemitism which I mentioned previously, it’s really starting to stink. Every day brings a new story to remind us that our longest hatred continues to elongate. Last week’s treats came in from the worlds of music, football, and politics. Something for everyone.
Starting with Amy Winehouse. Somebody defaced her statue in Camden, seeing fit to cover her star of David with a Palestinian flag sticker. That one hit hard, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly why. It was just a sticker, easily removed, and it only takes one idiot to do it. But the symbolism was powerful, because Amy Winehouse had no connection to the conflict in Gaza and Israel. She was known for her talent, for her troubled story, and for being a Jew.
The message was clear, the same one as delivered to Jewish students in Leeds when their Hillel House was attacked with “Free Palestine” graffiti, or to Jewish neighbourhoods whenever they are targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters. And the message is this – erase your identity, Jews, or we are coming for you.
A few days earlier “fans” of my team, Celtic, held up a sign demanding that someone (Who? Brendan Rogers? The SFA?) “end Zionism”. That is, a call to end the only Jewish state. The group of fans responsible, the Green Brigade, previously held up a banner in support of the Hamas terror atrocity on October 7th - while it was still happening. On the day of the pogrom. With the murder of innocents, the rape and kidnapping still in progress, the bodies still warm, long before Israel had a chance to react. So when this same group describes the horrific, tragic deaths in Gaza as genocide and demand an end to Israel, it’s important to recognise the distorting, extremist prism through which they view these events.
On Thursday, while the parliamentary Gaza ceasefire debate fell into disarray over concerns about MPs’ safety if they didn’t vote the right way, campaigners projected the words “from the river to the sea” onto Big Ben. Different words, same message. Destroy the Jewish state. Even if we take at face value the dubious claim that these words are ambiguous, that they don’t necessarily call for the destruction of Israel by violent means, those responsible know that it’s a slogan which many of us interpret as having a violent, destructive intent. And the decision to project those words onto the mother of parliaments was made in that knowledge. The hateful symbolism could not have been more unambiguous.
And so it continues to escalate. “It’s just words”, I see folk write. The Celtic banner, the Amy Winehouse sticker, the projection on parliament – Jews complain about some nasty words while people die in Gaza. While there have been physical attacks reported to the CST, it’s true that the upsurge in antisemitism is primarily word-based. For now. It always begins with words, creating an increasingly hostile environment in which the unacceptable gradually becomes acceptable.
The events from October 7th onwards have been horrific, a catastrophe for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The devastation in Gaza is truly heartbreaking, every death a calamity for their loved ones and for the whole world. But none of this is simple - anyone who tells you otherwise is part of the problem. If we are to wade in, we have a responsibility to hold a series of difficult and seemingly (but not) conflicting ideas in our heads. Here are a few of mine:
That every innocent death in this terrible conflict is horrific, and it is understandable to be perplexed about the impossible choices Israel has faced in order to defend itself and recover the hostages held by Hamas
That it's now easy to forget how it began. It started with a pogrom, the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, which forced Israel into a war with Hamas, an antisemitic, fascist death cult in control of a Gaza which Israel left 19 years ago. They have a constitution committed to killing every Jew they can reach, and a leadership which has sworn to repeatedly carry out similar murderous attacks for so long as they have the capacity to do so. For Hamas and their jihadist cohorts in Lebanon, in Yemen and elsewhere, every Jew is a target.
That it's possible to understand and accept all of that, and still deeply mistrust Benjamin Netanyahu and his appalling government. For being an obstacle to any long-term peaceful settlement with the Palestinians. For their failure to protect Israelis. For their attacks on Israeli democracy. While Hamas dragged Israel into this war, this is not who you would want leading Israel through this most challenging of times.
That it's one thing to denigrate Israel’s leadership. Most Israelis now do. But quite another to attempt to turn Israel into a pariah state. To cynically reposition this awful death toll as genocide. The movement to treat Israel differently, to portray the only Jewish state and its citizens as uniquely evil, reaches far beyond progressive activism.
That it is perfectly possible to criticise Israel’s response since October 7th in a non-antisemitic way. To have misgivings about Israel’s strategy, about the death toll. To protest in good faith.
But that the effort to assert a simple narrative, that Israel is the root cause of everything bad, requires silence, denial and active support for the most heinous atrocities. Many of the noisiest when it comes to the actions of the Jewish state had not a word about the October 7th slaughter and the ongoing hostage tragedy. The mass rape of Israeli women and men, now documented in grim detail, are ignored or denied, because to do otherwise contradicts that malicious narrative.
And that it affects every Jew. There’s a climate of hatred which continues to build, targeting anyone with a connection to Israel, any Jew who is not prepared to hide their identity or to join in on the attack. There are only 16 million of us, including 6 million in Israel. We are tiny. Some Jews do actively denounce Israel, and others don’t feel a particular connection. But for most of us, our bond with Israel is part of our Jewish identity, of who we are. We see this unrelenting, unprecedented campaign for what it is – an attack on all of us.
This latest antisemitic iteration comes primarily through a dark alliance of murderous antisemitic organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah and their supporters from supposedly progressive politics. All in the name of liberation. Trust me, there won’t be a lot of liberation in sight when the jihadists achieve their aims.
Conversations are now taking place in Jewish homes. How hostile does an environment have to get, before, you know… and in which case – where would we even go?
Some do now question whether there is a long term future for Jews in Britain. I don’t believe that we’re at that stage, but the direction of travel is deeply troubling, and turning this around will require everyone to start paying attention. I am confident that most people are horrified to understand the impact that this upsurge in antisemitism has on Jews’ sense of security, of belonging, in this country. And I also like to think that folk actually quite like the idea of living in an open, liberal society. I’ve written about it before, but it’s an important enough point to dwell on. What starts with us Jews never ends there.
So please. It’s time for you good people to stop just worrying, and get involved. Speak out about it. Talk to your kids – make sure they don’t get educated on this through Tiktok alone. Challenge the hate. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, or do it out of self interest. But just do it - ultimately this affects every one of us.
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