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In my first year at university, in 2005, I vividly recall coming across a Guardian article by Luciana Berger headlined “Why I had to resign”. This was 14 years before she quit the “institutionally antisemitic” Labour Party; back then, she was merely a rising star on the NUS’s National Executive Committee.
In the article, she described being “spat at for being Jewish” at her first NUS conference, and referenced a speaker at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies saying “that burning down a synagogue is a rational act”. I naively assumed the piece had been published years earlier; there was surely no way this sort of bigotry and threat could be contemporary. Almost two decades later, a new generation of Jewish students is experiencing a similarly rude awakening.
Last month, a couple of weeks after Hamas carried out its attack on Israel, a flat inhabited by Jewish freshers at Nottingham Trent University was trashed and a note was left stating: “FREE PALESTINE. KYS TORY CUNTS.” (The KYS is internet slang for “kill yourself”.) Its authors were so confident in the righteousness of their cause that they even wrote their flat numbers in the corner of the A4 sheet, complete with two love hearts.
According to the mother of one of the Jewish students, the attack was the result of her daughter’s flatmate having an Israeli flag in their kitchen. “They trashed their room, tore down their lights and took the flag,” the mother tells me, before adding that her daughter later expressed relief that she doesn’t look Jewish. “I get it — she just wants to be a kid and get on with uni life. But this is what’s happening. They’re scared. They don’t want anyone to know they’re Jewish.” Indeed, every student interviewed for this article, bar one, spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
One does not have to look far to understand why. In the month since October 7, the Community Security Trust recorded 73 antisemitic incidents related to universities across the UK — compared with 17 in the first six months of 2023 and 56 in the whole of last year.
Yet the recent attacks on Jewish students are as striking for their ferocity as their sheer volume. In Bristol, a Jewish student was told: “You and your family are money grabbing cunts murdering Muslim people.” Another in Birmingham received an Instagram message from a stranger, warning: “May a slow and painful death be granted to you and every other Zionist like you.” A university rabbi also received a direct message on the platform: “You massacred innocent Muslims — I hope you die too.” In Warwick, a Jewish students’ WhatsApp group was infiltrated by at least three different people bombarding freshers with messages — shown to me — including “FUCKING DIRTY JEWISH CUNTS”, “ISREAL [sic] GOT NO HUMANITY FUCKIN CUNNTS [sic]”, “MUDWRING [sic] BASTARDS” and “FREE PALASTINE [sic]”.
Emma*, a third-year student at the University of Edinburgh, felt she was at-risk as soon as the terrorist attack took place. “I took off anything that suggests I’m Jewish and stopped going to a lot of JSoc [Jewish Society] events to avoid antisemitism,” she tells me. She describes how a friend offered to wear her Star of David necklace to prove that she would be safe doing so. “The first day he wore it, someone did a ‘Heil Hitler’ at him.” The friend gave up after a few hours.
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SubscribeWhat’s striking–and a little frightening–to me is how rapidly all this came bubbling up to the surface. If you’d told me three years ago that Jews would be facing baying mobs in major Western cities, I’d never have believed you.
But how Western are our cities these days?
Not very!!!
“If you’d told me three years ago that Jews would be facing baying mobs in major Western cities, I’d never have believed you.”
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you about this. It was all easily predictable.
After posting my earlier reply I was thinking more about this and remembered something from years ago.
Back in 1989 I was working in a pub in North London and two of the regulars were a couple, both of whom were Labour councillors. At the time I had no interest in politics so Labour factions like “Militant” and “Campaign Group” meant nothing to me, but in retrospect they were firmly of what we now think of as the “Corbynite” wing.
The reason I’m thinking of this now is that one of the big news stories of the day was the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. Their take, which they expressed explicitly, was that he had brought it on himself because he knew what he was doing.
Looking back I am sure they were the first people from the political left I ever personally knew who were prepared to justify entirely credible threats to murder someone because he had written something which a preferred minority group didn’t like. But they weren’t the last. A few years later I went back to college then on to 10 years in UK universities studying and teaching politics subjects, where I met many more people like these two.
My point is that what we are now seeing is not a recent phenomenon. It has been building for decades. Once the “progressive Left” decides that “Group X” is virtuous and “Group Y” is not-virtuous, then anything Group X does to Group Y can be justified and mitigated (even if not explicitly endorsed).
I thought the filth of identity politics from the far right was to find a scapegoat group for all the evils in society, and persecute them, and from the far left was to find an oppressed group and support a revolution to overthrow the oppressors. With the disgusting behaviour of the far left, and rabid antisemitism we are witnessing, I am not sure this model stands up.
In 1940 the far left would have supported those who were being persecuted by the Nazis, but now they see the Israelis as rich and comfortable oppressors while the Palestinians are the oppressed. And so they are prepared to ignore the atrocities of Hamas as long as it serves their virtue-signalling agenda, despite the facts than 99% of them probably couldn’t even point at Gaza on a map.
Well, “the right” are certainly making a fair stab at scapegoating “the left” for said evils at the moment, in a kind of touché move. It’s fascinating to watch. I wonder who it is that is actually gaining from all this divide and rule? Time to step right back and have as objective a look as possible.
I would consult the “horseshoe theory” of political extremism to explain this conundrum.
The apologism from the Left regarding radical Islam has deeply worried me for the last 25 years at least.
When young I had several Iranian friends and was very aware of the horror that unfolded following the islamic revolution and the installation of the Ayatollah. The terror was barely referenced on mainstream media even back then. I remembered being so grateful to be a female born into the West and Britain in particular, I didn’t know back then that we were about to face decades of culture altering mass immigration from muslim countries, and would see the most monolithically conservative spokesmen for islam, such as the MCB, given precedence over any Muslim who was critical of unreformed islam who were largely ignored as if no such voice existed. Not backed by mainstream culture those important Muslim voices were sidelined and melted away in the face of the government enabled spread of ultra right wing Wahhabism and Salafism. In 2009, Undercover Mosques, a Channel 4 program, exposed the anti-semitism and anti-christianity stuff being taught in some mosques. I remember feeling relieved that this was being exposed and perhaps something would change. Instead, the police turned on the program makers and subjected them to an investigation accusing them of ‘television fakery’. They were later forced to issue an apology but the damage had been done, attention successfully deflected.
