When criticism of Israel crosses the line to extreme antisemitism: London edition

Cross posted from the blog of David Collier

 

It is Sept. 9th, 2015. In the Middle East, millions are oppressed by their own leaders, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and untold numbers are still making their escape. Today the democratically elected leader of the only nation in the Middle East that provides freedom and protection for all its citizens came to visit the UK, and in London, at the heart of the British democratic system, there was a protest. This protest was not about Syria, nor Iraq, it was not about ISIS, Libya, Yemen or Iran. It was a protest that waved the flags of Hizbullah and Hamas, the flags of proscribed terrorist organisations; this was a protest against the democratic State of Israel.

The people in this protest are groups like the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) without a mask on , the backbone of BDS in the UK; these are the activists, the hard-core, these are the ones handing out leaflets, trying to persuade others to join, disseminating disinformation on campus and whipping up the hatred against Israel. And they come to London with Hizbullah flags in their hand.

If anyone is in any doubt, it is worth viewing some of the footage taken from the protest. (linked from Israel Advocacy Movement’s YouTube channel)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F7n-tq_Dd8]

For those that cannot quite believe what they are hearing, this is the conversation:

Q “And what should happen to the Israelis that live there?”

A “I don’t care, they can f..k off basically, go into the sea. They’re not coming here, we would actually march against Zionists coming here as refugees. We would, that’s a fact.”

Q “You want, basically genocide against the Israelis, that’s what you are saying?”

A ” Six million Jews there, wiped out”

Q “Six million Jews, so would you want another holocaust?”

A “I don’t know what the holocaust is”

BREAK

Q “You do realise that 20% of Israel is not Jewish?” – “don’t touch the camera”

A “Well don’t put it in my f..king face…(inaudible) because I am tainted by Zionism”

Q “Your face is tainting our camera…(inaudible)

A “A racist is calling me a racist, a racist is calling me a racist”

Q “You said you want 6 million Jews in the sea?”

A “I want them out of Israel”

Q “You’ll have to kill them all”

A ” Well, so be it”

Now I am all for free speech and I really do not care that people such as this woman breathe the same air as I do. This is not my choice, nor my rule to make. Freedom is not freedom unless it is allowed to be pushed to the extreme. But the fact this woman believes she can make these comments freely on camera and there will be no repercussions, highlights just how far down a dark road we are travelling. If she had been talking about blacks it would be a viral video by now, and she’d be out of a job in days. The same would have happened if it had been about gays, the refugees… anyone in fact…except the Jews. When it comes to the Jews, it is different. People mix and match Zionism and Jews these days and nobody even blinks. This woman said she’d happily see 6 million Jews die, and if an Israeli Jew was trying to escape the genocide, she’d march in opposition to him being accepted here.

There are a few video’s circulating now, and this one shows the basic mindset that supports PSC, BDS and the boycott of Israel. (This from the YouTube channel of Yoni Tzayad)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ODOw3Qs1k]

Hamas, a group that put suicide bombers onto buses, into cafes, pubs, clubs and onto the streets at Purim, are not terrorists, they are ‘freedom fighters’. Another activist suggests peaceful solutions do nothing and points out the only people who do anything positive, by waving the flag of the Hizbullah.  Someone else believes that Jews can have sex with 3 year olds, and even the ‘Elders’ are invoked amongst one of several rather strange conspiracy theories. The man in the photo capture you see above, thinks the Torah is for Jews, whilst the Talmud is for Zionists. Even Simon Cowell got a mention. It may have been a funny video to watch because of its mind-boggling idiocy, but behind it all, this shows that anti-Zionism is blatant anti-Semitism, clear as day.

This image, clearly showing the emblem of the Hizbullah, a proscribed terrorist organisation, being proudly worn within meters of our central government offices. How has this become acceptable?

terror

These groups, carrying prohibited symbols of terrorist organisations are the true face of BDS, the true face of the pro-Palestinian movement. Theirs is not a movement in favour of freedom or peace; theirs is a march of war; a call for a genocide of the Jews. Anti-Semitism that markets itself in the flowery language of human rights and justice.

If anyone disputes the connection between hatred of Zionism and hatred of Judaism, this video, also from today’s protest, should answer any doubts. This video is credited to the UK Zionist Federation

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmoCmvqbgg]

Hiding behind a call for peace, anti-Semitism is alive, well, kicking and growing in the UK. It is growing because people are helping, supporting, funding, talking to, walking with, protesting with and actively promoting groups claiming they act on behalf of the Palestinians. They don’t, nor do they give a damn about the Palestinians. For them, it is about the Jews, and of course Israel, a place where the Jews are finally out of reach from their hatred.

And so as a few hundred anti-Semites marched with their terrorist banners through the streets of London, calling for a genocide of Jews and screaming anti-Semitic slogans, how was this reported in the British press. Well, it got almost no mention at all; which is disgraceful. But what makes it worse, is when it did, in the Guardian, it had been sterilized.

This image, leading the Guardian’s report:

4127

Is captioned as “two rival demonstrators”, which is an odd way of describing someone supporting a liberal democracy and the other supporting its destruction. For some reason they understated the amount of pro-Israeli demonstrators and the rest of the piece says nothing; nothing about any arrests, nothing about any violence and nothing about any anti-Semitism. It has been whitewashed to the point you believe the protesters may have a case. And this is the heart of the problem; extremists, terrorists, anti-Semites, racists, they exist everywhere; there is nothing a free nation can do to stop vile creatures hiding in dark corners. But the media is failing in its job to report the true face of these movements; it is failing Israel, it is failing British Jews and it is failing the fundamental values of our society. It is allowing these vile creatures out of the corners and onto the high streets, into the campus and into the mainstream.

After todays events, it was the job of the media to headline that the PSC protest saw calls for a genocide of Jews, to point out that this call came on the streets of London and that it was waving the flag of terrorists. Shameless? The protest today or the media response, I am yet to work out which is the more shameful. But whatever the answer is, this is a road that we cannot continue to walk down; it is time for someone in government to stand up and put things back exactly the way they should be in a country that respects and values its freedom. It is time to be shown that someone in Westminster has some guts. It is a time to show that anti-Semitism in the UK is not acceptable, not tolerated and not allowed.

 

More from Guest/Cross Post
Ken Livingstone’s chopped liver
Cross posted from the blog of the CST Ken Livingstone is a...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *