A Kind and Noble Bigot: Analyzing 850 Years of English Anti-Semitism
Jews in England, Julius says, “live with a continuous experience of constraint, one that makes them reluctant, for example, to test the limits of what they perceive as English tolerance.” An unspoken pact assures Jews they will be nominally welcome, as long as they know their place. For their part, “[each] Jew strives to earn the reputation enjoyed by all Jews: clever, resourceful, and commercially and forensically astute.”
Julius is both fascinated and repelled by the phenomenon of anti-Semitism (“[Anti-Semitism] is a kind of discursive swamp”). He makes the interesting point that until recently anti-Semitism did not attract any serious consideration by scholars because until the Holocaust nobody was ashamed of it. He himself was moved to write about it because: “The English Jew is what he is in part because of English anti-Semitism.”
Julius’s children will be formed by quite another kind of anti-Semitism than the fairly lackadaisical sort that molded their father. Julius dissects the new anti-Semitism in its gossamer-thin veil of anti-Zionism that has been escalating in intensity in England since the 1970s. While Jewish organizations tend to react clumsily or with inappropriate self-effacement, the rising tide of overtly anti-Jewish rage by English Islamists and their leftist facilitators is clearly having a great impact on English Jews’ morale.
“All versions of anti-Semitism libel Jews,” says Julius, through three basic tropes: the blood libel, in which powerful Jews deliberately victimize non-Jews; the conspiracy libel, in which Jews control the media/banks/America/world; and the economic libel, in which brainy Jews make money at others’ expense. (All three are deployed in the most perverse — and perversely successful — of anti-Semitic libels, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)
But the ancient blood libel is especially troublesome, because it arouses the kind of atavistic, hysterical fear amongst the ignorant that can, and does, lead to guilt-free incitement to collective hatred.
The best-known works of the three most revered writers in the English literary canon are predicated on the blood libel. In Chaucer’s The Prioress’s Tale, a young boy unknowingly offends Jews. They slit his throat and hide his body. The body is discovered and he becomes a martyr. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Shylock demands his celebrated “pound of flesh.” Dickens’s Oliver Twist features Fagin, a repellent child predator of boundless wickedness.
In each case, a Christian’s blood — of a child or a childlike innocent — is ritually shed or lusted after by rapacious, self-serving Jews. The trope of “children/Jews/danger” recurred continually but with diminished malignancy over the centuries. Fagin is repulsive, to be sure, but it is money, not blood, that he lusts after.
Ominously, the ancient blood libel has been taken up with scarifying malevolence by the new anti-Semites. Its latest cultural incarnation is Caryl Churchill’s 2009 blood-libel play Seven Jewish Children — a play for Gaza. Ironically, although purposeful anti-Semitism was not a preoccupation of English intellectuals, the anti-Israel boycott movement was conceived by and has become the driving obsession of mediocre English academics, a disproportionate number of whom are Jewish.
In an insightful analysis of old and new forms of Jewish traitors, Julius notes that in the past Bolshevik Jews like Trotsky were loyal to their ideological cause, but at least knew anti-Semitism when they saw it, and didn’t trade on their Jewishness to lend legitimacy to it.
But today’s anti-Zionist Jews exploit their Jewishness to savage Israel and provide cover to Islamists savaging Jews. It would be wrong to call them self-hating Jews, though. Anti-Zionist Jews see themselves through a righteous lens, as the moral conscience of the Jewish people, scourges like the prophets of old who are the only ones who can distinguish good from evil: “The anti-Zionist is not just a Jew; he is a better Jew … he restores Judaism’s good name; to be a good Jew one has to be an anti-Zionist.” As English boycott activist Jacqueline Rose put it, “I am with the Zeitgeist.”
And what is the Zeitgeist in fact? According to Julius, it is “the received wisdom of those who do not think or know any history.”
The book ends on a profoundly pessimistic note. Anti-Semitism is not susceptible to reason today, Julius concludes, any more than it was for the anti-Bolsheviks 90 years ago. Leftists then claimed that Zionist Jews in alliance with Washington were the cause of global instability. Just as leftists and Islamists today insist it isn’t Jews they hate, it is Zionism, the Bolsheviks affirmed they only hated capitalists. Strangely enough, the capitalists just happened to be Jews.
