Melanie Phillips’ latest gets right to the heart of the UK’s rising anti-Semitism. Here’s a section, read the whole thing.
Almost every few days brings fresh examples of the Israel Derangement Syndrome that so disturbs and frightens them. Last week, anti-Israel hooligans disrupted a Promenade concert where the Israel Philharmonic was playing, causing the BBC to abort its live broadcast.
Last month, a St Andrews University student was convicted of racially abusing a Jewish postgraduate student over his support of Israel. And week in, week out, Israelis are blamed for defending themselves against mass murder.
By now, it must be obvious to all but the most supine or hostile to Israel within the UK Jewish community that what is happening is an evil uniquely targeted at the Jewish people. For the demonisation of Israel is of a nature and type extended to no other country.
While atrocities by tyrannies and rogue states provoke almost total indifference, Israel is treated as in a class apart: apparently the very worst country in the entire world, a kind of global blight which has to be expunged altogether from civilised society if not from the face of the earth.
Sound familiar? Oh, sorry, I forgot. Part of the madness is that we are totally forbidden to identify what this actually is — a prejudice directed solely at the Jewish people, who in this latest manifestation are uniquely demonised as usurpers in their own historic homeland.
It’s really something, that in the decade since 9-11, it has become ever more acceptable among some elites to turn Israel into a pariah and treat Jews generally with open contempt. Currently both of Israel’s strongest historic allies, the US and UK, are both led by administrations as hostile to Israel as any in my lifetime.
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