Thursday, January 15, 2015

The rise yet again of anti-Semitism in Europe - and sadly within the UK

THE SCARY thing about European anti-Semitism is that it is now practiced on both the conservative Right and the liberal Left. A poll conducted on behalf of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) among 3,411 British adults were asked which of the following statements do you associate with the word 'Jew'?

Jews think they are better than other people.
In business, Jews are not as honest as most people
I would be unhappy if a family member married a Jew.
Jews have too much power in the media.
Jews chase money more than other British people.
Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people.
Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy.

                Nearly half believed that one of these statements were true[1]. As I look down the list there are two examples of such prejudices that have plagued Jewish people throughout their 2,000 year Diaspora (particularly in Europe). For instance; Jews chase money more than other British people (I had no idea Tony Blair was Jewish); or in business; Jews are not as honest as most people. They could have added to the list of such anti-Semitic shibboleths the ancient and infamous 'Blood Libel'  which accused the Jews of sacrificing Christian children as part of religious rituals during Jewish holidays.

                One would have hoped that after the Holocaust such examples of insensitivity would have passed into ancient folk law of a not very attractive nature. But no, another of the questions which the CAA included in the poll was, Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy. This is not an ancient, but a modern shibboleth. The CAA must have included this out of the same feeling I have had; that particularly on the Left, and in light of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, they are trying to somewhat sulkily undermine this egregious event on the Jewish calendar in order to gain support for the Palestinians.

                By undermining the Holocaust, the Left hope to de-sensitise people from its impact on the past 70 years since the end the end of the Second World War. Jews continually talk about the Holocaust, because it was the seminal event in their 2,000 years of survival within the Diaspora. Every Jew living today has some ancestral connection to the Holocaust.
               
                 If the English had been introduced to such a fate as that shown to the Jews between the rise of Hitler and the ending of his war on civilisation; then such talk by the English about their Holocaust as being used 'to gain sympathy' would be considered an outrage…especially if six million English men women and children had been introduced to the gas chambers.

                What this poll shows is that the Jews need a homeland more than ever: a place of safety in which to retreat to when the virus of anti-Semitism gains its grip and spreads within Europe once more as a kind of sickness now engaging the Left more than the Right today. The Palestinian cause has driven the Left into anti-Semitism - an anti-Semitism that shields itself under the 'respectable' umbrella of anti-Zionism.

IF THE CURRENT European-wide spread of anti-Semitism proves one thing above all other, it is that the Jewish people still need a state of their own; and this state is of course Israel. Israel is the magnet that draws those Jews who face  anti-Semitic persecution toward them in other parts of the world, into the arms of the Israeli state. Israel offers them the ultimate protection whereas the Diaspora has historically failed to do. Which is why one in four British Jews (in this poll) have considered leaving the UK.

                We are entering a new and worrying period for Europe's Jewish population; which this time is facing discrimination, not only from its traditional enemies on the Right – but now also from the Left; because of the Left's addiction to the Palestinian cause.

                The Jews have been the whipping boys of history. How they have managed to survive to this day is a wonder to me. They have had to forbear such prejudice of a type that no other ethnic minority  have had to do, including black slaves. The Jewish survival deserves its Jewish homeland and it was granted it by the United Nations in 1949. This newly formed state of Israel welcomed its people from all four corners of the world to become part of the Jewish state.

ISRAEL IS THE DIASPORA JEW'S ultimate refuge from anti-Semitic persecution from wherever it originates in other parts of the world. Israel is the Jewish homeland and without it world Jewry would face an uncertain, bleak, and empty future. A future that could always be undermined by anti-Semitic prejudice at any moment in any part of the world that the indigenous population sees fit to use against it. And let us not forget that turning against the Jewish community has been a popular sport historically throughout Europe, whenever a failing  economic situation demands a guilty party.

                Under such circumstances it usually the 'greedy and avaricious Jews' who are to blame for any economic failure. Jews are not after all; '…as honest as most people'. This is the kind of anti-Semitism the liberal Left have signed up to on behalf of their Palestinian Hamas terrorists.

                I do not want to get into arguments about the rights and wrongs of the Israel/Palestinian conflict: although I support the state of Israel. But these aspects are  not related to what this piece is all about. This piece is about, particularly, European anti-Semitism; and the extent to which the CAA poll seems to confirm this – at least as far as the UK is concerned anti-Semitism in the UK is growing. But how much of this growth is to do with our Islamic community or our liberal anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian prejudice, is in dispute.
               
                I would say that both are equally culpable. 








[1] For the full breakdown of the poll go to today's Metro website.

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