So I did indeed meet up with Ashley Perry, the aforementioned ‘settler’ from Israel who is over in England this week. Sorry Peaceniks, but he wasn’t a monster. Not once – as we sat in a boiling hot Solly’s – did he try and steal my chair from me, for instance. Instead he was exactly what I expected him to be: a brilliant and fascinating man.
It was great to hear the inside story of the Israeli elections and Ashley’s predictions for what will happen next. He worked on the Yisrael Beiteinu campaign and whereas I was aware that Avigdor Lieberman has been unfairly demonised, only listening to Ashley did I realise to what extent this is the case. Lieberman could be a good kingmaker for the next Israeli PM. He could certainly do with more people like Ashley on his side.
We talked on. With the extent of anti-Israel feeling in the UK so high, Ashley asked me how much of this I believe is motivated purely by antisemitism. It’s a good question. I don’t want to think that all Israel basher are antisemites. There are surely other feelings that motivate some of them. But are such feelings any less contemptible?
I believe that a substantial number of European opponents of Israel are motivated out of a sense of guilt from the Shoah. Far from taking that sense of guilt and responsibility and using it for something beautiful, they instead use it for the ugliest of things. Against all evidence, they rush – no sprint – to conclude that Israel is committing war crimes, so they can tell themselves ‘They can be monsters, too - we’re all equal.’
As well as being factually incorrect, this equivalence does the opposite of what its proponents want. It doesn’t wash Europe’s hands of what happened to the Jews in the 20th century. Rather, it reawakens that hatred in the 21st century under a new cloak. So we are back where we started: antisemitism.
Others are motivated out of a ‘bleeding heart’ belief that in aligning themselves with Israel’s enemies, they are backing the underdog against the big bully, the poor brown man against the nasty white man. Never mind that Israel is a tiny state of seven million people surrounded by billions of people who want it wiped off the map. Never mind either that – not that this should matter – numerous Israeli Jews are darker of skin than many of their Arab enemies.
The truth matters not a jot to those who demonise Israel. But why? Why is Israel constantly misrepresented in the media? Why do everyday people who would openly admit to not understanding other conflicts in the world so happily take such a strong stance against Israel despite not knowing even basic facts about the conflict? Why do they consistently overlook egregious human rights abuses and horrific atrocities across the world, while tirelessly – and wrongly – accusing Israel of such crimes?
Always the Jewish state. Is it not the case that all these roads lead to the same thing – antisemitism?
Be active. If you like this post, please click below to show your support.
At last, someone is asking WHY such a seemingly large section of the British public are, or have become Anti-Israel. It is so easy to say that it is Anti-Semitism or latent Anti-Semitism, the real answer is multifaceted and of course subjective.
Until the Jewish people actually ask this question and debate all the different answers, and understand their enemy, it will not be possible to defeat the problem in its latest guise.
I understand this is being raised in Parliament, it will be interesting to see what is made of the danger, but if the Jews themselves are unable to understand the problem without grossly over-simplifying it, I am pessimistic that the wider community will be able to.
I do not beleive that the Jewish people need to understand the problem first before expecting the larger UK society to do so as Mike Cook seems to imply in his last sentence. Those who live in Israel have known quite well and for a long time that this virulent anti-semistism is only the active type of hatred as compared with the less overt and dormant anti-jewish feelings found in most predominantly Christian and Muslim nations.
I think it is a fade and sort of herd mentality that is fashionable to be anti-jewish. It is like to be third worldist during the 1970’s and or leftist during the 1960’s. It has to do with power. This run deep despite facts that prove the contrary to what Israel has done since its inception. I keep telling people that Israel was created by the United Nations. The Isreali tanks did not roll over from the the hills of Judea to take the land from the Arabs and their absantee owners in Beyrouth in 1948. Partition was agreed to even by Russia, the first marxist power to align itself with the emerging nationalistic arab states. Ever since, things has not change. In fact, they have not change since the destruction of the second temple. It is just as it was, but more so now with media and communication technology.
I did rather fear that Mike’s comments smacked – perhaps unintentionally – of in some way blaming Jews for antisemitism.
I would add to the above and point out, especially to Mike Cook, that anti-Semitism is by definition unreasonable and illogical. Therefore it is not so much incumbent on the Jews to understand it as for the anti-Semites to explain it. Which of course they can’t…
I would like to clarify that my comments should most certainly not be taken as blaming the Jews for Anti-Semitism.
If a member of the wider community who has never encountered or recognised hatred of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, picks up on the (justified) emotional response to this hatred, I would entirely expect them to ask (without any prejudice) how such a hatred has come about.
We would do well to debate amongst ourselves how we can articulate the answer, which is not an easy task.
It’s so easy for our enemies who greatly outnumber us to just keep slinging mud about, and much of this mud has stuck, constantly repeating key words has done the trick.
