Anti-Semitism should have no place in the pro-Palestinian movement

It’s up to all pro-Palestinian campaigners to stamp out any anti-Semitic sentiments when they see them.

It’s up to all pro-Palestinian campaigners to stamp out any anti-Semitic sentiments when they see them

70 attacks have been reported on Jews in the UK since the Israeli war on Gaza began on July 8, two thirds of which are directly related to the conflict.

It goes without saying that this is an incredibly worrying trend. And as the Palestinian death toll mounts past a thousand, it appears to be spreading.

I was on the Stop the War demonstration in London on Saturday. It was huge (between 50,000-100,000), and it was peaceful. It was also incredibly diverse, with Jews for Justice for Palestinians marching alongside Muslims, students and peace campaigners.

But there were some disturbing sentiments expressed on banners and placards. I saw the flag of Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese Islamist party classified as a terrorist organisation in many countries. Other marchers reported seeing placards saying ‘Research: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’, the famous anti-Semitic conspiracy document, with a Star of David dripping in blood.

When confronted, the Jewish pro-Palestinian was hurled with abuse such as ‘Jews are the problem. If you’re a Jew, you’re racist, you’re what we’re demonstrating against’. There were also pretty horrifying Nazi allusions, including signs saying ‘Hitler you were right’. And chants from ‘No justice, no peace’ seemed to try to legitimise anti-Israel violence, at a time when an immediate end to hostilities needs to be the priority.

Daniel Randall writes:

“While outward displays of “classical” anti-Semitism are rare, subtler themes are more common. Placards and banners comparing the Israeli state to Nazism, and its occupation of Palestine to the Holocaust, and images melding or replacing the Star of David with swastikas, are, while far from universal, relatively commonplace. The politics of this imagery, too, has an anti-Semitic logic.”

The Muslim Council of Britain has rightly condemned all such imagery, as well as the incidents which have doubled in recent weeks.

The Community Security Trust also reports violence against Jews and Jewish buildings not at the march, including a brick thrown at the window of a synagogue in Belfast. Much of the non-violent incidents have occurred on Twitter, including the #HitlerWasRight hashtag which gained some following. Such actions represent the politics of the far-right – similar to the surge in anti-Muslim hate crime following the killing of Lee Rigby – and have no place in a progressive movement.

Now the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism are to launch a report into the spread of these hate attacks. But it’s up to all pro-Palestinian campaigners to stamp out any anti-Semitic sentiments when they see them – we must be vigilant in confronting it at all times.

Jews and Muslims must be able to demonstrate arm in arm against the war on Gaza – the movement for peace and human rights is nothing if it is not tolerant. It is especially nothing if it is not peaceful or respectful of human rights.

Follow Josiah Mortimer on Twitter

42 Responses to “Anti-Semitism should have no place in the pro-Palestinian movement”

  1. John Valer

    Here is a copy of a leaflet being distributed amongst the North London orthodox Jewish community:

    “Fellow Jews – Let Us Not Be Afraid To Act!

    Fellow Jews – attacks on our people are on the rise all over the world.
    Throughout Europe, North America, and even Australia, Jews have not found
    themselves subject to such assaults since the days of the Nazis.

    Fellow Jews – shall we just sit here with hands clasped and do nothing?
    Shall we sit idly by while our brothers are targeted for condemnation and
    violence on the streets, in their homes, in their synagogues?

    Fellow Jews – it is time to act! We cannot let this go on! We all know
    what the causes of these attacks are.

    The cause of these attacks is that the world thinks the state of Israel
    is the nation-state of the Jewish people and their actions represent world
    Jewry. They attack us because they believe we are them. They attack us because
    they believe we represent their enemies, the Zionists.

    But it is not the Jews who are at war – it is the state of Israel. It is not the Jews that the fury of our
    attackers is directed at – it is the Zionists. The Zionists who have usurped
    our identity and represent themselves as “the Jews.” For a hundred years and
    more the Zionists have been doing this, in order to cloak themselves in the
    mantle of esteem that rightfully belongs to the Jewish people.

