A protester in Madrid. (Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In July 2005, Mohammed Bouyeri stood trial for the murder of Theo van Gogh. A year earlier, in broad daylight on a street in Amsterdam, he shot Theo eight times, and then attempted to decapitate him. Theo’s crime, for which Bouyeri meted out a death sentence, was a simple one: he had chosen to direct a film, Submission, that addressed the mistreatment of women under Islam.
I wrote the script for that film — so Bouyeri pinned a note to Theo’s chest when he killed him, declaring that I would be next.
During his trial, Bouyeri said very little. But what he did say chilled everyone present. He declared he was not sorry for Theo’s murder; that he would do it again. As Geraldine Coughlan, who covered the trial for the BBC, recalled: “There was total shock in the courtroom. Some people were actually standing up because they couldn’t believe what he was saying. It was really without emotion.”
Bouyeri was a pure, cold-hearted killer, radicalised to believe a narrative that anyone who disparages Islam or the Prophet must die. Over the past week, I have repeatedly thought back to that trial, and Bouyeri’s unswerving belief in his Islamist worldview. For it seems to me that, sixteen years later, his need to shape the world within a narrative has found an unlikely new following here in the West.
Of all the narratives competing for our attention, there is none as volatile as the one that tells the story of Israel-Palestine. Indeed, there is no other conflict in the world that manages to combine all the highly charged story-lines of our time: the narrative of the oppressor versus the oppressed, of the coloniser versus the colonised, of the genocide perpetrator and system of supremacy.
It is a subject on which everyone seems to have a strong opinion. It is overloaded with emotion; with people desperate to tell their side’s “truth”. Instead of a thoughtful, conscientious approach, people rush to defend their “side” — and, in doing so, swiftly drift away from facts, and closer and closer to narratives that dismiss and overshadow objective truths.
It was a false narrative that led Mohammed Bouyeri to kill Theo, and express his intent to kill me. So I don’t say this lightly: the narratives circulating today regarding Israel and the Jewish people are equally dangerous, and are already wreaking havoc around the world. How else are we to explain the fact that, since the most recent conflict erupted between Israel and Gaza, acts of anti-Semitism have spiked in many corners of the Western world?
Of course, for several decades, there have been clandestine pockets of anti-Semitism throughout Europe and the US. This is not a new phenomenon. Despite the horrors that culminated at Auschwitz, anti-Semitism has been haunting our societies for years, continuing to be taught in far-Left, far-Right and Islamic circles. I first encountered these teachings as a child in Africa; as a teenager I joined the Muslim Brotherhood, where I was taught to believe that Jews were not even human, but descendants of pigs and monkeys.
Today, however, anti-Semitism is no longer confined to the fringes of society, but instead has started to leak into the mainstream. Social media has turned it into a contagion, normalising anti-Semitic tropes and attacks. Following the recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found “17,000 tweets which used variations of the phrase, ‘Hitler was right’” in just one week. Likewise, anti-Semitism has ferociously spread across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. This is in large part due to a group of popular “influencers” who — along with their thousands of young, impressionable followers — use their platforms to highlight the Palestinians’ plight. No doubt they think they are fighting a just cause. What they may not realise, however, is that they are inadvertently harming Jews, including those living in the West.
I say “inadvertently” because I believe the majority of users posting infographics and memes about Israel-Palestine are simply under-educated and ill-informed. After all, one cannot explain thousands of years of history between Arabs and Israelis in a few screenshots, let alone 280 characters.
Take supermodel Bella Hadid, who, as Daniella Greenbaum Davis has pointed out, has almost four-times as many Instagram followers as there are Jews in the entire world. In response to the conflict, she joined a pro-Palestinian protest in Brooklyn, chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — an anti-Semitic slogan coined by the Palestine Liberation Organization to call for the elimination of Israel.
Until recently, it was a chant frequently associated with the likes of Hamas, a terrorist organisation whose 1988 charter explicitly called for genocide of the Jewish people. But in today’s hysterical climate, one of the West’s most famous celebrities can use it and expect applause. Indeed, when the Israeli government accused Hadid of advocating for the elimination of the Jewish state, many of her fans attempted a semantic defence, claiming that Hadid was innocently advocating for a free Palestine, without any harm to the Jews.
But this is where the role of false narratives becomes increasingly alarming. It is my opinion that Ms. Hadid was unaware of the context and history of the chant; I do not believe she understood she was calling for the elimination of Israel, or the expulsion or genocide of the Jewish people. Similarly, I do not believe that she, nor her niece’s father, singer Zayn Malik, understood the implications of describing Israel as a “colonizer”.
Yet we must not ignore the fact that such descriptions have a pernicious impact on society at large. For whether they realise it or not, sinister actors and adversaries — look no further than China — have started to capitalise on the ignorance of our progressive elites, using their narratives to harness and spread more anti-Semitism.
Indeed, Jewish communities across the world are already experiencing the fall-out from a new wave of anti-Semitism that has been legitimised by celebrity activists. This month, for example, has also seen the rise of a second frequently misunderstood slogan: a version of “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return”, which dates back to the massacre of the Jews by Muhammad and his army in Khaybar, northern Arabia, in the 7th century.
Today, it remains a battle-cry used by Muslims when attacking Jews or Israelis; in the past month alone, it has been used not only in Istanbul, Casablanca, Kuwait City, Doha and Karachi, but in western Europe, too: in Utrecht, Warsaw, Vienna, Rome, Munster, London, Brussels, Berlin and Amsterdam.
