Yesterday's March against Antisemitism in London (Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty)
“An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned,” was how the Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, greeted the news of nine-year-old Emily Hand being released from her Hamas hellhole. He made it sound like the poor girl had been temporarily separated from her family during a busy shopping day at Brent Cross. This was the child whose father was so tortured by the thought of her being kidnapped by wicked men that he confessed he loved her so much he hoped that she was dead.
“Keep waving,” said the Hamas terrorists, handing over another little girl to the Red Cross on Friday night. As she waved back nervously — they still have seven of her family locked up, so of course she did — the Hamas PR machine must have been punching the air in delight. This is the narrative they are trying to sell you: Hamas are just misunderstood humanitarians — or, at least, principled freedom fighters pushing back against years of colonial oppression. We treat our captives well, they say. Not kidnapped, just lost.
How is it that some people fall for all this manipulative rubbish? There have been posters of these children ripped down all over London and New York by Hamas apologists, gleeful fools who seem to think it’s a lie that children were ever taken in the first place. It’s like watching Holocaust denial develop in real time. Antisemitism doesn’t just rot the soul; it rots the brain.
Admittedly, facing the truth is often impossibly demanding, especially when the truth is as distressing as this is. I thought I was mentally prepared for Bearing Witness, the IDF’s 47-minute compilation of footage taken on October 7, which I saw last week at a private screening. But my body clearly wasn’t. Ten minutes in, I started to shake. The organisers had prepared the audience as best they could and explained there was no shame in having to leave. And there was a point where I was close.
Some of the footage came from Hamas bodycams, some from their mobile phones, some from CCTV, some from first responders. All of it was horrific. Later, after a number of medicinal whiskies, I did manage to sleep. But I woke early. And in the small hours, there was little protection from all those images: the beheadings, the children crying out for “abba” as their father was murdered before their eyes, the sheer joy with which Hamas hunted down and slaughtered their victims, the lifeless bodies of children in their Mickey Mouse pyjamas, the contortions of the dying, the endless pools of blood.
All lies, say Hamas’s useful idiots. Why else, they say, would this IDF production be shown only to a select group of sympathetic (a.k.a. gullible) journalists and opinion-formers. In that case, I’m not sure how obsessive Israel-hater Owen Jones made it onto the IDF guest list. The gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell also sat behind me. He’s no establishment patsy by a long chalk.
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SubscribeI am a non-Jew who was on that march in London yesterday. It was a good-natured, relaxed affair, albeit with a serious purpose. It was what it said on the tin: a show of solidarity for Britain’s Jews, not a partisan taking of sides in the Middle East. The placards and the speeches reflected that.
An incident on my train home, when a young blood decided to have a go at the Jews, illustrated perfectly why the Jews need all the allies they can get.
“not a partisan taking of sides in the Middle East.”
I’d say most of the attendees have taken sides. You cant support Jews and Hamas.
Isn’t David McKee supporting both Jews and Palestinians ?
You can’t support both. More than 80% of Palestinians support Hamas. Saying you support both is incongruous.
I’m not supporting both, I’m supporting neither. It doesn’t mean I don’t care, it means I don’t know enough to have any opinions worth sharing.
Unlike Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East is horribly complicated, and anyone who tries to pick sides will end up looking pretty stupid. Not that I’m thinking of Gary Lineker here, of course not…
“I’m supporting neither”
That’s like saying you dont support life or death.
Back off. This is no place for your aggression
Better here than on a battlefield. Saying he supports neither side, that he’s just there to “show solidarity for Britain’s Jews” is, frankly, pathetic. What about the Jews in Israel? Or elsewhere? Its Hamas stated goal to exterminate Jews–and other non-believers–from the earth. If he cant stand against that, who cares what he thinks?
What aggression?
You’re being silly now dear!
It isn’t that complicated. Putin invaded Ukraine. The Palestinians refuse to make peace and have done so since before 1948. They want Israel gone. Period.
Sad but true. From my time over there in the 90’s, the Palestinians were for the most a very hate filled bunch. I was fortunate to come across a handful who just wanted to live their life. Most however just wanted me dead. So I backtracked as quick as I could to the safe areas. Even then the looks were far from friendly.
“The Palestinians refuse to make peace and have done so since before 1948. They want Israel gone.”
Difference is that unlike Ukraine they never had title to that land in the first place. Palestinians have a far stronger claim to Jordan than to Israel.
Exactly. Their true goal was never the Founding of a “Palestinian” state, but rather the destruction of the Jewish state. Their Jew hate runs deeper than the roots of a fully grown Sequoia. They have learned that hate from their”Prophet”, no less…
Exactly. The Koran spells it out in perfect detail in a number of suras. Almost the entire Middle East has been “cleansed” of Jews. There is now only a tiny sliver of land called Israel which needs to be “liberated”. Hamas, and the rest of the terrorist groups in the region, operate with the full weight of the Muslim holy texts behind them.
Could you get educated and informed somehow?
You too would benefit from more education about this.
I think we all know what “education” consists of in the way you’re suggesting. History teaches us not just about the effects of anti-semitism, but also what what happens when somebody like you decide other people need to be “educated” out of a position they hold you don’t agree with. You might be well intentioned, but other educators won’t be.
David, there are sides that have to be picked, it’s one of the dilemmas of being human. If a poisenous snake entered a room you are in, and you’re an animal lover, not the sort of person to kill a wild animal, you will have to face the fact of, kill or be killed.
Hamas is barbaric. Sadly, you have to know that or you’re in denial because the facts about the 7th Oct atrocities cannot/must not be denied. This was bararism, even nastier than the Nazis if one is allowed to make a comparison. The Nazis were bureaucratic in their evil, Hamas was personal, intimate, sickingly wicked in their evil. We can’t regotiate with the insane.
War is horrible, we can all agree on that. Fascism is horrible, we here I expect all agree with that. In order to fight fascism in the last WW2 we killed milions of people! We nice, reasonable, kind humans, in defence of nasty fascism carpet bombed Dresden, wiped out Nagasaki and Hirosma.
It’s the human dilemma, the tragedy of being human. It’s just plain awful.
The complications of both Ukraine and Israel come from trying to understand them via inappropriate questions like “who started it?” You can get any answer you want according to the date you assign as “start” and how you define the parties to be included.
You can’t support Jews and Hamas. But people can care for the fate of the residents of Gaza and be opposed to anti-semitism (there may be some space between opposing anti-semitism and supporting current Israeli actions.) But can anyone, with a sliver of moral judgement support Hamas?
“can anyone, with a sliver of moral judgement support Hamas?”
80%+ of Palestinians do.
AND most of the population of Planet Earth who know lies, racism and sadism when they see them. As Gideon Levy put it: very rarely in history, perhaps never before, have the oppressors presented themselves as the victims. More pungently stated by Primo Levi: a Zionist is someone who punches someone in the face and screams for help.
Well said, Peter. The notion that Israel is anyone’s friends but its own is laughable. From the very start, Israel has been a bad actor. From the treachery of attacking British forces, USS Liberty, murdering Palestinian diplomats in England, constant espionage campaigns in friendly states, nuclear blackmail, the undermining of allies democracies, fomenting of war by allied states to get rid of its enemies, the list goes on and on and on. Israel is no friend of the West. Israel hates the West. Israel hates the Christian World
BS
Really? So none of those things happened?
Yes, Israel conducts espionage, at one point attacked British forces, formed alliances against its mortal enemies, but so has Canada, Britain and the best-behaving nations in the world. Context is everything, which you have hidden in your rant.
Depends what exactly you mean by moral judgement. Most Palestinians are too terrified to exercise what judgement they may have lest it result in an unscheduled ride behind a Hamas motorbike – and not on the pillion….
Yes but only to a point. Such people are on a hiding to nowhere if they ignore Hamas’/Islamists’ openly stated aims, to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice their own young to see them enacted. Those young are not born hate-filled but are made so from kindergarten age through schooling and junior jihadi summer camps run by Hamas. Hamas leader in hiding in Qatar, Fathi Hamad, is on record boasting that women, the elderly and children are the best human shields.
Whereas Nazis had to get drunk in order to slaughter Jews en masse, Hamas gets high and is proud of its savagery.
Most of the people there were Jewish. I think I am right in saying that most British Jews have friends and relatives in Israel. So yes, I expect Mr. Loquitur’s comment is correct.
The point is that those of us who were there and were not Jews, were not being asked to take sides. What we were asked to do was to support our Jewish compatriots in their hour of need.
HOW they’ve taken sides (and conduct themselves at demonstrations) is far more significant than whether or not they have taken sides.
What does that even mean?
I was there too, I was thanked a couple of times for my support. It was a good natured and friendly affair, apart from anything else it was heartening to be with people who appreciated the many good and valuable things about this country, after hearing so much negativity over the years. Maybe it takes immigrants to appreciate what we take for granted.