Trials of the Diaspora is a richly informative and deeply pondered exploration of anti-Semitism, whose vast literary and historical grasp far exceeds its considerable reach. It was written by a true scholar and an equally true English gentleman. In America, happily, there is no irony attached.
Small point but the date for “The Merchant of Venice” is around 1597-8.
As an English(anglo-saxon)I find this an interesting article. The left has forgotten how Israel was a radical,left-wing cause to begin with. Conservative types tended to be slightly wary of Jews and anyone else from abroad. In Britain in the post war years “Palestinians” was the name used to describe Jews in Palestine as much as Arabs.
Just as ordinary people have become less racist in parts (it is dangerous to generalize),the left have given a special dispensation to those who criticise Jews. There is evidence of some of the left waking up to their mistaken alliance with Islamists.
Among Posh people I imagine there is still some disdain for Jews. By posh I mean people who have old money,ie landed gentry. This tiny portion of the British population is still influential and appears to be of more interest to Americans than most of us Brits. People of Jewish descent have held the high offices of this land and continue to succeed out of all proportion to their numbers in the population. I wish I had known some Jews when I was at school,they might have helped me study harder!
“And what is the Zeitgeist in fact? According to Julius, it is “the received wisdom of those who do not think or know any history.”
Postmodernists are inherently anti-intellectual. Riding the wave of history means that the reading and studying has been done for them. It would be foolish to spend even a moment of one’s time learning the alleged lessons of history. The new man and woman are entirely different from their ancestors. The only real responsibility is to find the glorious dictator to lead you to the secular Promised Land. It will inevitably lead to totalitarianism and the violent elimination of those who refuse to provide their unqualified assent of mind and will to the doctrines of the new order. The call will be for egalitarianism—but the leaders will be as George Orwell cynically warned more equal than others. Rules are meant only for the hoi polloi. Jews of all varieties are innately inclined toward placing a high value on merit. It is obvious that they must be removed.
I think British anti-semtism is more of an upper-class phenomenon. Of all of the western groups, the English-speaking world has been the most hospitable to the Jews. Over the past 400 years, no place has been safer for Jews than the Anglo-Saxon world. There have been no pogroms or overt discrimination of Jews in the US, Canada or Australia and Lord Balfour was a key person in aiding the establishment of Israel. The recent growth of anti-semitic sentiment in both the UK and the US is disturbing. As an American in his 50′s, I have never seen more anti-semitism in the US in my lifetime as much as I have seen in recent years.
“As an American in his 50’s, I have never seen more anti-semitism in the US in my lifetime as much as I have seen in recent years.”
Anti-Semitism will always increase in an increasingly socialist cultural milieu. It is ironic that so many Jews are convinced egalitarians. They are unwittingly engaging in suicidal behavior.
“People of Jewish descent have held the high offices of this land and continue to succeed out of all proportion to their numbers in the population. I wish I had known some Jews when I was at school,they might have helped me study harder!”
David, I wish I went to school with more Alinsky African Americans, I might have become POTUS.
Your comment helps solidify the very core of this well written piece.
And I have to go navigate through this muck, as I’m forced to live in the UK for a couple of years.
Great. ;(
The commentators who talk about English (as opposed to British, i.e. Scots, Welsh or Irish?) anti-semitism as an upper class phenomenon have it half-right. The aristocracy is almost entirely (nominally) Anglican or Roman Catholic, but there are a few Jewish peerages and number of aristocratic families that have Jewish connections (some well-buried), but on the whole, the aristocracy views Jews as irretrievable middle class and has the same sort of disdain for Jews as it had for (now) Lady Thatcher, who was derided as a grocer’s daughter who was a scholarship student at University. It’s that they’re in trade or otherwise work for a living (as in the professions and academia) rather than pursuing more aristocratic careers. The notion of a Jewish gentleman is, I have been told by a peer, an oxymoron. I have also been told that, at least among the portions of the aristocracy that retain ancestral connections to the Army and the Navy, the general avoidance of even upper class Jews of military service, is counted against them.
More interesting, perhaps, is the relatively new upper-middle and middle class anti-semitism, which has, I think, risen from the education of those classes by a radical professoriat at the universities, ancient and modern, over the past 50 years.
Then again fans of a certain Texas US Rep. routinely peddle stuff like this on their sites and mailing lists. The amount of jew-hatred frothing around in the CfL site and adherents is quite distressing.