The resurgence of anti-Semitism Europe, in many ways, is unsurprising; it has been simmering under the surface for over a decade. Yet despite a number of terrible anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, America, by comparison, has felt relatively immune — immune, that is, until now. Indeed, I have friends who moved to the US from Europe a decade ago to escape anti-Semitism. This month, for the first time, they are now questioning whether it is safe to walk to synagogue or wear their kippahs.
And is it really so hard to see why? Last Saturday, a man was arrested for attacking Jewish diners outside a restaurant in Los Angeles “on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon”. Two days earlier, a Jewish man, Joseph Borgen, was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists in New York City’s Times Square. They reportedly beat him with a crutch, sprayed him with mace, called him a “dirty Jew” and explained that “Hamas is going to kill all of you”. Remarkably, a photo of one of the men accused of assaulting Borgen, Waseem Awawdeh, recently appeared in a now-deleted Instagram photo posted by Bella Hadid from a pro-Palestinian protest.
Yet what I found most disturbing was how Awawdeh’s comments following the attack mirrored those of Mohammed Bouyeri’s after he killed Theo van Gogh. Just as Bouyeri refused to apologise, Awawdeh reportedly proclaimed from his jail cell: “If I could do it again, I would do it again.” A video has since been released, purporting to show Awawdeh leaving prison on bail; his friends welcome him outside, put him on their shoulders and proclaim that he was a “hero”.
And herein lies the problem: when such odious acts as Awawdeh’s can be represented as heroism, you suddenly see how easy it is for false narratives to turn into deadly fantasies.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an UnHerd columnist. She is also the Founder of the AHA Foundation, and host of The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast. Her Substack is called Restoration.
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SubscribeInteresting article. The author misses out half of Italy, the south, which is almost like a different country. I lived right on the south coast for a while, Taranto, and they seemed to see themselves more like Greeks than Italians. I don’t even remember a special day, an Armistice Day: it must have been very low key.
For mini-breaks we often visited Naples. Armistice day or it’s equivalent was on the Sunday preceding 11 November and there were flowers everywhere with many people in black (not meaning blackshirts). It was like a national day of mourning.
An excellent observation. From my understanding, there’s a pretty sharp difference in ethnicity between the south and the north. In America, when we think of ‘Italians’, we’re probably thinking of the southern type, tanned skin, dark hair, etc, because most Italian American immigrants, including those who became known for their organized crime syndicates came from southern Italy or Sicily. As I was explaining to my mother at one point when we were watching something on TV and she commented on how some fellow doesn’t look Italian at all, people from Northern Italy look basically like any generic white person.
Yep. A long time ago, southern Italy was a Greek colony; it still uses the name Magna Grecia. In Taranto there are Ancient Greek ruins under the city, which have been exposed as places to visit. Those in N.Italy look down on people from the South as lazy grifters – which perhaps explains the gangster connections.
That’s because the northerners are descended from the Lombards, a Germanic tribe that conquered the place in the early Middle Ages.
very true. The same for Northern Italians mentality which is closer to Northern Europe countries than Southern Europe ones.
I don’t think it’s controversial to call Tito’s massacres of Italians ethnic cleansing, or even genocide.. The author shouldn’t be too nervous about saying such things. This is Unherd, not…any other out,et.
One good turn deserves another. I suspect Tito had that in mind.
Siena’s Palio is an example of a splintered community uniting in a common venture.
They make great coffee tho’.
“the Risiera di San Sabba became one of the country’s central exhibits of remembrance: this red-brick rice warehouse was a concentration camp, where political and Jewish prisoners were either murdered or transported to Nazi extermination camps. The Risiera, it’s thought, was responsible for the deaths of up to 5,000 people”
Deportations of Italian Jews to Germany didn’t happen under Mussolini’s Fascist government. It would have happened after Germany occupied north Italy when Italy surrendered in 1943. Prior to the Pact of Steel in 1939 Jews could join the fascist party, and many did.
It’s one reason why conflating fascism with national socialism is historically lazy and inaccurate.
Great post.
Either author doesn’t know Italian history or purposefully ignores it to make his point.
If commies took over in Italy numbers of killed in Risiera would be at least 20 times higher.
Many problems in Italy are due to unified country being so young.
There was not even standard Italian language understood by majority of people.
It took long time for Florentine dielect to become basis of Italian language.
Problem with commemorating anything is not helped by Italians starting and ending wars on different side.
They are not exactly most reliable allies.
Some would argue they are cowards.
Supported by Italian army “performance” in wars.
My brother worked for Fiat.
Many senior people there argued where Europe stops and Africa starts.
40 years ago many said south of Rome.
20 years ago, it was north of Rome.
Now it is not far south of Florence.
It did not help that Italians opted for Euro.
Hardly any GDP growth in 25 years.
Don’t you just love 4th Reich (sorry EU).
Just a brilliant article- chapeau
”Sergeant in the snow” is a great first person account of this period in World War II. It’s an amazing story but at the end you’re sort of asking yourself Wait, which side was the sergeant on? It kind of points to the absurdity political party affiliation during war time.
The Italian peninsula has been overrun so many times by so many armies for thousands of years that it’s history will never be clear or simple, or decided, something to be contemplated and examined forever.
xcellent article Mr Tobia.
Italy and Italians have been always a divided country . such as the economic divide between the richer North and the underdeveloped South