Palestinian – Now the identity theft is complete, who now would associate a Jew and a Palestinian as being the same, yet before 1948 the majority of the original British named “Palestinians” were Jews.
Occupation – the favourite word in the vocabulary of our enemies, or for good measure “illegitimate or illegal occupation” spat out with venom in almost every sentence and conjuring up pictures in the minds eye of the listener of the Nazi occupation of Europe. “Occupied Palestinian areas” has now become the most common and accepted narrative to describe Judea and Samaria.
Israeli Apartheid – This word has not yet been totally accepted by the International community, but it is well on its way to becoming so – it’s still fairly new so they just need to keep on repeating it a bit more.
Child Killers – Always a favourite to try and win sympathy and demonise a people at the same time it is recycled from the “Gays are Paedophiles” concept.
And here’s one we gave to the world ourselves : Settler/Settlements – The Anti-Israel brigade are eternally grateful to us for assisting them in coining this phrase.
So, whilst our enemies use words highly effectively, we need to challenge and to demonstrate the bogus nature of them and at the same time expose how they so effectively deflect attention away from the human rights abuses and barbarism that they are guilty of.
As I said the problem is multifaceted and subjective and I have only mentioned the use of inflammatory language, there is much more – the perception of power, poor versus the perceived rich, educated versus uneducated, young versus older, perceived white skin versus darker skin, perceived settlers versus economic migrants, employed versus unemployed, protection versus intimidation, all come into play in the current climate of Anti-Israel feeling, and very little seems to be recognised much less addressed.
Mike Cook, thank you for your answer and clarifications. You are of course 100% correct that language has been hijacked by the Palestinians and their sponsors, and that to a certain extent the Jews and Israel have allowed this to happen without actively confronting it.
Unfortunately I don’t see that anything we say or do has any effect in the main. The Israel haters and antisemites do not allow themselves to be confused by facts.
Mike,
You have made some important clarifications to your earlier commentary, thank you much. It was just the last sentence that threw me off course a bit.
I have come to believe that no matter what proven facts and/or mean tested historical information or corraborated current news you present to any type of crowds with different levels of anti-jewish feelings that all these would not matter. For them these do not count or do not meet their criteria. That’s why I was puzzled about the idea that it is imcumbent on jews to understand the problem first. I beleive that it was already understood as “there is nothing to undertand”. As Annie pointed out, it is quite impossible to undertand it, because anti-semitism does not lend to rational explanations.
The case in point that I hear most is the infamous claim of the apparent difference that exist between being an anti-jewish and anti-zionist. Yet when you hear them expanding on this difference, the old diatribes of the classic East European anti-semitism emerge. All discourses of “discontent” (which are mostly political) about the current practices of Jewish people (Mostly the state of Israel) reverberate one of the ultimate focal point which the very nature of the “jew” or jewish personality (as if it has something beyond comprehension). This is what I have come to beleive to be the irrational focus of jew haters regardless of their level of anti-semitism. All discourses seem to lead to this point, although they start with some pretty “fair” political arguments.
I think it was Bernard Lewis who said that in modern secular european culture “jew hating” needed a scientific explanation instead of the the old backward religious obscurantist claims of deicide and blood ritual. That’s why the nazis used the racial argument of genetic inferiority to their favor and by that lead armies of people to beleive in it. It looks like nowadays that these racial arguments coupled with the old religious as well as the political ones (world domination i.e., the protocols of the elders of Zion) are still without a doubt popular among many crowds.
The fact that all these claims (religious, racial, political) are indiscriminantly and inseparably used at the whims of the illeterate arab crowds and even some educated individuals. A jewish person or sympathiser can, at least, try to fight one claim at a time, but with all claims coming at once, this proves that there is nothing to debate, because the debate becomes a dialogue of the “hearing impaired”. When the “protocols” is still the best seller among educated arabs and neo-nazi groups prove once again that there is nothing to fight this, because these same people who beleive this misinformation know that it is forgery. How can anyone argue with someone who knows that the protocols is a forgery and yet use it as a mean to advance their anti-jewish opinion. I rest my case. I however think that bloggers like this one and many other individuals like us could play a role in attesting our resolve to counter these claims and hope things do not get out of hands. And that’s all we can do…
Gute Arbeit hier! Gute Inhalte.
Why? Zechariah 12:3 tells you…ALL Nations will turn on Israel,specifically Jerusalem, a troublesome stone.They hate Israel, because they hate the God of Israel. If they can’t do anything to God himself, they go after His people. The Jews are the covenant people of God,whether they like it or not! I’m grafted in, a non-Jew who loved the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, and for this reason I will suffer persecution for HIS namesake, and for my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, both Jew and Gentile. I don’t know much about Zionism, if it means someone who Loves Israel and the God of Israel, then I am one. I am a child of the most High first and foremost. I pray for Israel and am concerned about her. I pray she does not waste anymore time waiting for support from anyone. Hashem will be your only defender, if G-d be for you, who can be against you?