This book will find itself on my “to buy” book list as it will make for a fascinating read.
Surely no one is forced to live in the UK?
Michael says nobody is forced to live in England. So, if Jews are victims of bigotry they can just leave.
On the other hand they might want to go to Israel, which the state-supported British press and many of its politicians routinely lambaste. Indeed there is open support for Hamas – not just the Palestinians but Hamas – from public figures and British MP’s are guilty of the most heinous sort of blood libel.
Besides that claiming there would be no antisemitism or terrorism without Israel is absurd.
The Shoah predated the state of Israel did it not? The Inquisition? The blood libels, massacres and expulsion of Jews from Britain?
And what about attacks on minorities in the Middle East? This is new? What about the hundreds of thousands of murdered Assyrians, the Armenians, the abuses of Middle Eastern Jews, the victimization of Copts, the oppression of women? Maybe this isn’t “Middle Eastern terrorism” in the sense of IED’s but I’m not sure I know what else to call it actually.
It’s totally unfair to blame Israel for problems in the Middle East that long predate its rebirth. And it’s also blind and unfair not to realize that Nazi and other Western propaganda, much of it specifically antisemitic, has infested the Middle East and this in turn has affected attitudes not only toward Jews but toward Israel. Much of this came with the Brits. Do some reading.
And – have there been no wars between Western and Eastern empires before Israel or is all this a recent phenomenon? I think one of America’s was an altercation with Barbary pirates, was it not?
The Brits never attacked the Ottoman Empire and the Ottomans never reached the gates of Venice? There were no wars in Iberia, in France, no Crusades? Otto you are simply uninformed. And alas antisemitism is not a thing of the past.
In any case British treatment of Jews before, during and after the Shoah was in many cases shameful. This is a study in itself.
Indeed I think British Jews to a great degree may have internalized both antisemitism to the point that they do not want to make a fuss but also they’ve imbibed anti-Israel sentiment all their lives because it’s constant and nonstop. The BBC itself is very biased and The Guardian is completely over the top.
I don’t think it’s an accident that many “revisionist” historians are British and also, that some of the most radical Islamist groups find both audience and echo among British universities and even Parliamentarians.
It also isn’t surprising that people like the panties bomber have been radicalized at British universities. Support for radicalism which has vicious antisemitism as one of its pillars is bound to affect young people and create further generations who think hatred is both normal and acceptable.
Regardless, bottom line no minority should feel that perhaps, for their safety, they should leave. This has happened again and again to Jews and it shouldn’t even be a consideration in a 21st century Western democracy especially since the Jewish homeland itself is damned not least by the Brits and other Western parties who say it’s a “liability” to their interests.
So the Jews are in a double bind.
Notably this isn’t true of Muslims, who number some 1.5 billion and have no less than 56 nation states – a whole organization to represent them in the UN – this is also true of Palestinian Arabs who are backed by 22 Arab League nations whilst the number of Arabs per se is in the hundreds of millions, who inhabit a vast region, of which Israel constitutes some .01 percent.
And Jews number what – 13, 14 million worldwide? And we continue to be threatened – not only in the Middle East – with extermination.
So as to the comment that antisemitism is passe – I beg to differ. Check the statistics of antisemitic attacks and incidents and hate speech in Britain, France, the US – and compare that with the small number of Jews.
In US Jews are now being accused of disloyalty to our country. The most notable example is the dedicated public servant Dennis Ross.
Some of the ugliest elements of British antisemitism have finally reached our shores. Of course before Israel existed we had Henry Ford, “The International Jews,” the KKK, and more discreet forms of bigotry – its traces are there, they are still poisonous, and they can be reawakened.
Do people honestly believe this doesn’t play a role in the recent spate of attack articles on Israel, on AIPAC, conspiracy theories, articles which persist in twisting General Petraeus’ words or which outright lie about the history of the Middle East?
Bravo Sophia!
sophia lets hope that the bilions of people on this tiny iland in space can sought it out cause there is no other land to rest in
Who cares? Now if this was about Anti-Muslim sentiment, it would be current, provocative, and interesting. But dragging out the old ‘anti-semite’ race card is a bit dated. If there was no Israel, there would be no middle-eastern terrorism.
“If there was no Israel, there would be no middle-eastern terrorism.”
Wow – Otto – do you really believe that?