Having some knowledge as to the reality of life in many islamic states for minorities and women, I found it impossible to understand what was happening on the Left, although it wasn’t confined to the Left for Conservative politicians were also queueing up to make the case and to call for clamp downs on ‘hate’ speech, and so they effectively ensured that no one was allowed to hold up this particular religion to the scrutiny applied to others.
So Blair imposed the hate laws with little resistance while also launching with the US a ‘war on terror’ illegally invading Iraq and then Afghanistan. (Apparently it was OK to hate innocent Iraqi so much that you could ‘bomb then back into the stone-age’ with ‘shock and awe’)
Apart from the horror of that, the evil destruction of so many lives, what these two leaders ensured was more terrorism, a growth of deep hatred and distrust for American and British governments from Muslims both here and abroad. Thus we saw the terrorist threat grow exponentially especially as the displacement of so many Muslims through war increased the flow of immigration and asylum requests across Europe. Suddenly we saw far more young women wearing hijabs in our schools. As a direct consequence we also saw an increase in hate fuelled persecution of vulnerable Christian, Jewish and other religious minorities in many islamic countries but the West said nothing about their plight. The MSM were complicit in that silence.
I’ve been calling for the widening of the history curriculum in schools and colleges to include African and Islam’s role in the world slave trade and Islam expansionism rather than painting only the British as the perpetrators of colonialism and oppression. Perpetuating this narrative will not serve anyone well. However, what we will eventually surely reap is the full harvest of carefully cultivated ignorance and apathy.
Looking back it is as if this has all been purposefully driven.
If you call it “The Great Replacement” you’ll be called a Far Right Loon or similar. But, whatever you call it, it seems that we are inexorably headed that way, lambs to the slaughter, shepherded by politicians who think their tolerance of intolerance makes them brave and good.
All part of the push for world socialism enabled by untold millions of semi-educated useful idiots. Where we are headed is serfdom. We are being pitted group against group and played.
The left approve of ‘indigenous people’ who fight back against ‘colonisers’.
Unless, of course, if the former happen to be paler than the latter. In that case they mustn’t say anything about it.
You’re comment has more historical insight than what’s taught at school and that makes me really sad. Thank you for your efforts in trying to enlighten our children with facts.
Well, you certainly covered all the bases in explaining how we got to this sorry state; it is indeed a confluence of dumb ideology on the left and the right.
And, while it seems purposefully driven, I’m struggling to find a narrative that might explain why. It’s quite possible that it’s merely the opportunistic levering up of forces which normally simmer below the surface. The colonial stupidity of the right versus the victimhood and envy of the left.
As an American, I am reminded of the radicalism of the ’60s and ’70s, which was also evident in Europe. The unpopular war in Vietnam and the simmering racial tensions were a convenient springboard to an unstable alliance between the disaffected Marxists in academia and street thugs who were willing to get onboard with any “redistributive” agenda. The alliance didn’t last long, but caused significant chaos.
Well written and accurate Mrs R.
A pleasure to read
This is driven in academia by fashionable ideas like Critical Theory, which divides everyone into oppressors and oppressed, making it easy for the progressive Left to come down on the side of the latter without actually bothering to think about the implications of this.
Yes indeed.
Agree. Antisemitism has been hiding in plain sight. It has now become acceptable in some quarters to unleash it.
But why, David? Why do you think so many horrible people out there have been harbouring antisemitism and why is it suddenly not becoming obvious? People who aren’t you or me, of course, because we are the good ones who are only anti-bad-people.
It’s like the powers that be, in their attempt to create even more chaos and sow discord, have suddenly hit on the idea of reviving the Jewish people as the biggest victims in society, because we’d all be so horrible to say that’s not true, wouldn’t we? That would make us holocaust deniers, apparently, which these days is far worse than being a child abuser, or even, heaven forbid, and “anti-vaxxer”. Apparently. And no-one wants to be labelled that, do they? So the only answer is that everything bad that is happening is because of antisemitism.
Oh well.
Alas, there has been ample evidence of the Muslim hatred toward British Jews on the campus and on the streets (remember the flag waving convoy) for years. It was all largely covered up by the State media and Police whose ultra appeasement has only encouraged these vile mobs in their belief that they have virtue. The media annilu focussed on the less awkward white Corbyn form of anti semitism. But the bigger Muslim inspired hate was always there, festering away unchallenged by authority. This is how it goes in our cowardly corrupted ‘there is no Us’ ideological state.
Yes indeed. But the Muslim hatred for Jews goes back more than 1,400 years — to the very establishment of Islam as a religious doctrine. Enmity towards Judaism is anchored in multiple suras in the Koran — and the Koran, as we are told countless times — is unimprovable, unchangeable, irreversible, and, ultimately, divinely inspired.
I guess we’re both naive then, as it shocked me too. On reflection, I suppose I’d seen signs, but they’d been isolated and opportunistic. I have the impression that the antisemites are now emboldened and feel they’ve achieved a critical mass and momentum. I would like to think they’re wrong. In any case, it’s time to stand up for decency. Small acts may yet make a difference.
Really? Did you think millions of Muslims had all dropped these views after successfully being integrated into the framework of a pluralistic democracy?
It’s not just Muslims! It’s been rife on university campuses for decades.
it was predictable. Governments allowed, encouraged, mass migration from countries that are completely hostile to Jews (and anyone else not of their religious affiliation-Jews are just an easier target given the West’s conflicted history with them), while pushing the ridiculous narrative that multiculturalism was a good thing and allowing parallel communities to spring up. This coupled with the steady flow of Marxist propaganda being spoon fed to gullible students was bound to lead to not only antisemitism but anti western sentiments
Well, not all immigrants are hostile to Jews.