Everyone I spoke to was on their first march, as was I. Maybe it’s time for people like us to start marching.
Whoever “us” is keep it up!
I was there as well. It was wonderful to have so many Jews and non-Jews there. October 7th was horrific even demonic. One of my daughter’s friend’s escaped the festival carrying wounded.
I do take issue with what you say about Tommy Robinson. He was quiet, respectful and supportive.
Have a look at the Police brutality. They grabbed him,held him down,formed a ring so he couldn’t be seen the hoped. A policeman then lifted his head and sprayed him with pepper spray. There are videos if you don’t believe it. I saw him being led away and I was disgusted by the Police and their politically driven 2 tier policing. They never do that for JSO,BLM or Hamas supporting marches.
You can deny it all you like but the fury of ordinary people in Dublin, Crépol on France,Holland and here is very real.
Tommy Robinson is the working class oik those middle classes who tend to the the right have to be seen to deplore. He is a deplorable in their world. What are they afraid of is the question, Him or the strident all seemingly powerful left?
Because he knows an awful lot about UK Islamism and has come up with the ‘incorrect’ answer.
As do I and it’s not comfortable knowledge.
I absolutely agree that the police seem to be rather one-sided. Nevertheless, TR is still a horrid little man!
What has he said or done that you find horrid and little?
I was standing outside the cafe opposite the Royal Courts of Justice in which Mr Robinson was apparently having a peaceful breakfast and there seemed to be no disturbance.
Suddenly about 15 police appeared, manhandling him out of the cafe and pushing him down the road. I hold no brief for the now defunct EDL but he is deeply affected by the changes in his home town of Luton, where there are now 25 mosques as opposed to one when he was a boy. In this respect he is a supporter of Jewish people and I believe his motive of being at the march was to support them in spite of the protests of the organisers.To understand his background and history, see his speech at the Oxford Union on YouTube. I think you might be astonished, as I certainly was.
Yes, I am baffled about the police’s attack on T. Robinson and possiblely the Jewish organisers reluctance to have him there, and furthermore, Giles Fraser’s view of him as ‘horrible’!
I can understand that this man, who long ago left the EDL, is a massive problem to our establishmet and its institutions because he repeatedly and persistently drew our attention to the Pakistani (grooming) raping gangs which our establishment was desparately trying to ignore. In fact, it went further than just ignoring this openly, in our faces, paedophilic abuse of our young poor white girls, IT COLLUDED WITH THE PAKISTANI COMMUNUTY over this filthy behaviour to keep it sileneced by using the race card. Joining in support of this collusion has been and still is, the police, our cllrs, social workers and MPs, in particular the Labour Party. It took a clear minded strong Pakistani Muslim working for the CPS to morally challenge this filthy criminal behavour, many years later, his name is Nazir Afzal. Also Maggie Oliver, ex-police woman kept telling the truth and then having to leave the police force. Her work continues today to bring these filthy men to court.
Our establishment and its institutions became frightened of the Muslim communuties here in the UK 30yrs ago when the riots and book burning occured over the ‘Satanic Verses’. Since then, it has gone out of its way to placate Muslim men in order to prevent them rioting. We have actually handed over our poor white children as sacrifical offerings to these men in order to placate them.
I am baffled as to how Giles has not undertsood what has been happenineg. How can a man be demonised for objecting to the raping of little girls? ‘Prostitutes’ the Labour party called them! J. Smith, then Home Sec said they had made ‘a career choice’!
And it’s T. Robinson who ends up as the villain. Baffling!
Yes, I am baffled about the police’s attack on T. Robinson and possiblely the Jewish organisers reluctance to have him there, and furthermore, Giles Fraser’s view of him as ‘horrible’!
I can understand that this man, who long ago left the EDL, is a massive problem to our establishmet and its institutions because he repeatedly and persistently drew our attention to the Pakistani (grooming) raping gangs which our establishment was desparately trying to ignore. In fact, it went further than just ignoring this openly, in our faces, paedophilic abuse of our young poor white girls, IT COLLUDED WITH THE PAKISTANI COMMUNUTY over this filthy behaviour to keep it sileneced by using the race card. Joining in support of this collusion has been and still is, the police, our cllrs, social workers and MPs, in particular the Labour Party. It took a clear minded strong Pakistani Muslim working for the CPS to morally challenge this filthy criminal behavour, many years later, his name is Nazir Afzal. Also Maggie Oliver, ex-police woman kept telling the truth and then having to leave the police force. Her work continues today to bring these filthy men to court.
Our establishment and its institutions became frightened of the Muslim communuties here in the UK 30yrs ago when the riots and book burning occured over the ‘Satanic Verses’. Since then, it has gone out of its way to placate Muslim men in order to prevent them rioting. We have actually handed over our poor white children as sacrifical offerings to these men in order to placate them.
I am baffled as to how Giles has not undertsood what has been happenineg. How can a man be demonised for objecting to the raping of little girls? ‘Prostitutes’ the Labour party called them! J. Smith, then Home Sec said they had made ‘a career choice’!
And it’s T. Robinson who ends up as the villain. Baffling!
The police are disgusting . He showed up their uselessness , even collusion , with respect to the grooming gangs and they are out for revenge . They realise the MSM and the trendy vicars will let them get away with anything re Tommy Robinson .
I am not a Jew either but I would have been on the march with you had I not lived so far away. In London a majority of the citizens voted for a Moslem mayor which speaks for itself.
At what point do we draw the obvious conclusion that we need a moratorium on immigration, a weighting in favour of Christian asylum seekers from the Middle East and places like Nigeria (because they are being killed) and a complete ban on further Muslim immigration until we have had a few decades of ascriptive integration ( coercive if necessary) – and a rejection of multiculturalism – and made it clear to the Islamic community that some kind of theological reformation is a prerequisite for cohabitation in the West. We should be making residence in the UK for dual passport holders conditional on active, clear and vocal acceptance of the state of Israel and a rejection of the politics of the caliphate – and also on the political right for non-Muslims to make images of Mohammed if they so choose – the latter because it is a litmus for acceptance of free speech and individual political liberty. If anyone can’t sign up for this, and they have dual citizenship, they should be deported. UK citizens without dual citizenship should be subject to the full force of the law and any infringement of the rights of others (especially UK Jews) should result in long prison sentences and public shaming. This means that most of those taking part in anti-semitic marches should have been arrested and fined or jailed. Unless we reject multiculturalism and make integration and social cohesion non-negotiable foundations of our society, our future will look like Lebanon. London and many of the big cities are becoming no-go areas…..which is to say, that is the direction of travel. If the Tories can’t stop this trajectory …..then we need another party
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has now usurped Justin Trudeau as the most pathetic, ill informed, progressive, performative, shallow PM in the free world.
What POS writes this drivel and who reads it and says it sounds right; “an innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned.”
Varadkar is a clown.
In less than a week he has utterly destroyed any credibility he may have had and then some.
A clown and an embarrassment given that he followed up his offensive comment by saying he was baffled as to why the Israelis are getting so upset.
What credibility? He was always a coward and a clown. The current situation has only shed light on the utterly useless, incompetent, cowardly Politician that he is. It says as much about the people(s) that vote in these Progressive Clowns as those clowns themselves, whether it is Americans, Canadians, Australians or Irish…
Varadkar, like Sunak, was never voted into office (except as a td). He got in through horse trading and office peddling, plain and simple. He’s a serial election loser. He’s in power because certain forces want him there, not the Irish electorate
The possibly unfortunately phrased comment of Leo Varadker was taken totally and deliberately out of context. He has, like many politicians, an unfortunate history of not engaging his brain before opening his mouth, but is a genuine good person.
He did not mean she was simply “lost”, but used that phrase, quoting the New Testament , i.e. that the Good Shepherd rejoices in the lamb that was lost now being found.
(Matthew 18:10-14 and Luke 15:1-7)
In the next paragraph of his longer statement, (not quoted), he went on to unequivocally and unconditionally condemn the attack of October 7th and to lay the blame firmly on Hamas.
However, it suited Israeli ultra-right members of Netanyahu’s government to distort what he said in its entirety.
People who around the world had never heard of Leo Varadker now claim to “know” him.
The Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadker, is the son of Indian immigrants and an openly gay man, who has, in his lifetime also suffered outrageous abuse for being both brown and a homosexual, so please, don’t try and invent a new Leo Varadker, who doesn’t exist.
Whereas Irish people tend to be very well informed about UK politics, the vast majority of UK citizens know sweet f**k all about Irish politics … and could care less.
And, yes, I do know what I am talking about having lived and worked in England for many years. I am now living in Ireland, where I was born.
Also, before judging me, please note that since October 7th I wear a star of David around my neck and an Israel flag pin on my lapel, whenever I am in public to show my solidarity with Israel and Jewish people everywhere.
Maybe Justin will send him a pair of those shamrock-themed socks at Xmas to cheer him up.