To take but 2 examples – So the subways in London and the trains in Madrid were blown up because of Israel? The centuries-old fight between Shia and Sunni is because of Israel?
April Fools’ Day was yesterday. But if you do believe that tripe, don’t fear – I hear that they are doing wonderful things in Vienna with psychiatry these days…….
I think what you really meant to say was “If there was no Israel, there would be no one on whom to blame middle-eastern terrorism”
Otto, This week twin suicide bombings by Islamic terrorists in Moscow killed 40 and wounded 90. Nothing to do with Israel at all.
Mr. Julius clearly underestimates the Jew-hatred in his own country — I would ask him this — if the Nazis had invaded England, does he think for one second the British people would have done much to save the Jews from extermination?
We know from how the Channel Islanders (who WERE occupied by the Germans) behaved that the answer is no.
We know how fanatic the British were in preventing survivors of Auschwitz from reaching Israel after the war.
We know how much the British love the Arabs and armed the Arabs to destroy Israel.
We know how much the BBC (and other major media outlets) have become indistinguishable from Streciher’s Der Stuermer when it comes to Jews.
Mr. Julius, the truth is that your Britain is a Nazi state. If the Jews stay there, they Islamic heirs to Hitler will kill them. With the blessing of most Brits.
“If there was no Israel, there would be no middle-eastern terrorism.”
Now that’s funny.
The US has been fighting Muslims since the days of Thomas Jefferson, that’s how the US Marines came in to existence. Two Barbary wars and a few other skirmishes. It’s kind of sad to think that back when America was a great Country, it had no problem taking care of the Pirate’s.
The American people are amazing. They have saved the world from destruction more than once. They have survived corrupt governments before and they will do it again.
The reality of English antisemitism is that the greatest victims of hate crimes are the Jews and the greatest perpetrators of hate crimes are the Muslims. If ‘English’ antisemitism was fairly bearable, antisemitism in England is rapidly becoming unbearable.
Eric.R,
there is a lot wrong with Britain I agree but you are exaggerating somewhat old chap!
The population of the Channel islands were as much French as English.You can draw your own conclusions from that.
Battle of Cable St ring any bells?(if not google it.)
British troops were thanked for liberating death camps by being blown up in Palestine 2 years later. That didn’t exactly endear the cause of Israel to British hearts at the time. Nonetheless it didn’t result in persecution of the Jewish population at home.
The U.S has sold arms to Egypt,Pakistan,Iran,Iraq,Kuwait,Saudi Arabia etc and on a scale that makes our efforts look puny.
regards
Mr. Stanley,
You really like to rewrite history, don’t you? The British interned thousands of Jews who survived the death camps in Cyprus, while other ships with these desperate souls sank.
Yet you blame the Jews for bombing the British?
You clearly have been brainwashed by the BBC and other Brit media (and not just the lefty ones), who think it a crime that any self-defense by Jews is evil. You probably also think that Hamas and Hezbollah are freedom fighters against the evil Zionists.
You Brits were persecuting the most persecuted people in history after the war. We Jews had EVERY RIGHT to fight you, and if that meant blowing you up, so be it. In fact, the Irgun should have taken the fight right to England itself.
So please take your indignation and shove it.
Otto has perfectly explained the origins of the Iran vs. Iraq war, the takeover of Iran by the ayatollahs, the Syrian extermination of entire Syrian villages, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Kurdish insurrections in various Middle Eastern countries, and the disappearance of Judge Crater.
The problem is religion, ALL religions that feel free to ignore the one thought they ALL profess. “Do nothing to others you would not want done to you.” I say dump the religious nonsense and start living the “Golden Rule” and we can all start living in peace!
King Edward I expelled the Jews from England in 1290. It was Oliver Cromwell (the anti-royalist commoner) who re-admitted the Jews back into England in 1656. Around the same time, the baptist colony of Rhode Island hosted the first Jewish community in America. So British antisemitism is very mixed with most British Jew hatred comming from upper class Anglicans and Catholics. Interestingly, both religions follow an antisemitic “replacement theology” where they believe that God’s promises to the Jews apply only to the church. Baptists and other “nonconformist sects” (who appeal more to working class people) do not follow this type of theology and actually believe that those who bless the Jews will be blessed and those who curse them, will be cursed by God. This explains why the evangelical communities in the US and UK tend to be pro-zionist. One notable exception is Jimmy Carter who was raised baptist. His antisemitic feelings have become stronger and more alarming over the years but he no longer is a member of any baptist church.