Indian Hindus are probably the most Jew friendly people on Earth, and Chinese / Vietnamese are rather neutral.
Problem is, of course, the Indians etc simply end up getting placed next to the evil Whiteys and Jews in the modern social hierarchy, so not much help there.
The Guardian and the BBC are still busy blaming the rise of Hindu right wing for all the problems of the world…
Multiculturalism always sounds nice and cuddly, but it just leads to tribalism. What we really need is pluralism, which implies a requirement to integrate into the indigenous culture and respect its laws, but most people don’t understand the difference.
Groupthink meets social media.
Don’t tell me you thought #bekind was about treating all people with dignity and respect regardless of their differences.
I’m afraid it’s not rapid. Jews have been experiencing it for decades. Corbyn didn’t come from nowhere, nor was what was happening in the Labour Party an outlier. It was reflected in some trade unions and in academia. All that’s happening now is that it’s come into the open.
It was central to Corbynism
For decades my Jewish friends and neighbors have spoken about how pervasive and constant this ancient hatred is. I thought they were exaggerating. Now I realize how wrong I was.
It makes me see, even more clearly, the importance of a defensible homeland for the Jews.
I think that’s because it’s all been very much nudged into being by those who like to divide and rule. We fall for it every single time.
After Corbyn, I would.
Anti-Semitism is on the march, in Sydney, Australia.
Yesterday, on just a 700-metre stretch of Wollongong Road, Arncliffe, 9KM from the WW1 War Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, I counted four Palestinian flags flying from a mix of commercial buildings and private houses.
In the middle of this stretch of Australian suburban road is Arncliffe Park where, on 28 October 2023 (12 days ago) a Jewish man was brutally beaten by a Muslim group of “men” so severely that he was hospitalised for 4 days. He called the police but they were “too late” to save him from these thugs who proceeded with their assault even though they knew he had called police.
He is very lucky to be alive.
Just 700 metres from the scene of this attack in Arncliffe Park, is the Masjid Al Zahra Mosque, which is Shia Islam – the dominant Islamic sect in Iran. I live in this part of Sydney and I have heard not one word from the local Muslim community denouncing this anti-Semitic violence.
Local police are said to be “investigating” this appalling attack, in suburban Sydney. Arncliffe is a close-knit community, with a large percentage of Muslims. Many local people will know who was responsible for this outrage but there is, IMO, very little chance they will provide that information to police.
Our local newspapers will not publish commentary like this. Its “too uncomfortable”. But, if we cannot face basic facts what chance do we have of stamping out the all-too-obvious resurgence of anti-Semitism in our community, happening just around the corner from where I am writing this comment and repeated worldwide?
Or don’t we actually care, beyond recycling the usual, easy platitudes?
Ugh. Awful. The real hate crimes will go unpunished of course.
Mosques and masjid are the biggest problem with Islam. They hide ambitious radical mullahs whose Friday sermons declaring muslims being victims everywhere leave nothing to imagination. They call for jihad to save Islam from imaginary threats… They dig up issues like Palestine, Kashmir, Rohingya again and again to build their attendants into a frenzy… You will find a mosque or a masjid behind every Islamic terror attack. They are no longer places of worship and prayer!
This excellent comment surely demonstrates a clear understanding of the problem which Jews (and non-Muslims in general) are facing, at the hands of the “religion of peace”. And the problem is intensifying.
Be proud, parents of our modern age. You have raised little savages into our shining civilizations. Murder is resistance. Rapists are freedom-fighters. Silence is violence, but violence is justice.
This isn’t coming from parents.
Parents can do little when for 7 hours a day until they’re 18, and for 3 years thereafter, many teachers use the classroom as ideological boot camp.
I discovered my son was being dressed up at school against his wishes in dresses. He’d been told by his teacher not to tell his parents, but he did because he hated it. When I raised this with the school, they lashed out and said I was problematic, even threatening us with social services. This is relevant because we can be near certain that same teacher is blaming “the Jews”, rabidly anti-semitic, and pro-Hamas. And it’s not just one teacher, the entire school is like this.
My kids aged 8, 10 and 12 tell me they are under peer pressure at their schools to declare support for the Palestinians. Muslim pupils tell them if you’re not with us, you’re against us. My 12-year-old daughter is usually very confident and challenges things that don’t chime well with her, but on this issue she is afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. This is the world we have created through the tolerance of intolerance.
Those b..stards HAVE TO GO
Powerful article – horrifying, but not surprising. And the last sentence is absolutely true – this is our future, and these are our future leaders.
So to summarise: Enoch was right.
He only projected tens of thousands. His figures were a massive understatement compared to the reality of what ended up happening. Despite that they all claimed he was exaggerating.
Back in 1968 most of the country thought Enoch was right! But NOT the ‘good and the great’ of the Establishment, from the absurd “grocer” Edward Heath to the vile sodomite Jeremy Thorpe, to the BBC and the CoE, the howls of anguish echoed around the land.Enoch’s career was effectively destroyed.
As a casual observer to all this I instinctively knew it was ‘all over” for England/Great Britain, and so it has proved to be.
Here is snippet of what Enoch actually said on that day in Birmingham:-
“Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that the country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen.“
Still got my EP for PM T-shirt; (we were all aged 25 to 35 at the time).
“must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents”
Number of migrants moving to the UK in 2022: 1.16 million.
I will say this as an immigrant: Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Not only did we import millions of people with an antipathy towards Jews and much of our culture, nobody ever asked us if this is what we wanted. A ruling elite pretended it wasn’t happening, or labelled those who questioned it as xenophobes or worse.
Makes me despair for the future of the west. Same garbage is happening at universities in Canada.