Not sure I agree. Trudeau has set the bar remarkably high in terms of being pusillanimous. He de-banked hundreds of truckers for shouting at him.
Agreed. The Irish bloke is going to have to sustain such behaviour a long time to dethrone black face.
I can’t speak to Varadkar’s competence, but his comment struck me as a Biblical quote from Luke, Chapter 15 about the Prodigal Son when the father calls for celebration when the son returns from his exile: “This son of mine was dead. And now he is alive again. He was lost. And now he is found.” Maybe not, but that’s how I took it.
It’s how it sounded which makes it even more offensive given that the prodigal son was the architect of his own misfortune. Unlike the wee lassie who was kidnapped by a bunch of murderers.
I think he was quoting Jesus’ comments about the lost and found.
It was an expression of relief and joy at the child’s release, which said what many felt, not a political statement of any kind. Here in Ireland people were surprised at how those comments were misunderstood.
Ah, we have got a Fan here…
Maybe the Irish are not so familiar with the New Testament as they would have been 30 or 40 years ago
Thank Christ.
Funny one but if only for cultural reasons it worth knowing the Old and New Testament . It’s clearly a weird thing to say in relation to a kidnapped child , at least for anyone aware of the source
Read the whole statement before commenting.
I feel that the Bearing Witness video needs to be shown to the world. It happened, why not let the world see what happened, why are people being protected from the truth? The horror of mass deaths in Gaza is on TV every day gaining sympathy for Palestinians, it’s time to level the playing field.
Clare- I couldn’t agree more.
well. it certainly at some point should be shown to my hand wringing, well meaning English friends. Preferably before Islam has them, in their turn, in its sight.
It is out of regard for the families of victims, which I understand. I do however think it is necessary.
I think you could pixellate all the faces and distinguishing marks of the victims.
People NEED to see the depths of depravity of Hamas for themselves.
Millions of Hamas fans would gloat , and those westerners who support the Palestinians would not look because they’d think there’s no equivalent film showing the dead civilians in Gaza .
I made the mistake of listening to some of the accounts and testimonies from deeply devout members of ZAKA, the religious body charged with recovery of the remains of the massacred for religious burial. I had nightmares and haven’t slept well since. I still hold, in my mind’s eye, the image of their leader, in tears as he described the horror of what they had found, and showed his deep compassion and caring for the men and women of his team.
Indeed. Make it generally available, but not broadcast – and when there is an interview or podcast the very first question should always be “Have you watched Bearing Witness?”
That question should immediately be followed by “Are you aware of the IDF’s previous and well documented history of falsifying videos and other such evidence?”
Are you by any chance a white leftard, under 25 and have a degree in media studies?
Probably not but you are obviously a sanctimonious prat. I mean, what kind of supposed grown up adult uses a word like “leftard”? Er, a numbskull. That’s who.
No, I’m a white man in my 50s with a PhD in Applied Psychology. Now you answer my question.
Maybe concentration camps were fake and all eye witness reports? Staying ignorant must be such bliss…
Yawn.
Are you suggesting the murders didn’t actually happen ? Or are you saying the killings were quite pretty in reality but the film has been doctored to appear less appealing to Hamas fans ?
Neither – I’m saying that anything provided by the IDF must be treated with scepticism. This is not to say that murders did not take place, but that every death was at the hands of Hamas is unproven – especially given the ample evidence of a panicked IDF reaction. Call me old fashioned, but I think facts matter. See the links to Chris Hedges I’ve posted elsewhere.
Whereas footage provided by Pallywood must be accepted unquestioningly?
Are you saying IDF fired weapons whose bullets hit and killed Israelis? If so, high velocity bullets leave wounds, they do not behead or burn babies.
Where is the forensic evidence to back your claim ?
Sadly I strongly suspect that if the last 20 years of mass media saturation and the exponential growth of the digital panopticon have shown us anything it is that the currency of images has plummeted to almost nothing.
The proliferation of images has not brought a greater understanding of truth. The opposite in fact.
Those who will not believe will not be swayed or influenced by the sight of their eyes or the reason of opposing arguments.
A democratic culture, such as we live in, is in an existential struggle with people who refuse to be persuaded of the truth. It has no solution to that.
‘If only they understood they’d agree with me’.
The shock and disgust one would feel if one viewed “Bearing Witness” would be difficult to endure, in the way that viewing the disturbing images of Nazi atrocities, even eight decades later, are difficult to endure.
With apologies and deepest sympathies to victims and their relatives, Israel must release the films of Hamas’ savagery, as awful as it is, because it may very well be true that “Never Again” is now.
Completely disagree. Images are extremely powerful. That is why the leftists so carefully distort and edit them, bending them to their own purposes, and then spread them far and wide. See Jan 6 videos, various images of Palestinian victims, or numerous others.
And the very selective George Floyd images. Watch “The Fall of Minneapolis” streaming for exhibit A of this point.
However, there are many kind, misguided, folk who would be turned if they got to see the Bearing Witness video. The fanatics would, of course, find a way to invalidate it because they would rather die than be wrong. But, when all is said and done, I still think it would be worth showing the video to the world.
Clare, I’m sorry, but it would not work. I wish it were otherwise, but it won’t. There are plenty of people out there who don’t want to believe that the massacre ever took place, and they would pull every trick in the book to ‘prove’ the footage was fake.
Remember, David Irving used to take people on conducted tours of Auschwitz to ‘prove’ that nobody was gassed there.
As they saying goes, there’s none so blind as those who will not see.
I think you give far too much credit to a few loudmouths on Twitter. There’s very little to suggest that the proliferation of nutty conspiracy chatter online has had much effect on the voters.
For instance, whoever David Irving is/was his guided tours of Auschwitz had zero effect on our understanding of WWII. Also, the Democratic Party’s effort to get us to refer to Jan. 6th as an “insurgency” has fallen flat. IRL, that is. What happens on twitter is a completely seperate thing; almost like a strange kind of gaming.
Alas the antisemites will claim it is AI generated.
At a guess the issue is that it would be a box office hit, for all the wrong reasons.
The protesting idiots would refuse to believe it was real. I’ve already heard people say that the attacks were committed by the Israelis, that they didn’t really happen and if they did,the victims were the ones to blame. I had a fool tell me today that because the hostages didn’t look like their forebears emerging from Auschwitz , they aren’t really victims. Considering the long legacy of holocaust denial, I doubt those that think Jews deserve it would care.
Part of me agrees, but I don’t like the thought of the many anti-semites somehow exulting in the scenes.
Probably. Just as importantly, there needs to be a definitive book which details the exact events as well as the horrendous aftermath in the west. I’m hoping Douglas Murray is working on it.
Yes, and let the most gruesome and horrific win. The milk of human kindness eh Clare?
A good article, apart from this idiocy:
Tommy Robinson is no ‘Blackshirt’ – he’s always been a Zionist. Seems there was an ‘establishment patsy’ at the screening after all!
So it’s a wonderful thing for middle class progressives and trendy vicars to protest the gang rape of Jewish girls in Israel by Islamists .And yet a working class guy who tried to stop white teenagers in Rotherham being gang raped by Islamists is ‘a nasty little man’
Hypocritical , snobbish and immoral
Yes, it was the one thing that hit the wrong note. Maybe he was simply removed to avert any trouble, but that is an entirely different thing.
No Blackshirt at all. Yes, maybe not ‘educated’ in the accepted sense of the word as understood by the trendy clergy, but anyone who has watched his sincere, restrained yet impassioned address at the Oxford Union, and the, probably surprised and surprising, reception he received, would be in no doubt that he is a genuine, concerned, intelligent and courageous individual.
I am reminded of Kipling’s Tommy. “Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep”.
“In doubt”? In no doubt surely?
Thank you. Corrected.
TR is anathema because he challenges the ‘tiny minority’ narrative about Muslim violence in which the media and governing class take refuge.
It is an unfortunate but inescapable coincidence, then, that the English Defence League appears to have taken both it’s name and it’s modus operandi (provocative street marches) from Colin Jordan’s White Defence League who were in many ways the successor group to Imperial Fascist League, an outfit who thought Moseley wasn’t anti semitic enough.
I don’t know what that signifies or if Tommy Robinson, at this late stage, has any cause or party than his own self promotion but it is a link that cannot be un-known once it has been recognised.
Go and get help then . Your obsessions are nothing to do with Tommy Robinson
I still have no idea why he bothers given how much they hate him. Has he got a martyr complex?
Giles, whatever critical analysis may have transpired with your previous articles, with this one my heart is with you.
I am there too.
Seconded. We need to stand together in the face of evil.
Ejecting Tommy Robinson (I’m no fan, he adds hastily) from the march feels like a tactical error to me, somehow. Polite society doesn’t own the fight against antisemitism.
I get the impression that Robinson is more anti-Muslim than pro-Jew. As such his presence would have given ammunition to those wishing to discredit the entirely peaceful march. Even his removal drew a lot of media attention.