Wow! Everybody has an opinion. Jew hatred hardly started with the Britons, theirs is just a continuation of the jealousy that started when God separated Noah from the rest of humanity with the flood and that hatred came within his own family. Explain that one. Ok. The hatred really comes from Satan the original of the rejected rebellious ones. The stupid bastard thought there was a chance he could take over Earth for a while and he did. Satan soon recognized that he was being undermined by the very one he rebelled against. God simply chose someone who believed in Himself the True Creator and said to Abram ” I will make you great and your descendants will be so many that they will be greater than the stars of heaven” and basically ‘from your loins will come the very one who will defeat Satan and take from Satan all his power, authority and rule and reign on Earth forever’; Jesus. Of course Jesus is a Jew.
Jesus then having conquered Satan takes His place in Heaven for a while leaving the Earth in the hands of His disciples both Jews and Gentiles with a little help from the Holy Spirit. Jesus having compassion on all men leaves it up to men to distribute the good news of this transformation of power to the many successive generations for an allotted period of time which at the end of that period Satan would be given a last chance to deceive the Nations and to try men’s souls. Satan knowing he has but a short time rages against the Jews and the Gentile Christians with hatreds, murders, persecutions and genocides in hope against hope that he might delay the inevitable. Meanwhile Jesus is collecting an army of saints in Heaven and at the appointed time comes back to take His throne upon the Earth and rule the nations with His saints for eternity.
Jew hatred and Christian hatred starts and ends with Satan. Now we know why. The great deceiving spirit is still raging in this his final hour. Want to know where he is and what he is doing? Look for the liars, you can tell them by their associations, works, smooth words, posing as angels of light, here to help humanity all the while stealing liberty and seeking to kill the sons of God.
Can’t hide the hatred, no matter how they try it seeps out like the tar in the tar pits seeps into the streets of Los Angeles.
Eric.R,
I think you misunderstood my point. In the context of the article I was discussing why there may have been some anti- Israeli sentiment at the time. The blockade was wrong I agree. Remember that Britain was trying (badly I agree) to prevent war in Palestine. Refugees were moving around all over Europe and the middle east. I agree the policy was wrong,British troops didnt want to be there and were pleased to leave.
For me it is a personal story as a relative was killed and he had fought from D.Day to liberate Europe only to die in Palestine. It is the tragedy of war.
In the same way when my friend was blown up in London by The IRA with semtex paid for by Americans I didnt think I should blow up Boston in retaliation.
In no way do I endorse anti-semitism and I am very aware of the potential for brainwashing if one uses the same sources again and again for news.
The bulk of anti-Jewish attacks in England come from muslims.
The increase in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment from politicians is largely driven by the increase in muslim voters.
The increase in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment from leftists and the liberal media is largely driven by the rise of PC and multi-culturalism and it’s attendent hatred for anything associated with the “West” especially if that anything is in conflict with some group not associated with the West.
Jews were very heavily involved in promoting mass immigration, multi-culturalism and PC.
But no, much easier to blame everyone else.
And Jews in England got treated worse than the Irish or the Scots who had their whole countries conquered and stolen from them, thousands killed, cultures obliterated? Right. Yeah. Sure. And the Normans and the Danes (and the Romans, etc.) didn’t do the same to the English in the bad old days? Jews have no lock on suffering, and it would be pleasant to see a bit more self-awareness demonstrated on that point.
“I have also been told that, at least among the portions of the aristocracy that retain ancestral connections to the Army and the Navy, the general avoidance of even upper class Jews of military service, is counted against them.”
These toffee-nosed parasites have obviously never visited a war cemetary then.
Eric R
David Stanley is right, and in fact did not respond to your clearly exaggerated characterisation of Britain as (historically) a Nazi state with ‘indignation’. It is your own attitude which verges on hysteria, and does not help those of us who are trying to fight the current wave of islamist inspired hatred of Israel.
The criminalisation of Israel is not purely to do with Muslims in the UK or with posh anti-semitic Arab worship, but is also rooted in a PC, self-hating, anti-power liberal elite. It is a fey undercurrent that is so broad-based it is very difficult to counter. This has been gaining ground since the 1980′s, and though ‘ordinary’ people ridicule it, nothing seems to really check it.
Most of those I considered friends 20 years ago are strangers to me now, and I am ashamed of my country (I am English, though I live mostly in France).
Dear Mr. Fox:
“The criminalisation of Israel is not purely to do with Muslims in the UK or with posh anti-semitic Arab worship, but is also rooted in a PC, self-hating, anti-power liberal elite. It is a fey undercurrent that is so broad-based it is very difficult to counter. This has been gaining ground since the 1980’s, and though ‘ordinary’ people ridicule it, nothing seems to really check it. ”
Polls have shown that the average Brit is far more pro-Arab and anti-Israel than the average American, so it is bit disingenuous to blame this on the leftist elites alone. Decades of this frothing Jew-hatred has seeped into the English psyche; one that was already predisposed to buying it.
The Jew-hatred coming out of Britain may come predominantly from left-wing media, but not just them alone — apart from maybe the Telegraph and Daily Mail, Israel is the object of hatred and derision throughout your media — and I include the Economist and the Murdoch-owned Times in that accusation.
Eric,
I didn’t try to blame only the left for anti-semitism in the UK – I agreed it is broader based than that, but opinion polls notoriously reflect what pollsters seek to evoke. We have to be careful what we believe. The Telegraph and the Daily Mail represent a huge mass of ordinary people in the UK. I fully agree with you that the Times has become a cesspit of hatred towards Israel, and in fact in my own experience systematically ‘moderates’ comments that go against the flow.
People are on the whole ‘herd animals’, and tend to go along with what they perceive as collective opinion. I do not rule out the possibility that the centre ground would shift, as it has in the debate over immigration.
I’m not denying though that Mr Julius’s (and your own) pessimism is currently justified. But calling the UK a Nazi state, and a moderate objection to that ‘indignation’ are counterproductive. As you must know, Nazism means cruelty several orders of magnitude greater than is now present anywhere outside events such as the massacres in New York, London, Bombay and Beslan, and in the societies which practise extreme versions of Islam.
Blaming Europe as a whole is also complicated. You say it is Europe’s Islamist allies who are carrying out the 2nd holocaust. Arabs say that Israel is itself a form of European colonialism. We can’t win there, clearly.
However I do not defend the UK or Europe against the charge that you make. I support 100% the right of Jews to make their home in Israel, or to live in Britain without fear of persecution. I believe the rage of the Palestinians is fundamentally based on their refusal to recognise the right to live without being subject to the regressive and degrading conditions routinely imposed by Islamic societies on minorities.
These views make me part of a minority in my own country. As I said, I’ve lost friends over this.
“As I said, I’ve lost friends over this.”
So, even as you criticize me for my criticism, it seems that your own personal experience actually validates my statement.
Long-time friends of yours would rather hate and kill Jews rather than be a friend.
I have added the book to my must read list. Currently re-reading Maimonides by A.J. Heschel. Trials of the Diaspora will be next. Kudos to Barbara Kay for her excellent review.
“The book ends on a profoundly pessimistic note. Anti-Semitism is not susceptible to reason today, Julius concludes, any more than it was for the anti-Bolsheviks 90 years ago. Leftists then claimed that Zionist Jews in alliance with Washington were the cause of global instability. Just as leftists and Islamists today insist it isn’t Jews they hate, it is Zionism, the Bolsheviks affirmed they only hated capitalists. Strangely enough, the capitalists just happened to be Jews.”
This paragraph is utter nonsense. The anti-Bolsheviks of 1920 were the forces of good, and it was tragic that they didn’t succeed.The Bolshevik regime that defeated them, enslaved Russia, and became Hitler’s model of how to run a police state was itself disproportionately Jewish. Lenin’s Soviet Communist Party had the enthusiastic support of millions of Jews living in the Soviet Union, and Jewish Bolsheviks played a major role in all facets of Soviet terror. None of that has much to do with traditional British anti-Semitism, or with Muslim insanity and depravity, or with lefist attempts to stigmatize Israel as a colonial apartheid state, but it’s the truth.
I found this article and going by this articles discription, the book which he is discussing, both anti-Europic.
I’m glad you found it anti-Europic. Because after giving us 2000 years of persecuting and murdering Jews, culminating in the 1st Holocaust (Europe is using its Islamist allies to carry out the second one), I think one can safely say that Europe sucks and deserves all the hatred and vitriol it gets.