For years, we’ve been warned about the racism and fascism of far-right radicals. This has revealed progressives to be the true racists we always knew they were. Hopefully this serves as wake-up call and leads to some serious self reflection by university leaders. I’m not holding my breath though.
Canada, if anything, appears to be in a league of its own, in terms of all it’s nonsense.
This is disgusting. There is no other word for it. But it will continue until it is stopped.
I know that at SOAS, the university authorities took action against the leaders of the Palestine Society – much to their surprise. What action was taken at other universities?
And what action did the police take?
The police are proving themselves useless, unless you send a mean tweet misgendering someone then they investigate. They are more likely to arrest someone objecting to the pro Hamas marches than someone calling for the annihilation of Jews. In the run up to the Armistice Day ceremonies, don’t be surprised if TR is arrested, again, for `exciting community tensions’. The police are willing to throw Britain and Jews under the bus rather than confront Islamic extremism. They, or at least their leadership, are cowards
It looks as though TR will indeed be confined behind bars again soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGVF29LLAqA
Isn’t it odd that with all this antisemitism going on we should be observing ‘Islamaphobia Awareness Month’ in November?!
Beyond bizarre.
Surely it is good that people are now being encouraged to become aware of all the reasons why they should fear Islam?
Yes, of course, Russell, but a phobia by definition is an irrational feeling. I have a cranefly phobia, and I will be the first to admit that my fear of these utterly harmless and fragile creatures, defies logic. Fearing Islam and its radical adherents is entirely rational, but the constant dismissals of a rational and logical fear as nonsensical and paranoid behaviour are designed to achieve the opposite. Those who decry us as Islamophobes want to discredit us as xenophobic lunatics, and portray Islam as a religion of peace, butterflies, and roses! It’s devious, but has been very effective.
Quite true. The fact that the word “Islamophobia” — a cheap propaganda term at best — has become common currency in the English language, shows just how effective it is (in protecting Islam from scrutiny and criticism)!
Nice country you Brit’s are building. You have clearly lost control of your destiny. There is simply no bottom to support this level of delusion.
The lesson is: never lose control of your borders.
This is all planned immigration by our enlightened leaders. The 2nd or 3rd generation of South Asian immigrants are much wealthier with far more opportunities than their parents and grandparents. But they seem less integrated, and why should that be?
Because the influence of political Islamism has been ignored in favour of a lazy multicultural orthodoxy. Internet radicalisation has done the rest and the Far Left has capitalised.
The 2nd or 3rd generation of South Asian immigrants are much wealthier with far more opportunities than their parents and grandparents. But they seem less integrated, and why should that be?
My impression is that the children of immigrants are sometimes/often less integrated – because whilst the parents know who they are, where they are from, and what they are fighting for, and grew up in their own communities, the kids often experience anomie & dislocation; and if they are poor, urban, and/or from a religion that is not particularly peaceful…then trouble comes. The majority, I think, of second gen are more integrated, and the subsequent generations more so.
Not saying that there isn’t a problem, and that immigration does not need controlling – just that it is often over-stated (still awaiting those rivers of blood…); not all the doing of the Far Left; that there are positives (Western Civilisation is more robust than some think, immigrants bring strengths, especially in a world which is only getting smaller, more connected). Immigrants are not fifth columnists. There is a good chance that the mixing of Islam and the West (and East for that matter) will be a catlyst for a long overdue, mcuh needed reformation. Our decline and fall will come from our own hands, not the outsiders.
… ‘rivers of blood’ … is not meant literally, it’s a METAPHOR. Look that up and then understand that Western Civilisation has been drowning (another metaphor) in blood for decades.
I know it’s metaphorical Gordon. Still not seeing them – regarding immigration.
“This is all planned immigration by our enlightened leaders.”
Of course it is. With whites having fewer and fewer children, and blacks being encouraged to abort theirs, mass immigration the only way for Western nations to support the Ponzi schemes that they’ve become.
Learn from our errors. There are those that warned about this over half a century ago.
“The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks stated: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.” He could equally have said: “What starts on university campuses never ends on university campuses.”” The next groups they will come for will be gays and lesbians, then it will be women and then who after that?
Karen – Well stated. It seems anti-antisemitism has become a virtue signal. Soon people will be asked what they have done to help liberate Palestine in job interviews and school admissions. How will the UK react as the violence increases and you begin to have fatalities?
“The next groups they will come for will be gays and lesbians”. I believe you are mistaken here. You assume that Islamists are not able to make tactical calculations, and to decide to postpone actions which would split most of the secular Left away from them. They’re not that stupid.
They could postpone, but I think they will come for them eventually, sadly.
Indeed. I am reminded of a quote by German Pastor Martin Niemoeller who was imprisoned by the Nazis.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
How history repeats itself!
Just remember, most of the same people who were screeching about the “Yatzees” making a comeback in Britain and America are the same people demanding “decolonization” and celebrating Hamas. Many of the rest are Jews who are discovering just who those they thought were their friends really are. Needless to say, it has been a bit of a rude awakening for them.
Anyone found harassing or terrorizing Jewish students at any university should be immediately and permanently removed from the university. It does not matter if they are amongst the `teaching’ staff or the student body. This kind of behaviour deserves to have consequences
Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Ironic that the most vigorous anti-Yahtzees turned out to be the most vigorous anti-semites. The man with the toothbrush mustachio (who should not be named if you don’t want your post to disappear into mod) would be proud.
Well, the man with the toothbrush mustachio did admire Islam and thought Muslims would be a useful allies. Hitler did speak with the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini, about the `final solution’ and get his endorsement. There were 8 Muslim SS divisions that fought for the Nazis in WWII.
Very interesting piece by Bruce Thornton in http://www.frontpagemag.com yesterday – A Marriage Made in Hell: Unified in a seething hatred of the West. He outlines the natural affinity between the revolutionary Left and radical Islam.