So what Hamas did and does has nothing to do with Islam ? Get real . Tommy Robinson came to notice originally for protesting the gang rape of white girls by Muslim grooming gangs in places like Rotherham , something the police and MSM and trendy vicars were taking no interest in . Indeed the trendy vicar who wrote this article has boasted on here about how he keeps illegal Muslim migrants from being deported by public pretend conversions to Christianity , thus allowing them to claim it’s too dangerous to send them home .
Of course white working class girls up north don’t seem to interest him as victims , not when there are migrants involved as perpetrators at least .
What on earth are you raving about? Robinson’s back story is well known by now and of course Hamas are hardline Islamists. Their own declarations clearly demonstrate that. However, it is important not to play into the hands of those in the MSM who would like to draw a moral equivalence between Hamas actions and those of Israel and especially those who would like to depict Palestinians as subject to Islamophobia and therefore “the true victims”.
.
Oh sorry I forgot , everything has to be about the Jews and only the Jews . Wouldn’t want to upset the MSM .
A case of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. This philosophy has not worked well in the past (eg Gaddafi, Saddam)
When the last Hamas terrorist is cold and dead, we will have a permanent ‘ceasefire’. There can no ‘ceasefire’ with Evil. No treaties with the Devil.
So keep up the bombing of Gaza, until the very last of Hamas’ fighters is dead – ignoring the toll of civillian deaths. With almost 1% of Gazas’s population already dead and Hamas very much operational, what proportion of the inhabitants of the Strip do you suggest might be a price worth paying?
And then what happens when the cousins, brothers, aunts, nephews and neices of those “collateral” fatalities rise up from the West Bank, from the refugee camps in Jordan? Obliterate them too? What do you suggest when Hezbollah demand revenge for their comrades? When Iran no longer tolerates the slaughter? How many would you kill for “peace”?
If we don’t stand up to militant Islam, the civilised world has no future. What you simply don’t understand is the entirely different mindset of Arabs and Muslims. All they understand, and accept, is a strong hand. Anything less is considered weakness and weakness is to be exploited.
What a racist comment
Please explain why?
That you are down thumbed and the previous comment is up thumbed makes me worried about where the readership of Unherd is heading.
Jesus wept, where to start?
I’m happy to accept that there is such a thing as militant Islam and that it’s a bad thing. But a uniquely bad thing? The uniquely bad thing? Give me a break.
As to the idea that Arabs and Muslims have an entirely different mindset (oops, the militant bit seems to have gone astray). Well, yes, some of them do. And some of them have entirely different mindsets from one another too (not all muslims are arabs, not all arabs are muslims).
You know who else have different mindsets? All sorts of people! Nuns, marxists, clowns, Walloons, autistics, Calvinists, competitive weighlifters.
But as to your narrow point – the West has a very difficult relationship with militant Islam. We’re constantly saying what a threat it is but then we keep making more of it. Remember when we funded the Mujahadeen because they wanted to fight the Russians? And then that blew back on 9/11. Then we invaded broadly secular Iraq, in part because of an entirely fictitious connection with 9/11 but that went so badly, that we ended up creating more Islamists. Which we didn’t like, although we did then support them when they looked like the people best placed to bash Assad (not a militant Islamist). And then we invaded the not at all militantly Islamist Libya, for the crazy crime of giving up their nuclear ambitions and screwed that invasion up so badly, that guess who’s now running Libya (to the extent that it isn’t a failed state).
So, I mean yeah. Militant Islam is bad. But the idea that we need to confront it more in order to save western civilisation, isn’t just wrong, it’s a category error.
And, in your formulation at least, rather racist.
“what proportion of the inhabitants of the Strip do you suggest might be a price worth paying?”
Since 80% of them support Hamas, how about 80%?
Enjoying using your vipers tongue?
I’m going to make the assumption that you’re less of a genocidal maniac in real life than you are in keyboard warrior mode.
Even so, might be time to reflect on what you’ve just suggested.
almost 1% of Gazas’s population already dead
Assumes data not in evidence.
Gaza’s population is about 2m people. The Health ministry – which has accurately reported the death toll in previous conflicts – puts the dead at 15,000. That’s about 0.75%
What isn’t in evidence?
Put the blame for all this carnage where it belongs – on the people who are responsible – Iran and the thugs it hires to do its dirty work.
Aye, there’s the rub. Hamas is a movement, not a bunch of scoundrels that can be rounded up by the Sheriff and his posse.
It’s an ideology, impossible to eliminate.
Hamas deliberately endangers its people by storing ordnance and launching rockets from among them, boasting that women, the elderly and children make the best human shields and teaching children from kindergarten age to want to grow up to die while killing Jews.
You’ve been had. Hamas cares less for Palestinians than you do. Israel cares more.
Jeremy Corbyn has always been quick to mention that his mother, Naomi Corbyn, was present at the famous “Battle of Cable Street” in 1936, where Left-wing demonstrators fought police guarding a planned march by Oswald Mosley’s British fascists through a heavily Jewish neighbourhood.
He’s often spoken of his pride that his Mother stood up for what was right and protected the Jews in her community from those who would harm them, from the fascists.
I’d be interested to know from Mr Corbyn how he thinks his mother would have reacted if she’d been told that one day her son, a ‘Friend of Hamas’, would be marching in support of the Fascists and against the Jews?
The mummy at cable st story was disbelieved by Corbyn’s first wife . She said no one ever mentioned it in her hearing all the years she and Corbyn were together
I hadn’t heard that – but colour me surprised!
Left-wing demonstrators fought police guarding a planned march by Oswald Mosley’s British fascists through a heavily Jewish neighbourhood.
While in the US, even the ACLU defended Nazis right to march in the Jewish neighborhood of Skokie, IL, back in the 70’s. (the march never happened, for other reasons)
Any wonder why Britain is such a mess when it comes to free expression.
A walk down Cable Street as it is today is always a good way to cleanse the doors of perception when it comes to left wing myth making.
Im told a great victory for the working classes was won there.
“And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why that I cannot tell,” said he,
“But ’twas a famous victory.”
Tommy Robinson is an unreciprocated friend of the Jews and of Israel. I can understand why the organizers were embarrassed by his presence (I am wary of him and his genre as well) but we cannot always be picky about our supporters.
What exactly is his “genre”, I wonder?
Check out his Oxford Union speech on you-tube .
Mr Fraser tells us that “obsessive Israel-hater Owen Jones” was at the showing of Bearing Witness which he attended. Has there been any indication that Jones was moved or shocked by the atrocities shown? Or has he simply resorted to his reflex whataboutery and talk of ‘hierarchies of suffering’?
Bearing Witness should be shown to the world so that we can all see exactly what the far Left and anti-Zionists would have us believe is an act of resistance by “freedom fighters” which Israel is using as an excuse to crush innocent Palestinians.
I’m sure Dear Owen will be top of the Hamas ‘guest list ‘ at their post-liberation celebration (PBAC).
(Crane)
No, Israel is not using excuses to “crush innocent Palestinians” but is in fact deeply torn between the need to crush Hamas and knowing full well that Hamas’s human shields of innocent Palestinians will become massive collateral damage, despite Israel’s world-leading tactics for reducing civilian deaths.
Not from what Jones has written since.
‘There have been posters of these children ripped down all over London and New York by Hamas apologists, gleeful fools who seem to think it’s a lie that children were ever taken in the first place.’
Not just by Hamas apologists. In London and Manchester by the Metropolitan Police too (although in Manchester the chief constable had the good grace and good sense to admit it was the wrong thing to do).
Tommy Robinson has, perhaps, an air of the odious.
But would the world even know what happened to hundreds of Rotherham girls if he’d been silent?
The Islamophobia-phobia, or the fear of appearing to be bigoted against Muslims, is precisely what allowed the sex offenders of Rotherham (and likely many other places) to operate with impunity.
It now spurs people to tear down posters of hostages, to pretend we don’t see the occasional swastika, to “both sides” a gory, psychotic mass atrocity, or to pretend what don’t hear the genocidal undertones in those “river to the sea” chants.
“Nasty little” Tommy Robinson was whisked away from the bien pensant on the streets, from a reassuringly large crowd of decent, sensible people.
But is he entirely wrong? Does our fear of offending a group – a minority that’s grown quite large in the UK and France, and that often seems to be at odds not just with Western liberal democracy, but with basic human decency – make us hesitate in taking a stand against obvious evil?
There are of course liberal and moderate Muslims, and in Western countries they may even be in the majority. But very few have criticized Hamas. Very few condemn acts of terror that even the IRA would eschew. Very few loudly condemn antisemitism.
This is something about which we need to be far more clear eyed, particularly those of us on the left-liberal side. Radical Islamism, or Salafism or Wahhabism or whatever it’s properly called, would, if in power, obliterate many of the racial, ethnic, or sexual minorities leftists are sworn to protect, and would obliterate the individual rights the West used to hold dear.