Eric, the Bible is pretty clear as to what the Jews did to the locals in Palestine way back when. Deuteronomy and all that. The Greeks did similar to the Trojans, who then went to Italy to take over the lands of the Etruscans, the Incas took over surrounding peoples, too. I’m not making excuses for the islamists, nor suggesting that we make way for a 2nd Holocaust. Let’s just say, that religious hatred is hatred, whether of Jews or of others. The Jews don’t have a lock on being persecuted, just ask the Armenians.
Interesting how the Brits squirm to justify the open anti Semitism smoldering in their country, To suggesting there were Palestinians in the time of Abraham, was that satire? The fact that Jerusalem had a Jewish majority and Jews were forced out by invading Jordanian troops, with the open help of British troops; or that Hebron had many Jews who were tortured, murdered and raped while British troops watched cannot be denied. My friend’s mother made her way to Jewish Palestine on the Exodus said; “the Germans treated us better than the British” startling words from a Holocaust survivor.
Whether or not others have suffered is not the subject of this article, what it is about is the anti Semitism of the most colonial, most belligerent and most hypocritical country in the would.
Oh, and did anyone at PJM bump this to Carol Gould for her two cents?
She certainly has first hand knowledge of anti-Semitism in the USA vs. in the UK, having lived in both.
Stephen Fox,
thank you for your support. I think we may be kindred spirits.
To Eric, I find your responses very interesting in themselves! Am I missing something? I don’t think anyone is pretending anti-semitism doesn’t exist in the U.K or even that it is growing. I have also noticed that there are many Jewish anti-israeli activists in the U.K. Some of them are far more vociferous in their opposition to Israeli policy.(re the recent Jerusalem Orchestra protests in London)than the average Brit who probably couldn’t give a s… what happens in the middle east.
Assuming most British Jews are not going to move to Israel or the U.S. what should be their strategy to maximise their quality of life in the U.K? Why is there not more sympathy for the Israeli situation at the moment and what can be done to increase it?
“I have also noticed that there are many Jewish anti-israeli activists in the U.K. Some of them are far more vociferous in their opposition to Israeli policy.(re the recent Jerusalem Orchestra protests in London)than the average Brit who probably couldn’t give a s… what happens in the middle east.”
The actions of leftist Jews are easy to explain. In Europe, Jews have always had to convert to the predominant religion in order to have any chance to be properly accepted and move into positions of influence(Disraeli is the prime example in your country, when the Anglican Church dominated). Today that predominant religion happens to be Marxism.
“Assuming most British Jews are not going to move to Israel or the U.S. what should be their strategy to maximise their quality of life in the U.K?”
They will eventually have to move. What is happening to Jews in Malmo, Sweden will eventually happen to all Jews left in Europe. The best way for British Jews to maximize their quality of life is to get out now before they are forced to flee for their lives.
” Why is there not more sympathy for the Israeli situation at the moment and what can be done to increase it?”
In Europe, nothing can be done. Jew-hatred is an integral part of European thought across the continent, spanning all the nations and all faiths and all political parties. It is too deeply rooted amongst Europeans to ever change. Israel must simply get the remaining Jews out and remind Europe that it has nukes, and that if Israel goes in a Second Holocaust, it will take Europe with her, as Martin van Creveld has said.
reigion is the oldest scam man has made . wake up we r in our twilght years.what or who ever digs up in the future will . think a insane cultuer exsited an wiped out the fauna the atmosphere the lifes blood of our planet all for the sake of a argument about religion an about a god ?
Jews are an asset to any society. They commit virtually zero violent crime. They excel academically. They have very high IQs. And they’re generally nice people. A lot of my friends and neighbors are Jewish and it really upsets me to see how many people hate them all around the world out of jealousy. One of the main reasons why I eventually left the Left was the extreme amounts of Israeli hatred and general Jew hatred on the Left. One of the things we have to purge from the Right is the growing number of deranged anti-Jewish Ron Paul type libertarians and conspiracy theorists who believe Jews control our government and are manipulating us into serving the wishes of Israel in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. They’re a disgrace to the Right.
This appears to be a case of bashing Britain.Taking into account the Kindertransport and similar rescue schemes Britain did more than any other western nations to save the lives of European jews.The anti semite upper classes consist of less than 1% of the British population.