Thank you very much for the link. I look forward to reading the article.
Nov 9-10 is the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, when 30,000 Jews in Germany were rounded up, 7000 businesses attacked and 267 synagogues destroyed. It’s truly chilling how this echoes down the ages to today, when once again Jews fear for their safety on the streets and on campuses.
Almost without exception the people attacking Jews are supposedly civil and enlightened members of the political Left. We’ve known they were like this for years, but they’re really owning it now.
That’s just it. We’ve known. The Left have always been anti-Jewish, beginning with Karl Marx, and that tradition was carried into the 20th century. In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, members of the Left couldn’t be as outspoken about it, and disguised their vitriol as Israel criticism, but there were many occasions where the mask was ripped off, and their true colours came to the surface. Of course, now, it’s all out in the open, and they are showing us who they really are. They say the Internet never forgets, and it should be easy to identify these individuals. They must never be allowed to rise into positions of authority and leadership.
And it’s tragically ironic how, despite this, so many Jews are on the Left politically.
I’m a half-Jew and what I really resent is how my Jewish identity was forced upon me by hate. In the 1980s and 1990s I had none and was little fussed by jokes about Jews and money. The watershed for me was when, in 2001, I was at a dinner where people said there were no Jews in the Twin Towers, and not one person there demurred. How I hate having an important part of my identity being forced on me by hate.
Desperately trying to find a positive angle, and it’s a faint one, the Anti-Semites showing their true colours and making themselves more visible gives us the chance to hit them hard – in argument and where they cross a line in Law.
Stating the obvious of course but criticism of the state of Israel is permissible, and even if we disagree with the argument, we need to distinguish from Anti-Semitism. Racial prejudice and incitement to violence something else.
Our Law enforcement is v stretched. Prisons bursting. Huge backlog in probationary services, a year to get to Court etc. You can see occasionally why sometimes we ‘roll’ with some things more than we should because of simple pragmatism as well as British tolerance. But in this instance think we do need the Police to step in and make a few examples.
Aren’t you the chappy, watson (ever the advocate of nuance) who only the other day casually shrugged off the murderous brutality and oppression of the 20th century communist “experiments” as lessons the Left has now learned from? Imposing and enforcingThe System is all that matters to Leftist social engineers.
In your imagination I suspect I am many things Sats
This is where the ‘progressives’ have ended up: fostering the oldest, most barbaric prejudice of all.
Yes, the irony is simply overwhelming, isn’t it.
The dark side of living in a liberal democracy. A benign dictator could just round up all the anti-Semites and ship them out to Gaza.
On a flight from Boston (USA) to Rome, I met a Jewish physician, probably 40+ years old, from New York. I noticed his yarmulke as we boarded, after which he covered it with a hat. We chatted later during the long flight, and I asked why he covered it. “It isn’t safe. Not here. Not even in our country [the United States]. Certainly not in Europe, the hatred is out of control.” Ironically, otherwise he was nonplused by the situation. To paraphrase his comments, “If it weren’t already written that this would happen, if it weren’t in prophesy in the Torah, I’d be freaked out right now. But, this is all part of God’s plan, His unknowable will, and I trust that no matter what. Those who would kill us all … and you [Christians] too, don’t have any idea what they are doing … some of them why they are doing it. We’ve seen all this before, time and time again.”
As we started to land in Rome, right at dawn, he and his wife donned traditional prayer “things” (I have no idea what it all means) and began morning prayers in their seats.
Their peace, their respect and adoration for a loving God they wholly trust stands in direct contrast to the hate, the rage, the murderous envy of those who hate them for who they are.
Apart from all the other adjectives does anyone else find this embarrassing?
Much more than embarrassing: shameful, shameful, shameful.
Please remember that 90% + of students are posers and will only display violent racist tendencies if 1 or more of the following apply: a) the victim is not able to fight back or 2) the filth are on hand to protect the student(s) same as they protected the national front when they murdered Blair Peach. Whilst they are contemptable and in a civil society would feel the force of law i doubt this rabble are any more dangerous than my generation’s version with their Che posters etc. An interesting bet would be how long these cowards would last against the IDF compared to how long they could hold out with Che and co in the Andean jungle? Society at large will do what it can. They all have earbuds and ipads etc and are a soft target if you are broke. If you are a hirer try and avoid non STEM graduates, and if you must hire them make sure they are on a very long probationary period and you enforce your options re sick pay etc. Also bear in mind your kids might be normal but their associates and cohort may not be. If they accidentally ingest your entire 1000 dose blotter many would simply crumble and head straight to the loony bin (at their parents expense LOLZ) That may be a more humane solution compared to what a lot of people want to do, the IDF included.
“But why do YOU need a 30 round magazine?”
This is why.
One of the few redeeming features of English Protestantism — somewhat paradoxically, and in contrast to Continental Protestantism’s anti-Judaism — was its relatively tolerant attitude towards Jewish people, sometimes even spilling towards “sabbatarianism”. This never quite translated into widespread popular or political support for the State of Israel in the United Kingdom (after all, Israel gained its independence from the British Empire in 1948) like it indeed happen in the United States — both republics that fought for and gained their independence against the British, by the way — but at the same time that had never been, until relatively recently, an excuse for Jew-hatred in Britain, against Jewith Britons. I suppose that as English Protestantism (Anglican and other) passes into historical oblivion, that its influence on the English and others in favor of toleration for Jews, will also fade away gradually and be replaced with newer, anti-Jewish doctrines.
“In Bristol, a Jewish student was told: “You and your family are money grabbing cunts murdering Muslim people.” ”
Living as I do in Bristol, this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
.
. Yes, many opponents of Israel are antisemites. Many are not. Plus the greater majority of Jews are not necessarily Zionists. Jews who are Zionists should be allowed to express their opinions without attack. But frankly, if you do support the current government there and are in denial about the Palestinian issue, criticism (not attack) is due and crying ‘antisemitism’ every time a person is critical of Israel does a disservice to the definition of antisemitism. Especially as many of those critics are Jewish.
However…I spent years teaching students of Muslim background among others, all of whom knew my ethnicity and heard and experienced a great deal less antisemitism from them than from white working class people I went to school with and some white upper class people I met at university.
Israel encompasses some genuine human rights abuses which, as with Islamist abusiveness, allow antisemitism to be unleashed while looking politically correct.
Jews are never safe – let that be known. Attacks have risen hugely – but they were there before this latest war. In my opinion, they always will be there because Jewish people are a highly useful protean scapegoat – rich, clever, poor, Capitalist, communist, misogynist, feminist – you namethe standpoint, they will be blamed for it.
the EVENS study on Racial Equality was published in 2021 and detailed that 50 to sixty per cent of orthodox jews in London had been racially abused on a daily basis.
As Sadiq Khan has pointed out, Islamophobic attacks have also increased due to the war in Gaza.
He has condemned this along with antisemitism and called for moderation and calm.
Support for Palestinian rights is not antisemitic in itself. It may be expressed in an antisemitic way.
Even prior to the creation of the State of Israel the left had a ‘Jewish problem’ (see Stalin’s efforts to cleanse his party of them) because many of them bought into the ‘rich exploiters’ stereotype.
The right have a problem with Jewish people because they have a problem with anyone who isn’t white Protestant, straight and male..or at least anyone of any identity who isn’t prepared to rubber stamp white, male,straight, Protestant etcetera as inherently superior .
I empathise with the distress and the fear of these students and they need due protection.
The truth is a number of non Jewish people apparently supporting Israel are only doing so because they love seeing Muslims getting killed. Hello Tommy Robinson.
There are ways of talking about and dealing with the undeniable conflict of interest in Israel/Palestine without falling into antisemitism or Islamophobia. Difficult at times but possible and Edward Said for one almost always managed it .
Those voices in the Jewish community such as the Jewish Council for Racial Equality who understand the need for dialogue even in the worst circumstances should be listened to but they get drowned out.
what a load of crap
I’d recommend checking out Glenn Greenwald, one of the few journalists keeping his head in this day and age. https://rumble.com/v3u3v4y-system-update-176.html
There is nothing new about the hatred of Jews. It was in place in Greece prior to the Romans. Voiced by Cicero, more recently by Shakespear then Dickens and on to the Third Reich. It would be nieve to think it had suddenly vanished. Why is it still around, I don’t know, but probably because the Jewish society is a secret society behind the scenes and therefore they are seen as a threat to the rest of us. The recent Israeli behaviour and its publicity and support by the media and politicians, who are all percieved to be “in the pay” of the Jews has only fuelled and exposed the latent hatred which has been simmering under the surface at the back of people’s minds. The attack on 7th October was horrific and no one should support the perpetrators but to continue to voice horror over it and to support the current Israeli response is only going to bring more resentment against the Jews to the surface – they have themselves to blame for that. They should not have subordinated the Palestinians in the way they have and effectively kept them in prison over the last 50 or so years. In proportionate terms the 7th Oct attrocity was no worse than many others perpetrated in other parts of the world since WW2 which received much less if any publicity or horror.
“They have themselves to blame” – thank you for so clearly articulating the nature of antisemitism in five words. And you didn’t even take care to change “Jews” to “Zionists”
I regret that I have only one downvote to give this obnoxious comment.
I share your horror but perhaps, with hindsight, we should not have been as surprised.
Clearly there several factors at work – including ever more unpleasant identity politics in general – but one strand is perhaps that the U.K. is shifting towards the American pattern where it is accepted that different ethnic groups will seek to influence foreign policy, will have divergent view points and will often have antagonistic relationships (though not the deplorable political / racist violence of the sort we are beginning to witness).
If demographics are king then it should be noted that, according to the 2021 census, there are 270,000 Jews and 3.9m Muslims in the U.K. but – because presumably the Jewish community has been around for three hundred years while Muslims are more recent arrivals and are only just beginning to appear in the media and political establishments – their influence has probably been the other way round. This disconnect may explain some of the surprise.
I suspect that because of these demographics over the next ten years we will see Britain shift to a more even handed or neutral approach to the Middle East. The electoral impact of the 6.5% of the population who are Muslim will push Britain in this direction. In the meantime, along with deploring violence and racism of any form and punishing those breaking the law, I suggest it would be helpful if we revert to the old distinction between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. Lumping them together has only made things worse.
I confess that I also used to say that anti-semitism and anti-Zionism were different. I realise now that this only works for thinkers and not for activists.
My view is driven by pragmatic considerations not analytical precision.
Clearly there is a large overlap between anti-semites (old definition) and anti-Israeli activists. In fact, I doubt many anti-semites (old definition) like Israel; it would be odd otherwise. The problem is the opposite category i.e. those who are deeply critical of Israel (including many Jews and Israelis) but who harbour no ill will to Jews in general. Accusing them of being anti-Semitic (i.e. morally abhorrent) is counter productive not least because it reduces the opprobrium attached to the term. Thirty years ago it was one of the worst possible accusations; now it is losing its sting from overuse.
I believe the practice of saying that anti-Zionism is also automatically anti-Semitic started with the Israeli lobby in America who found it a useful verbal cosh with which to silence opponents. It was one of those tactics which is very effective in the short term but dumb in the long run. It is like cancellations or ad hominem attacks and has some of the same drawbacks. You may silence opposition but you persuade few – and eventually the risk is that the dam breaks and the unpersuaded reappear with even more vehemence. As the woke are finding, people get quietly very irritated if they are not allowed to express their usually reasonable points of view.
Since the US Israeli lobby appear to have originally emulated the tactics used by the British in their attempts to suck America into their war in 1940/41, I don’t think we have any right to be “holier than thou” about any of this. I just think it is increasingly counter productive.