Speech, personal property, worship, due process, self-rule and most of the other civil rights and liberties enjoyed by the citizens of democracies would vanish under a Caliphate, or under an Islamic theocracy.
We should be far, far less naive about such things. They’re quite literally matters of life and death.
I am not Jewish either. As a lapsed Roman Catholic, with Anglican ancestors and a Protestant spouse, I’m well aware of the persecution religious minorities can endure. Attacks on innocent Muslims are no more excusable than blatant antisemitism.
This must not prevent us from calling evil what it is. The violence within radical Wahhabism is evil, and is an obvious threat to Western society.
There is no ‘radical Islamism’, or ‘perverted version’, or ‘political Islam’. They are the real deal, Islam as it was invented and intended. Hamas, the Taliban, IS, Boko Haram, al Shabaab, and thousands more like them, are what Islam becomes when it is unmoderated by ‘infidel’ laws or influences. Supposedly ‘moderate’ Muslims are those quietly ignore the call to arms that Islam demands, unless instructed to do so. But when a demented ME psychopath issues a fatwa, out they come, either on the streets inciting murder, or enabling the would be killers by excusing their threats; ‘well, they asked for it’. They can’t or won’t face up to the fact that they have signed up to the same beliefs and role model as the groups mentioned above, and think about what that means, so they remain the sea in which the predators swim.
The largest population of Muslims, by far, is in Indonesia and there the government has suppressed the few radical Islamists
Gordon won’t like to hear that.
But as the historic moderation and influence of earlier religions and traditions fades, and that of the Muslim Brotherhood, now controlling one of the major political parties grows, younger generations are going the way of all Islam, ie hardline Islamist. Indonesia’s relative tolerance and secularism are under threat.
Best comment here so far. Thank you!
If Islamic ‘rape gangs’ were to sodomise everything in sight in say Quislington, the howls of outrage would heard on the Moon.
I don’t get your point, Charles.
Rape of white ‘council house sluts’ in some remote towns of northern England by Islamic gangs behaving like feral dogs is quite acceptable to the pampered, self styled left wing elites of QUISLINGTON.
I think comments should be kept brief and to the point as per Charles Stanhope. I just do not think they get read.
Yes, I tend not to read the long, verbose comments which are often essays from would-be journalists. However, Charles tends to favor the obscure non sequiter much like the cartoons in The New Yorker.
Will you be, forever, a “lapsed Roman Catholic”? Are you not now a free thinker?
An excellent “print-it-out, cut-it-out, pin-it-to-noticeboards-everywhere” comment — your eighth paragraph, in particular, encapsulates the essential divide between Israel and most of the remaining Middle East. (The term for which you seek is probably “Jihadism”).
What on earth happened to the mantra “NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS “ may I ask?
The sooner the IDF continues its ‘Offensive’ the better. Otherwise Hamas will exploit this charade for all it can. It maybe “cruel to be kind”, but there really is NO other option.
In isolation Israel probably wouldn’t negotiate with the terrorists. But there is the USA to think about and the politicians there are as soft as can be.
Several of our leading politicians in Congress – a cadre of junior legislators, at least – are anything but soft.
They appear to be hardline supporters of not just authoritarian socialism, but perhaps of radical Islamism as well. One even has a Palestinian flag outside of her office in the US Capitol.
And the annoying hijab wearing by wots’er name.
The problem is when the terrorists are holding you where it hurts and you are a liberal democracy with a very family based national culture and ethos. The families of the hostages are rightfully demanding that everything be done to return their loved ones. We would all probably do the same or similar. The media chorus to do everything to bring them back is deafening. Only a couple of families are doing the stiff upper lip and on ideological principle, distancing themselves from the campaign. The government deemed that a few days lull in return for women and children would not cause irreparable damage and keep the national unity together behind the military campaign. The vast majority of Israelis support the deal even if (like me) they have misgivings.
Hamas is exploiting this first of all to play with our nerves and show who is boss, but also to improve positions restock and reload. Their Qatari patrons are orchestrating in the guise of being just brokers, and hoping that they will be able to turn the lull into an indefinite lull, to break our resolve to continue and save Hamas from obliteration. The sooner we get back to the offensive in Gaza, the better. Yesterday’s hostages were released from Shaja’ieh just a kilometer or so East of the current front line in Gaza City. It is not impossible that more hostages can be freed by force and not by negotiation. And in any case, after we have tightened the screws some more, maybe they will “find” some more of the hostages, to free by agreement. The hostages we returned are fantastic and I am truly happy for every one of them, but the job of the country’s leadership will be at some point sooner rather than later, to call an end to the party and get back on with the job.
Spot on Sir!
If it wasn’t for the presence of the hostages, the war would have been over on 8th October and no Israeli soldier on the ground would have died.
This excellent article is a voice for what so many of us are feeling. Congratulations.
Great article Giles.
I was on the march. “Never again is now” and “Bring them home” were slogans of such devastation power and importance they had me near tears.
What horrified me was that when a young man handed me a sticker supporting Jewish unity I hesitated before putting it proudly on my jacket, wondering if it was safe to wear it.
What has become of our country?
The headline reads “The brutal truth about ‘Never Again’” and the byline reads “Don’t be fooled by the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire”. The same headline and byline could be read in the Guardian or Jewish Chronicle, albeit with very different slants in the articles beneath. The implication is the same though: when it comes to deciding what to do, through Western eyes at least, it is all Israel’s responsibility.
Palestine, Palestinians, Hamas: there is little in the Western headlines and bylines that implies they have any choice at all, no matter which way an article leans. This is curious because surely we all have agency? Is there some intangible factor that we implicitly recognise is not so easy to negotiate away here? If it isn’t antisemitism I can only conclude most Westerners implicitly accept this is a clash of two civilisations, not a political argument, and the only thing that can be decided is precisely where the border should be between these two civilisations. There is no soft middle ground to build a shared peace, and so all there is left to do is pick a side.
There is such a thing as Western civilisation: a consistent and distinct orthodoxy of goverment prevails in economics and social affairs, and when this orthodoxy changes all Western countries quickly follow the new orthodoxy. Whilst there might be wars between Western states, these are political not civilisational. I’d argue that, be it defined as Islamic or Arabic, there is a different civilisation dominant in the Middle East with its own orthodoxy and when that orthodoxy changes it too quickly cascades throughout the Middle East. Israel happens to be a Western civilisation outpost on the border with a Middle Eastern civilisation.
Everywhere in the world where there are recent changes to civilisational borders and populations have not yet shifted in either perspective or location to reflect the new political borders there is conflict. Israel and Palestine is not unique today let alone this year. A glance at current conflicts and disputes on a map reveals civilisational tectonic plates ringed by fire.
No matter which civilisational mass we belong to, those of us living a peaceful existence are benefiting from the dividend of huge existential wars that conquered peoples, homogenised civilisational principles, and replotted the borders over centuries. The brutal truth is that in civilisational conflict there is no ceasefire until one side faces not just defeat, but utter ruination and conversion or displacement. The future for Israel and Palestine looks exactly like the past: either constant low level fighting or an attempt by one side for a decisive crushing defeat of the other side.
It’s anti semitism
That is only part of the issue. Decapitating school teachers and downing the World Trade Center had little to do with anti-semitism, and a lot to do with Western Civ.
It’s antisemitism. But not as we’ve known it before in history. As Giles says the speed of the news cycle has ignored the ‘tectonic significance’ of what happened to Israel on 7th October. And we are not prepared for what is to come.
The antisemitism is a symptom, not a cause. The base conflict is indisputably civilizational.
Cry, the Beloved Country. Two neighboring societies that have almost nothing in common can’t be integrated.
The best manipulators realise when they are pushing against an open door. Being mealymouthed is now the default for most Western politicians. I suspect they dread inciting upset ‘at home’, or losing voter support, but in the end they make it more likely.
“A few yards in front of me, Tommy Robinson, a latter-day Blackshirt, was forcibly ejected from the march to everyone’s approval. Nasty little man.”
You’re a splendid knee-jerker. Watch TR’s talk at the Oxford Union, and then revise your opinion, based on knowledge and not stupid prejudice.
I quite agree Andrew, having watched the talk myself. Rough diamond he may be, but he loves his country and has not been frightened, unlike the craven wretches who sit in Parliament or the spineless cowards of the Fourth Estate, to point out the cultural fault lines that make the Elite’s prospectus of benevolent multiculturalism nothing more than blatant propaganda to benefit themselves and themselves only.
Has Owen Jones commented?
Owen Jones is confused about a lot of things but none more so than his stance on Islam. Anyone who questions whether mainstream Muslim opinion on a number of issues might be at odds with what the rest of us would deem basic, liberal values – is shouted down by the increasingly ludicrous short-trousered Marxist for displaying “obvious and disgusting Islamophobia”.
So, when a poll found that HALF of all British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal? Silence from Owen Jones and his cohort.