    The Zionists have sullied and soiled that mantle in the eyes of the
    world. Our mantle. The mantle of Jewishness that the Zionists have no right to
    speak for.

    Jews are a peaceful people. We are a religious people. We are prohibited,
    according to our religion, to wage wars during our exile, until the Messiah
    arrives. An exile that the Zionists think they can repudiate, and a Messiah
    that the Zionists think they can replace.

    The Zionists’ impersonation of the Jewish people has succeeded in causing
    them to identify the entirety of the Jewish people as Zionists.

    Fellow Jews – it is time to act! We must open our mouths and teach the
    world that the Zionists do not represent the Jewish people. That Israel is NOT the nation-state of the Jewish
    people; that the Jewish nation has no part in the acts of the state of Israel.

    Fellow Jews – it is time to speak up! Do not be afraid! Let us rise up
    together with one voice and tell the world that Judaism is not Zionism! Shall
    we allow our brothers and sisters all over the world – our fellow religionists
    – to be mistaken for Zionist nationalists? Shall we allow our holy Torah to be
    deceitfully presented as politics?

    How can we sit by idly and allow Judaism to be deceitfully portrayed as
    Zionism?

    How can we sit idly by and let our brothers be held responsible for the
    acts of a nation that is not theirs.

    Fellow Jews – let us not be afraid to act!

    And let us act now – while we still have a chance to act”.

  2. froglet

    The problem with criticising Israel is that it is a State explicitly founded by and for Jews, consequently “Israel” and “Jewry” are easily conflated. In many instances this conflation is quite deliberate.

    It is the tactic most commonly used both by the apologists for the current Israeli regime, and at the same time by anti-Semites. The apologists are happy to deflect legitimate criticism of the State, by accusing critics of attacking Jewry, while anti-Semites commonly use the sins of the Israeli State as a justification for attacking Jewry at large.

    These problems are compounded by the intransigence of many of Israel’s leaders and spokespeople who like to have most of the arguments both ways.
    On the one hand they berate “terrorism”, whilst with the other paying obeisance to the founding heroes of Israel like Menachem Begin, who was proud of his terrorist roots.
    Their cavalier attitude to Civilian casualties in Gaza doesn’t help either. Hamas’ Rocket attacks are largely ineffectual, and the tunnels don’t seem to have had great “success” in infiltrating Israel either.
    Laying-waste much of Gaza’s housing and infrastructure in a bid to eliminate them is morally indefensible, probably illegal, and doomed to fail.
    No matter what sophistry the Israel Government applies, peace is improbable without talking to Hamas. Britain talked to the IRA in the 1990’s Peace Process, and Israel will almost certainly have to take the same bitter pill if it wants to settle this issue. Until this is conceded Mr Netenyahu and his colleagues are simply posturing about “Peace & Security” , whilst authorising the unnecessary slaughter of the innocents.

  3. Mike Stallard

    “No matter what sophistry the Israel Government applies, peace is improbable without talking to Hamas. Britain….”
    This is the whole problem. It isn’t a cricket match between Gentlemen. Israel is pinpricked into anger by indiscriminate firing of rockets into her God Given territory. In order to retaliate, she has to invade civilians carefully left there to die. The civilians are the very people who appear laden with bombs in the customs posts and market places. Israelis are in no was English Sports.
    Hamas, on the other hand, is led by people who warmly accept Gaza, make loads of empty promises and then use their newly acquired god Given territory to fire rockets onto the very people who left the land to them when asked to do so. In no way are they English gentlemen either.
    If only they were christians!

  4. Leon Wolfeson

    You’re sad and paranoid? I see. Stop blaming me for your frantic victim claims that YOUR anti-Semitism is magically special and can’t be called anti-Semitism because of .

    Nope, you are what you are. Run away to make excuses for your anti-semitism elsewhere now!

  5. Leon Wolfeson

    There’s no evidence whatsoever that it’s Jewish people distributing those propaganda leaflets.

Comments are closed.