I think Israel would be better served if there was less intimidation and more persuasion – and that some middle ground should be tolerated between 100% support for Israel and for Hamas. Lumping together everyone from those who criticise some policies or feel a degree of empathy for the Palestinians with Hamas supporters and Holocaust deniers is unhelpful. Increasingly, such polarisation will work against not for Israel. Asserting that antisemitism and anti Zionism are the same is – from a purely pragmatic perspective – an error. IMO. It feels like we may be approaching a tipping point on this issue.
None of this is intended to imply support for either Hamas or those harassing Jewish students. It is sad that it feels necessary to state that.
It is sad that you felt necessary to state that, since your original comment should have been understood in the way you have extrapolated; but as so often happens in Unherd comments, the downtick knee-jerkers chose not to think it through – which is very much part of the problem, but dismaying that it should happen in this forum.
Question is though, why all this people are so preoccupied with Israel, the only democracy in the region?
Why don’t they demonstrate against China treatment of Uighurs or genocide in Rwanda or treatment of women and gay in Muslim countries?
With so many problems in the world, being so critical of just Israel must have common theme.
What would that be in your view?
IMO A series of factors of which anti-semitism is only one and probably not the most important. A one sentence glib answer is that anti-western sentiment needs a single western nation to act as a whipping boy, provide a focus for criticism and hatred and hopefully help discredit the entire Western system. After South Africa ended Apartheid and embraced democracy in 1990, there was a need for a new target. Israel seemed best qualified even if it was not a perfect fit. Anti-Zionism already existed but it was now boosted to a new level. The post 2013 radicalisation of some western universities has ratcheted it up further.
A more complicated and nuanced answer would incorporate Samuel Huntingdon, Herbert Marcuse, Queer theory, demographic shifts, second generation immigrant identity issues, genuine anti-semitism and not least force of habit – since this argument has been running since 1945 most people know just enough to join in which is not true if the topic is the Uighurs or the wars of the Eastern Congo – but I have written too much for one day.
It will be interesting to see what the bots make of this. Hopefully it will confuse them completely and cause them to short circuit.
All of these issues of taking sides are connected with history and history is most definitely not a series of facts – it depends on how far you go back and even on whether you choose original sources. I am by no means a historian but I’ve picked up a few stories as I have read things and I do see a sort of pattern.
Going back hundreds of years in Europe the Jews were always seen as an alien tribe. If things were going well, no problem; but if things started to go badly then there had to be someone to blame. Why not blame the aliens? Then they were permitted to indulge in usury when others weren’t. So, when crops failed the moneylenders were blamed. Finally Mr H*tl*r decided to blame the aliens because things in Germany weren’t so good.
So, after WW2, why not go home? But in all this time ‘home’ had become someone else’s home. Two sides were formed – the indigenous people and the people going home. The Jews would not have survived without US help. Why did they help? Because there were large numbers of Jewish people in the USA and barely any Palestinians. The Americans would have felt guilty about the Jews and, as a side issue, they wanted someone to police the Middle East.
So there are many people in Europe (perhaps) who still see the Jews as aliens but, strangely, they don’t see the Palestinians as aliens – even though their supporters are here in Europe in great numbers. Anti-Semitic I define as seeing the Jews as aliens, anti-Zionist as seeing Israel as a country of invaders.
So, as you say, seeing the Jews as bad because they are aliens AS WELL AS supporting the Palestinians against Israel is bad. Just supporting the Palestinians against Israel is not bad. How do you tell the difference? The answer is that you can’t. Every action, every March, every news item will have a mixture of people. My own feeling is that support for the Palestinians is like support for the underdog – very popular with young people.
Not sure why your post has attracted so many downvotes. Perhaps those who object can post a reasoned criticism. Is it the reference to the impact of Britain shifting to a more even handed or neutral approach which might suggest full support of Israel was not even handed? Or is it the suggestion that there should be a distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism?
I do think that behind much “criticism of Israel” there does lie an anti zionist sentiment; and beneath that there lies a deeep vein of anti-semtism, which rather than being explicit and clear to see, is instead implicit.
The Left has always obsessed about Israel to the exclusion of many other regional conflicts – for the reason it brings together in Leftist minds – all of the things they fundamentally oppose: western capitalism; liberal democracy; and jewish ‘influence’. The Leftists joined forces with the Baathists at one point in pursuit of what they saw as a kind of International Socialism – but with an arab flavour in an arab homeland.
Jewish people are not considered to be a ‘proper’ race or ethnicity -and if they are they are seen as privileged rather than oppressed. The centuries of persecution and expulsion over-looked, and the subsequent rejection of the zionist dream of a Jewish majority state ( in a region from which Judaism has its roots and which has existed for over a thousand years) in which the Jewish people can find a sense of homeland and safety dismissed.
Why should Palestinians living for two generations in the U.S have a right of return to the home of their ancestors, but not Jewish people? Jew hatred has very deep roots and pops up in the most unexpected ways.
That Britain and the U.S support Israel’s right to exist is a further nail in the coffin – for those that are fundamentally and ideologically opposed to the U.S ( and to Britain).
Antisemites may well be critical of Israel, but there is also much legitimate criticism of Israel and its actions – not just from the Left.
From the beginning Israel was very complicated, and is another case of Britain over-stepping its bounds, and causing further issues (see also the partition of India).
Many Jews do not consider Israel to be the home of their ancestors, nor support the state of Israel or its actions.
There is still plenty of Jew hatred, but let’s not pretend that none comes from the Right.
Arguably, what could be called the Left’s politcal and economic focus on Israel above all others -manifests in a form of anti-semitism/anti-zionism ( dislike of western capitalist economies) which has its roots in a deeper religious form of anti semitism -via the repudiation of money and the material world – both of which are, and always have been, asociated with Jews.