When Owen was confronted about Muslim attitudes to LGBTQalphabet people he refused to criticise out of “broad-minded respect for other cultures”. Oh, how noble!
But when poor old downhill SirKeir made a trip to a poorly vetted Church last Easter, where the vicar, in accordance with the well-known tenets of his faith, had suggested that homosexuality should not be promoted as being equal to heterosexuality, suddenly wee Owen had a pearl-clutching fit of the vapours, and fulminated against the intolerance of the Church.
Owen Jones would be welcome in Gaza, he really should go. I’m sure I heard that Hamas would like to throw him a roof-top party – at least I think that’s what they said.
Great comment! Your excellent point…”Anyone who questions whether mainstream Muslim opinion…might be at odds with what the rest of us would deem basic, liberal values — is shouted down by the increasingly ludicrous short-trousered Marxist for displaying obvious and disgusting Islamophobia”… is a perfect example of how horribly powerful this cheap propaganda term has become and, sadly, it is not only “short-trousered Marxists” who are doing the “shouting down”. The term has gained currency almost everywhere, it seems to me.
I gather he’s looking for ‘a couple of broody lesbians to make a baby with ‘.
Poor kid.
My prayers were with you after reading your testimony. I couldn’t watch it. I’d have been sick. So glad so many, Jews and non Jews, made the march, to show our Jewish brothers and sister they are not alone.
As a non Jew I went on the march, largely motivated by the sheer evil of Kay Burley’s casual remark on air that the IDF devalues Palestinian Arab lives by swapping 3 Arabs for 1 Jew. That is the kind of common or garden, every day antisemitism that runs right through the broadcasters and bien pensants generally. And just look at who is swapped for whom: little children kidnapped from their beds swapped for teenagers and young adults who have attempted murder. The Israeli spokesman could visibly not believe his ears at Burley’s remark. Israel would prefer to just get their people back without any swaps or at least one for one, but it is actually the case that people like Burley act as useful idiots by their continual harping on the plight of the poor Palestinians, the only demographic to have professionalised generations long “refugee” status. How odd that despite so-called “genocide” the Palestinian population continues to grow and grow. The Jewish world population by contrast is only partially recovering after an actual genocide and holocaust. October 07 changed my whole life and views about everything. And I say that as someone nearing 80.
A valuable statement of considerable power, thank you. I identify with your sentiments entirely.
Owen Jones has not, and cannot, change his opinions. What passes for a brain has been programmed, and nothing’s going to alter the way it ‘works’.
Yes. But why does anyone care what Owen Jones thinks?
Because he has a public voice, he has ‘reach’, and therefore a certain degree of influence on others.
As an Irish person, I am utterly ashamed by the response of both the political and the chattering classes in Ireland. Varadker’s response is particularly baffling considering that, given his lifestyle , Hamas would see him swinging off the end of a crane. He and Higgins seem to be in competition to say the most offensive thing without admitting that they are antisemites.
Forgive the ignorance, but who’s Higgins?
Michael D Higgins is the President of Ireland.
“face down extremism and bigotry and antisemitism and islamophobia and all forms of racism”
I don’t understand why the vicar can’t see how misleading this kind of language is. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians claim to be the object of extreme, irrational bigotry from the other side. These moral equivalences utterly misunderstand the conflict and lead to yet more conflict, since everyone is on the side of vague ideals like “peace.” They are empty slogans that paper over genuine differences, differences that must be examined and resolved for actual peace to be achieved.
The real debate here isn’t between Jews and Muslims, or even between Israelis and Palestinians, but between the West and the Rest. Is it OK that a bunch of European Jews moved to this little patch of Arab land, and transformed a backwards society into a free market, open democracy? Or should the locals have been free to do things their own way, however negative their chosen outcomes might be? That’s the question at the heart of October 7.
At this point 70% of Israeli Jews are descended from Jews forcibly expelled from Arab countries. And the 20% of Israelis who are Arab do not want to live in a different country or culture.
You forget the point that there has been a continued Jewish presence, however small, for 3,000 years. To forget this buys into the “white, colonial” construct. And no-one ever mentions that Jordan, Iraq and Pakistan were entirely created by the white, colonial winning side in 1918.
Until the middle part of the 19th century native Jews were a tiny portion of the Palestinian population. They became a much more significant (though still minority) portion of the population thanks to many striking world events that began in the late 19th century and carried on right through 1948 and beyond – everything from pogroms to global Zionism to the Holocaust. The problem (from the perspective of the woke) is that they were so darn successful in building an estimable society. In the words of Thomas Sowell, if the Jews want to end anti-Semitism, all they have to do is stop being successful.
Most Israeli Jews are descendants of Mizrahi (IE: not European).
Probably not true. Nearer half and half, ashkenazim – sefardim/mizrahiim.
Two cents – The European Jews didn’t transform a backwards society on “Arab land,” as much as they created their own, renewed society from scratch (the old Yishuv notwithstanding), on their ancestral land.
Robinson ejected, Johnson celebrated.
“…Those Hamas 20 somethings…were surprised that they got thru the fence…I don’t think they were quite prepared for it.”
This is very significant. Footage I saw in the NYTimes that day showed that there was a second wave of attackers, larger than the first; with no green headbands, carrying a hodge-podge of weapons.
Our understanding that the civilians are all innocent bystanders/victims needs to be re-examined. I think that when it became clear that the IDF was caught sleeping, a lot of devout Muslim fathers, sons, brothers and husbands decided to have a bit of a spree themselves.
Even after what I saw in NYC on 9/11, I can only imagine how endangered the Israelis must feel; “…their world will never be the same again.”
The Jews of the world obviously need a defensible homeland.
I was there at the march too. I’m a half-Jew who lives in a small town of 25,000 where I know of only two Jews. One I met because she proudly wore her star of David, which encouraged me to do the same. Now she hides it. By wearing mine I’ve learned how deeply rooted antisemitism is, particular among middle-class liberals, who see my star and pile in with ill-informed opinions and condemnations of Israel. I say to them: “Funny, I though I was English. Why do you think I should somehow account for the actions of Israel?” Then I ask them if when they meet English Muslims do they then offload and interrogate them about the actions of Muslim countries? That stumps them. At a dinner party I heard someone say of a couple: “She’s English, but he’s Jewish.” No one called the comment out, and I felt as if transported back to a Berlin salon of the 1920/30s. Would this same person say of her cousin?: “She’s English, but her partner’s black.” Of course not; these are proud self-proclaimed antiracists! That was the last dinner party I went to.
I travelled to London to take part in the march because I needed some community and to feel less alone. On several occasions I was so overwhelmed by the warmth there I teared up. I hooked up with a university professor who teaches in New Zealand, and for an hour, as we walked and talked, I learned of his story and his roots, and told him of mine. His father, now 97, had lived through Kristallnact in 1938, and escaped Germany in 1939, just in time.
At the end, we hugged, welled up in each other’s embrace, and parted. Now I feel less alone.
“since the fascists were pushed back by a similar number of indignant cockneys at the Battle of Cable Street”
There was no ‘battle’ at Cable Street. Just communists setting up barricades, fighting the police and then the whole damn squib getting mythologised. There weren’t even Blackshirts at Cable Street. Their march was cancelled. The amount of propagandising over interwar British history otherwise intelligent people fall for is absurd.
It’s not just antisemitism that rots the brain. Evidently centrism does the job just as well. To describe a little girl kidnapped by murderers as being lost and found, as if she turned up at the lost property office at Waterloo Station, is the rotting made plain.
Or it would be but for the odour of violets, the appearance of moderation and even-handedness and non-judgmentalism, that this form of rotting takes. How can the good be rotten at heart? How can a statement of rejoicing over a girl returned to her father put a twist in the speaker’s soul?
The trouble with influencing is that anyone can do it. Smearing grease over the lens that looks at merciless murder can equally be done with any incident. And after all, the Taoiseach is busy dealing with the images of new Troubles brewing in his own country. Nothing that some grease cannot smooth away.
Does the European and Anglo Marxist Left want to see the Jews eradicated from the Middle East like the Islamists do in the Arab parts of Israel?
It would appear so – what a sad thing to observe in 2023. I’m happy to take myself as personally at war with the Left as well as their fundamentalist allies.
I live in Los Angeles. One of my clients, an Orthodox Jew, came in this morning. I asked him how his family in Israel is doing. He said they were all doing fine. He also added that his Palestinian friends were so far doing ok as well. He prays for them all. God bless him. So do I.
A very powerful article. Thank you.
It is unfortunate that the march was not fronted by some men of substance, military veterans, engineers, scientists, statesmen etc; rather than the ‘luvvies and celebrities’.
I think Richard Hanania is right. The best policy for Israel now is to give Palestinians no hope their dreams will ever be realised, just as the Allies bombed Germany and Japan into the realisation that for them it was over. And once hope is gone, so is the anger. You only get angry with people you think you have a chance of defeating.
And after all, what does Israel have to lose? Neither Palestinians, nor the corrupt UN, nor useful idiots in the west could hate Israel more than they already do, so what does it matter what they think? They will all hate Israel regardless of what they do. The more considerate Israel is, the worse the response because the more Palestinians think they have a chance. Okay then, gloves off and finish this once and for all. Ignore all the hand-wringing from the usual suspects who would have Israel return to it’s impossible pre-7 October state and quash Palestinian dreams once and for all.
The words of someone absolutely bereft of morality or humanity.
Ok jihadi sympathiser
He does have moral clarity tho. It’s either justice or extermination. He favors extermination just like Hitler did. But, as my dad used to say, the Jews are the one people on earth who should know better than to dehumanize other people.
Those willing to view some unforgettable footage in a similar vein (though obviously not comparable to that which you saw) should seek out Ervin Leiser’s documentary Mein Kampf (1960), which introduced the phrase “Never again” into the discussion of the Holocaust.
Being taken by my father to see that film was a formative experience for me, a Gentile. (The link below is to a year-old essay on the subject at hand, not to the documentary.)
https://thefamilyproperty.blogspot.com/2022/11/never-draws-near.html
I think comments should be kept brief and to the point as per Charles Stanhope. I just do not think they get read if they are too long.
Well, that depends on the reader’s attention span. Not every opinion can be expressed as some pithy aphorism; sometimes less is not more.
The ur-mistake was to create an ethno-nationalist state in the Middle East.
It simply replicated the disastrous nationalisms that killed more than 100 million in Europe and elsewhere in the last century.
It made some sense to create a refuge for persecuted Jews. But so were the US, Britain, and many other places.
But creating a nation based explicitly on a particularly ethnic group is a horrible idea, and can only lead to bloodshed.
Now we have a deeply traumatized Israeli Army attempting to keep 6 million Palestinians in check. They’ve seen the same videos and many will be out for revenge against all Palestinians. Moreover, they will enable the half million Israeli settlers to terrorize and steal more Palestinian land.
Unlike Ukraine, this is a conflict where both sides are wrong. It’s very unlikely that any outside force can stave off the many atrocities to come.
So our only real option is to totally disengage, to take on as little of the guilt as possible.
What has happened–and what happens next–will condemn the perpetrators forever…
So what you are saying is that the ur-mistake of creating the ethno-nationalist state of Israel should be corrected by creating the ethno-nationalist state of Palestine, with the difference that whereas 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the state of Palestine would be judenrein.
Good article! Vestiges of the old British spirit still exist, and not just overseas.
Indeed. The Russian-Ukrainian War is still raging, with no end or resolution in sight. History never ends.
Now it is April. Who knows how many hostages are still alive? Held by the “humanitarians.” As I was told on the WCK page on FB…”at least they are being fed.” Gee, what a relief. Arabs are starving while Jews get to eat. I ripped a Palestine flag “free Palestine” sticker from outside a heavily used S Asian market. Or as much as I could. My friend chided me aren’t I doing the same as those ripping down the hostage posters. I was surprised. I felt very good about ripping off the poster. Now one never sees a hostage poster. the pro hamas disrupters will be gearing up for NY’s annual Israel parade….like all the ethnicities here we get to have a parade….I’m sure that this year there will be a massive pro hamas counter demonstration to disrupt this bit of ethnic cheering. No Turks disrupt the Greek independence Day parade. No one bothers with the Puerto Rican Day parade…the largest. Or Orange men here to disrupt the Irish on St. Patrick’s day. Oh well, that is what it is to be a Jew. We don’t have a parade without massive counter demonstrators.
Leave it to a Vicar to speak for God, who is good and who is evil.
I’m glad the march took place and I should say that I’m hardly surprised that it was an entirely peaceful affair. The fact that the march was peaceful and the fact that there were no counter-demonstrators rather underscores the fact that the hundred and hundreds of thousands who marched for Gaza don’t hate Jews – they want an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people.
But there’s some irony in Fraser mocking the gullible fools and useful idiots taken in by the Hamas PR machine and then segueing straight into an account of a screening of horrific footage organised by the IDF.
I don’t doubt that what he saw was unimaginably gruesome. But, has he reflected even for a moment on just how inconceivable it would be for the Palestinian Authority – let alone Hamas – to organise an official screening of curated horrors from Gaza under the bombs?
Has he taken a moment to imagine what he might have seen in such a screening? Would it have seemed any less barbaric simply because it was “unintended”? would there have been fewer “lifeless bodies of children in their Mickey Mouse pyjamas,” would “the contortions of the dying, the endless pools of blood” have been any less distressing? Would the bodycams of the IDF have revealed tearfully reluctant warriors, wracked with conscience over their actions?
“Never Again is Now” read the posters from the march but, to Fraser “this time, the resistance to evil will be deafening. So don’t let a temporary ceasefire fool you. The horror is far from over.”
Irony is dead.
Excellent riposte. Remember the first and most important stage for any fascist regime. Control the press and control the narrative. Exactly what Isreal has done and continues to do.
“Let alone Hamas – to organise an official screening of curated horrors from Gaza under the bombs”
I would say that this is actually happening right now, with the propaganda machinery working at full speed on every social network as well as on some Mass Media retailers like The Guardian or the BBC. Including the isis sympathiser who appears in every Hamas psyop working on a range of professions: from radiologist to milician and surviving death at least once
No it is not. Don’t be silly. The screening of this film was organised by the Israeli military and, presumably, facilitated by the Israeli diplomatic service.
Whatever you may think about the BBC or the Guardian, they are not officially tied to either of the participants in this conflict.
Moreover, if you think that either of those organisations is biased in favour of Hamas, you’re going to have to do better than your final sentence. Who are you talking about?
“just how inconceivable it would be for the Palestinian Authority – let alone Hamas – to organise an official screening of curated horrors from Gaza under the bombs?”. The fact that they don’t is probably more indicative of how they exaggerate than not having the capability. See the bombing of the Hospital that was subsequent proved to be an errant palestinian rocket in a parking lot.
No Peter, they would be legally prevented from doing so because any representative of Hamas who turned up in London offering to screen a film which put Hamas’ side of the story would be at risk of arrest for giving material aid to a proscribed terrorist organisation.
Israel receives a rather different reception. And that was the point I was making.
Nor am I going to debate which of the two sides does the most lying. The answer is that you should assume that anyone who is prepared to go to war (i.e. to risk civilian lives and their own) is also prepared to lie through their teeth about it.
Being sympathetic to Palestinians is not the same as anti-Semitism. Hamas are vile scum, but what should Israel do, exterminate every Palestinian or expel every last one from the country? Hamas exists, appalling though they are, because Israel has done everything under its power to avoid giving Palestinians any rights or peace. Netanyahu is on undeniable record as wishing to encourage Hamas so he then had an excuse not to enter any peace talks ever. He is Israel’s Putin.
When Guterres made a speech roundly condemning Hamas but saying they did not exist in a vaccuum Israeli diplomats and politicians started screaming that his words were a blood libel. The truth, and facts, are not anti-Semitic. If 13,000 Jews had been annhilated in 7 weeks I wonder what America and Europe would be saying.
Denying food and water is a war crime, no ifs, no buts. International war crimes were agreed on as a reaction to the Holocaust; so was Human Right declarations and treaties. Israel is the most militarised society on earth and it will surely exist no matter what. But do you seriously think Israel can carry on for the next 60 years like they have for the past 60? Israel has been killing Palestinians weekly for 60 years and the world turned its back.
I believe the vast majority of Jews and Palestinians do not loathe and hate each other. Unfortunately there is about 20% on either side who would happily see the annhilation of the other. Netanyahu is one as are other members of his cabinet. We know about the clause in the constitution of Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel. The the PLO had an identical one. Israel said that clause meant they could never make peace with the PLO.When Arafat had it removed his reward was to be bombed.
Despite its claims Israel has never been a true democracy. But even if it was we know from British and American history that democracies can commit the most heinous of crimes and have done. As for Hamas hiding among civilians where else are they supposed to be? When Jewish resistance fighters attacked Nazi soldiers in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising where were they? Among civilians of course. Where else could they be? What else could they do?
If Israel does not make a permanent peace with the Palestinians either 2 states or one state this will happen again and again. In 15-20 years there will be a few hundred thousand child survivors of the Gaza bombardment and destruction and they will have no love of Israel or its inhabitants.
80% of Palestinians – is that Gazans? – voted for and Support Hamas. Hardly innocent bystanders. It’s an Islamic ideology problem. A deep seated Jew Hate, consacrated in the Qur’an, inspired by their demented “Prophet”…
Quite so. Every one of your words rings true, except the final one, which should be “warlord”.