This is correct. In particular, it’s very important not to simply equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and in particular not to appear to assert that the Palestinians have no legitimate grievances.
Leave aside the morality of doing so, it’s tactically going to be an own goal, because it’s easy for the other side to refute.
You can support Israel’s right to exist, you can be eager to see the total extermination of Hamas, while also hoping that a future Israeli government will pull the Zionist settlers out of the occupied West Bank.
The tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have not found a decent leadership. As it is, they have Islamo-fascists on one side, and corrupt grifters on the other. Not that the Israelis have provided them with an example to follow here.
Even odder is the fact that after an initial surge of downvoting when I posted around 8 am, I then posted a response at about 10 am which got upvoted as much as the original comment was downvoted despite being similarly off message. Do you think that bots and troll farms keep regular office hours? If so maybe we can work out the time zones of origin. I have no objection to disagreement but the inconsistency seems remarkable.
Now, after being up for ten hours, my original post has been withdrawn for approval but my subsequent posts are still there. All are written in the same reasonable and polite style. I am baffled.
One of the reasons anti-semitism is ‘losing its sting’ as another commentator has pointed out, is that it is being used as a stick to beat those protesting against Israeli brutality meted out to the Palestinians.
Looking at commentary on Unherd articles I see much more anti-Islam venom in here (no anti-semitism that I have encountered). If we were to change Islamic to Jew on some of the comments, we would have outrage on a monumental scale. 4,000 children dead in Gaza? Is that nothing? Where is our humanity?
People here will justify denying food and water to people in the Gaza strip, but then describe Israel as shining beacon of liberal democracy, complain about the decline of ‘enlightenment values’ in the West, etc. They are the mirror image of the tea towel-bedecked immigrant in London exulting in Hamas’s atrocities with her hair uncovered.
People here will justify denying food and water to people in the Gaza strip,
Really? I haven’t seen, heard or read anyone justifying such a denial, on Unherd or anywhere else.
Good for you if you’ve somehow managed to filter out the appalling comments on Gaza, often made by otherwise seemingly reasonable people.
Well, I guess one man’s filtering out is another’s filtering-in. I’ve often seen people ‘putting to one side’ the horrors – I see this not as a function of cruelty or even callous indifference (unless they are actually celebrating the horrors), but because they are debating an existential issue. That wars involve death and destruction is taken as a given, as is that this is a major reason to stop them – within the context of real war, ‘think of the children’ is either a painful, emapthetic, observation that will change nothing, or a rhetorical ploy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
People see ‘deep wars’ as a battle between good and evil – as pertains to the overall background & attitude of the belligerents, pre war onwards – rather than an accountancy exercise in deaths and injury. Terrible though the death and destruction is, the ‘right’ side must prevail – because (it is thought) if the wrong side wins, there will be death, destruction, persecution baked into everyday life – as was the case in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Vichy France, under Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, Haiti’s Papa Doc, or Iran”s Shahs, in the century of Israeli-Palestinaian conflict, and the 1,000 year on/off conflict between Islam and Christianity. ‘Think of the Children’ (you bastards) may come across as a mere rhetorical device – especially where the children’s parents, and the leaders of the parents could have, for example, evacuated the kids from the warzone (as happened in Paris and London, very quickly, well before bombing started), rather than use them as a shield.
Soviets, Nazis, the Khmer Rouge and … Vichy France? Are you one of those Englishmen who call up No. 10 to complain about something in The Times, which you read in rural France where you’ve lived for thirty years?
Err, no.
Vichy France may not be the most evil regime cited, but it was a regime in which Jews were hunted and sent off to concentration camps – quite evil enough for inclusion in a list of reasons to fight, even though innocents may die.
The articles here are a reaction to the baby-baking, infant-decapitating Hamas. And people are coming to the realization that the problems of Europe are completely due to the illegals who are Muslims. There is a genuine problem with Islam. We need to be clear about that.
There is a genuine problem with Islam. We need to be clear about that.
I don’t have a problem with Islam (or Jews).
The illegals in Europe are all Muslim, or 95% so. With their arrival, we find rapes, murders, molestation (including the molestation in the Tarrarush game of collective molestation), jew-hatred, and so forth. This is all a product of the muslim invasion. So, yes, I blame the religion.
All horrible incidence to be sure and any such incidents should be punished to the full extent of the law.
As you raised it as apparently proven fact though, could you (or anyone here) point me to any links showing the names of the alleged beheaded babies? I’ve been searching to no avail so far – one month after the event I find that rather surprising (especially as Haretz has so far named over 1K of the dead and unless I missed something none of them have been babies). Thanks in advance.
There are no links provided in the article to the allegations. I have been on peace marches in recent weeks and have observed NO anti Semitism. There have also been many Jews on these marches. On 2 occasions I have seen one person waving an Israeli flag. In spite of a low police presence, they have been ignored.
This reminds me of the debunked claims of rape and babies being beheaded, or people being burned alive, when many bodies were burned by Israeli tank shells targeting Hamas.
If you were genuinely concerned about anti Semitism, you would not be crying wolf by conflating anti Semitism and anti Zionism.
By crying anti Semitism at those who protest against mass murder, you appear to be trying to make Jews look bad. Yet many Jews also oppose the mass murder taking place. Perhaps you want to see more anti Semitism in order to justify Zionism. Something Mossad has been working on for decades.
Where have these marches been?
At this time, anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism = Jew hatred.
I’m with you, Frank. I can’t quite believe what I’m reading on Unherd these days. It’s like 2020 all over again – people on such different pages and apparently no way to understand one another anymore…
Thank you Helen, Frank, and AD Kent.
The October 7th attack by Hamas was brutal.
The slaughter of thousands, 5,000 of them children, in Israel’s Gaza ghetto is reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s reprisals during WW2. The Israeli government has demonized a population and many Unheard commenters have unleashed their own bloodlust.