Quite right you are. I should have put Prophet between comas. Fixed it now…
While most of us have not seen Bearing Witness, neither have they seen the documentaries bearing witness to the dire effects of decades long breaching by Israel of international law by the illegal military occupations of Gaza and the West Bank and the blockades since 2007 denying Palestinians regular access to food, clean water, sanitation, education and medical care. Documentaries bearing witness to the daily humiliations and casual violence of having to pass through checkpoints guarded by armed Israeli soldiers to get to work or school. Bearing witness to Israelis illegally settling on Palestinian land in the West Bank, also in breach of international law, violently forcing families out of their homes and off their land, sometimes resulting in members being killed. To the capture and indeterminate imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians, including children, under ‘administrative detention’. To the death toll since 2008 in the Occupied Territories of 6,621 Palestinians and 311 Israelis (UN OCHA).
I suggest that the wars and violence of the current conflict is deeply existential to both sides and always has been.
Perhaps, if they weren’t intent on genociding all Jews like they have done successfully in every other Arab Muslim country, they would be treated a bit better. Perhaps
Seems that for once, I’m in agreement with the Unherd herd. Bearing Witness absolutely, positively, must be released in full.
if it turns out to be as ham-fistedly contrived or fraudulent as some of the IDF’s previous work we have a right to know that.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/15/israeli-deceit-the-battle-of-shifa-hospital/
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit
I wonder how many of the downvoters of A D Kent’s comment have actually read the articles linked to? Anyone seeking to know the truth needs to read as widely as possible, not relying on confirmation biases, as lazy thinkers do.
I have downvoted both. I am obviously biased towards Israel, an Oasis of Civilization, surrounded by Medieval Barbarians intended on its destruction. That’s the simple truth. “Palestinians” can and should claim their designated Territory from Jordan. But it isn’t about that at all. It’s all about Jew Hatred, pure and simple. You are nothing but brainwashed, useful idiots for Islamic Terrorists’s cause…
When the author so flippantly uses the phrase “mowing the lawn” he is referring to the systematic slaughter of Palestinian men, women and innocent children, every few years, so they know who their Lords and masters are. The Isreali govt has nothing in common with Western Liberal democracies. It is no better than China, Russia or Iran. It deserves to be a pariah state. The Jewish people worldwide should never have to fear the threat of anti semitism but this Isreali govt is a brutal autocracy. Any Isreali civilian and any Isreali soldier could murder in any fashion any Palestinian man, woman or child and never have to fear retribution or be held accountable. How can anyone support a regime that follows this principle? And this WAS BEFORE the monstrous Hamas attacks of October 7th. Anyone who supports Isreal right to continue their genocide against the people of Gaza and the Left Bank should hang their heads in shame or disappear into the space where their heart and soul should be.
Swap ‘Israeli’ for ‘Palestinian’ and vice versa in your comment: re-read: now it makes sense. (Note the spelling of Israeli).
The response of a nincompoop.
I wonder which Unherd Reader we are hearing from today. Hyde by the sound of it.
How do you square being a man of God and pushing this post truth rubbish? You don’t seem to be aware that the current form of anti-Semitism is called islamophobia nor do you seem to be able to tell the difference between a genocide and a massacre… Not to mention an indigenous population and settler colonialists (this one should be easy given that we have all the dates). And I’m pretty sure it was Germany who committed the Holocaust I’ll never understand why another group were made to pay? Well obviously I do understand: they’re not white Europeans so it’s fine. As Judith Butler noted with the Iraq war, only some lives are grievable for people within the Western propaganda system, only white lives. Here you’ve gone one better and actually do seem to be blaming Hamas for the Holocaust. (My immediate solution is to swap Gaza with the entire anti Deutsch movement in Germany) this way Israeli can oppress the right group and they’ll even enjoy it!
Yes sorry, for all your efforts you are still peddling colonial era racism. Not sure if you want a medal for not being a Nazi, I’m afraid for those outside of Europe their really isn’t that much between European colonialism and fascism. All the racist technologies the Nazis used were developed in the colonies, the English having the pride of place for inventing the concentration camp during the Boer war. Indeed the only difference for Europeans seems to be that Jews can pass as white and well colonial anti black racism was really the heart and soul of the whole white massive racist thing that’s been It is a shame that the Jewish people got lured into being a pawn for White supremacy… Like with the rest of the non-white sycophants that make up the this neo liberal woke action, their motivation will come from the fact that they will never be full members of the club. But then the bourgeois order that developed all the racist technologies have successfully nationalised white supremacy, “do you come from India, Mr Modi has your very own Indian white supremacy now, pissed off you need to share your country with an indigenous population?! Try Zionism! It will wash away all the stains and leave you country brilliant white”. I don’t believe in hell but I’m make an exception for all those spreading disinformation when our world is in such a crisis.
So those of us who are generally sceptical of Establishment narratives should be mollified because Owen Jones and Peter Tatchell have been invited, with you, to a private screening of a film Giles? Any one of us familiar with their stance on the Dirty War on Syria will know what a shallow and disreputable point that is.
I’m sure it was possible to make an horrendous video of atrocities from Hamas body cams – they are not nice people. But until I see one of raw and unedited footage from Israeli helicopters & tanks I’ll reserve judgement on the balance of evils for the time being. Beyond bitter experience of the West’s War-De-Jour propaganda & BS hosepipes and the IDF’s extensive previous, there’s the small fact of the numerous testimonies from people – including recently freed hostages – of them witnessing the IDF shelling buildings with hostages in. Did any such images make it into your private screening Giles? I’m guessing they didn’t.
Here’s a few examples of incidents that might warrant further investigation and the releasing of gun-cam footage:
https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/13624
“Sure, Hamas is bad. But are we really sure yet that they’re worse than the Jews?”
We all know that bombing kills and maims the victims. But the Hamas atrocities are on a different level, particularly in regard to the violence against women and children, even so far as spitting and hitting the mangled broken body of one of the raped women when it was brought back to Gaza. Call me stupid but somehow I don’t see Israelis doing the same thing. Violence yes some of the settlers are pretty nasty and the UN should have dealt with that years ago, And the clear evidence of Hamas using the civilian population as human shields the tunnels under the hospital etc etc.
6-900,000 Jews were ejected from Muslim countries in 1948 if Palestinians get reparations for the Nakba so should these Jewish people. So much more to say but that will do for now. And, yes, the marches in my city with shouting men made me feel unsafe for the first time ever. And I’m not even Jewish.
I wonder what age the average of HAMAS terrorist is? About 18 I would guess. In other words born about the same time as Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
Thus those babes being slaughtered today could well have made the HAMAS terrorists of tomorrow. “ Nits make lice” as someone once said. Sad but unfortunately only too true.
Quite so. But I still find it slightly odd to hear a trendy vicar (SDP) egging the IDF on.
So far the Jews have only killed about 5,500 children.
How many more is it necessary to kill?
I think the Rev Fraser should tell us.
Oh, and has the Church of England a policy on this?
Ah, no replies!
Tricky, isn’t it?.
How many children to kill?
I suppose it’s a mathematical problem nowadays, not a moral one.
Certainly not for the Rev Fraser.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has been thunderous in his silence on Israel ‘s genocide.
I would expect more sympathy from a Vicar for 4000 dead children, but death by bombing is a more antiseptic way of murder. How Christian.
This article was about supporting Jews and why it’s necessary. Why should he also crowbar in mention of Palestinians to satisfy you. We are all adults aren’t we and capable of expressing sympathy for all sides whilst also pointing out the sins of both sides? But why force it in every article. Or why did your brain equate sympathy with Jews with dismissal of Palestinian concerns. Very odd. It just makes you come across as well biased at best and anti-jew at worst.
Ah, your motto: Arbeit macht frei.
What has that got to with it? Dummkopf!
Don’t you mean ‘Gott mit uns’?
This is not about simply defeating Hamas. As Netanyahu announced to world leaders two weeks before the October 7th Hamas attack, he is about establishing “greater Israel”. One where he even held up a map showing it. One where there was no Palestine or Palestinians in it.
This is why they are clearing them out of Northern Gaza, blowing up their hospitals and government offices, and making it unlivable, so they can never move back in, and they are seeking to clear them out of the South now. The goal is to either push them out of the land, or just burry them under the rubble.
Women, children, it doesn’t matter. The plans are to rebuild and re-establish the OT Jewish temple and start offering sacrifices there again. This is the overarching plan, and therefore everything that happens is going to be about moving towards that. Focusing on all the other stuff that doesn’t understand the overarching plan is just a distraction.
You get an A for Anti semitic propaganda.
The tinfoil is in the kitchen. Top cupboard on the right. Help yourself.
“One where there was no Palestine or Palestinians in it.”
There are no Palestinian people or a Palestinian nation. There never were. They were a People and “Nation” invented by Islamic, Arab propaganda. They are a bunch of Jordanian and Egyptian descendants, cross-generational refugees, rejected by their own Brothers. It’s all about Jew hatred and the will to destroy Israel…
British Mandate of Palestine does predate Israel you do realise?