Free Palestine!

Those who attack Jews in the UK are not striking a blow for Palestine: they are behaving as antisemites always have
 

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/16/jews-uk-attack-palestine-antisemitism-labour-britain
 

Jews dread the news. Maybe the entire population feels that way these days: waking to a morning bulletin consisting of wars abroad, recession at home and Donald Trump would make anyone want to turn off the radio and pull the duvet over their head. But for many Jews, the current news comes with a particular sting. They can hardly bear to hear it – not least because they’re in it so often.

On Thursday, they woke to new figures showing that late 2023 brought a 589% increase in antisemitic incidents in Britain compared with the same period in 2022. Overall, 2023 saw more than 4,100 episodes of anti-Jewish hate across the country – at least one recorded in every police region in the UK. Most of that huge spike came after 7 October, following the Hamas attacks on southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. Some of the incidents involved knives, others saw Jews struck with metal bars. Some victims were punched or kicked or spat on, others had stones, bricks or bottles thrown at them. Some had religious clothing – say, the kippah, or skullcap – forcibly removed. Some of the abuse happened online; some of it was physical and personal. Some of it comprised attacks on buildings, slogans daubed on walls, windows smashed; hundreds of incidents involved children, whether making their way to or from school or inside it. The numbers, gathered by the Community Security Trust – the same body that helps organise the volunteer guards who’ve long been required to stand outside every synagogue and Jewish school in Britain – are the highest since the CST began collecting data four decades ago.

This news came a day or two after Labour’s decision to drop Azhar Ali as its candidate in the Rochdale byelection. A tape had emerged of Ali suggesting that Israel had deliberately allowed the 7 October attacks to happen – had allowed, that is, the murder, torture, mutilation, rape and kidnapping of nearly 1,200 of its own citizens – as part of a secret plot to reconquer Gaza: a new version of the centuries-old notion of Jewish conspiracy, of a Jewish deviousness so diabolical that it is prepared to sacrifice its young to advance its schemes.

Later Labour suspended a candidate for a nearby Lancashire seat, also for comments about Israel. That coincided with an apology from London’s Soho theatre, after a standup comedian at the venue told an audience member who had failed to show sufficient appreciation of the Palestinian flag to “get out”. The audience reportedly chanted “get the fuck out” and “free Palestine” as the performer, Paul Currie, insisted that the man – who is Jewish – leave.

You can see the pattern here. Many want there to be a clear, bright line between antisemitism – obviously appalling and to be condemned – and the loathing of Israel that has felt especially intense these past four months. They want the two to remain in neat, separate boxes, so that the latter can be regarded as safely uncontaminated by the former. But those stats, like the week’s events, suggest that when it comes to antisemitism and hatred of Israel, things get messy.

That’s partly because when some people want to express their apparent anger at Israel’s actions, they direct it at Jewish targets – daubing “SS IDF” on the walls of a former synagogue in Sussex, for example. They are holding a British minority responsible for the actions of a foreign government several thousand miles away, a response that does not seem to happen with other distant conflicts: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Orthodox churches in Britain did not brace themselves for attack.
Though even that may not be quite right, in the sense that putting this latest wave of hatred down to rage at Israel’s conduct may be giving those wielding the spray can, or throwing the bricks, too much credit. An arresting fact about the latest numbers is that the biggest surge in anti-Jewish activity came immediately after the 7 October attacks, when Israelis were still reeling – still counting their dead and missing – and had scarcely responded at all. As the CST put it: “In the week following 7 October, CST recorded 416 anti-Jewish hate incidents, higher than any subsequent week. It indicates that it was celebration of Hamas’ attack, rather than anger towards Israel’s military response in Gaza, that prompted the unprecedented levels of antisemitism across the country.”

Viewed this way, when Israel is in the news – whether as villain or victim – it acts as a kind of bat signal, summoning either the antisemites from their caves or, more subtly, the antisemitic feelings that lurk even in the most seemingly blameless hearts. Azhar Ali was someone who had worked well with Jewish people and made a career fighting extremism. Yet not too far below the surface lay medieval views of Jews.

But there is another, more awkward reason why it’s hard, if not impossible, wholly to disentangle antisemitism from Israel. It is that most – not all – Jews feel bound up with the country. They may be enraged by it, they may despair at the direction it has taken these past few months – or even these past 57 years, since the occupation that began as a result of the 1967 war – but they are deeply connected to it. Given the central place of the land of Israel in Judaism’s holiest texts, as ancient as the Jewish people itself, it could hardly be any other way. Even if they don’t have family there, they recognise that Israel is the world’s largest Jewish community, the world’s only Jewish country. More deeply, they hold to the idea that underpins its existence: that after two millennia of endless and deadly persecution, serial expulsions and massacres across Europe and beyond, culminating in the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews, the Jewish people need one place, a haven, where they can govern, and defend, themselves.
I’ve long believed that the fact of this connection should weigh a little on Israeli decision-makers. Too few are willing to concede that, whatever actions they take, diaspora Jews will feel the consequences too. And that, perhaps, is the main reason why so many Jews can no longer bear to see or hear or read the news. It’s not only the human response to the death and destruction wreaked in Gaza, and the killing of thousands of Palestinians, which is agonising to witness bulletin after bulletin. It comes with an extra layer of dread: the knowledge that we will be blamed.

This week, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, one of the clearest moral voices in British Jewry, joined the chorus of those warning of the consequences of a full-scale ground operation in Rafah. He spoke of his “horror” at the “unimaginable suffering” that could ensue for the people of Gaza. But he also said he was writing “out of dread at the future hatred this is likely to engender, and out of fear that these actions may haunt us, and the good name of Israel and the Jewish People, for generations.”

But if Israel should be mindful of this connection, so too should Israel’s opponents. I have no doubt that that Soho comedian thought he was taking a righteous stand for an oppressed people. But the effect of his action was to expel a Jew from a public space, a fate inflicted on Jews down the centuries. When Jews online are hounded and abused, when Jewish students and school pupils are screamed at or harassed, when Jewish gravestones are smashed and synagogue windows broken – you’re not striking a blow for the Palestinians and against Israel. You’re placing yourself alongside the antisemites and racists who have always treated Jews this way, reminding Jews why they needed a refuge in the first place – and why they need it still.

..from above.

quote:

We are in an unprecedented moment in history. As we bear witness to the ongoing and brutal genocide against the Palestinian people, we are also part of building a mass movement that is committed to struggling for Palestinian national liberation. The demands for an end to the genocide, lifting of the siege of Gaza, an end to all US aid for Israel, and a free Palestine echo in the streets, in classrooms and universities, disrupting the halls of government and the daily lives of all genocide-profiteers. All backers of Zionism, Israel, and US imperialism have been put on notice. The perpetrators of genocide and occupation have names and faces, and the masses of people around the world stand against them in the millions. The movement for Palestine has never been stronger: but with this strength comes a monumental responsibility......

JKR wrote:

The Jewish people wanting to flee the UK as antisemitism soars
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/antisemitism-uk-london-israel-b2501340.html

 

Jewish people in Britain say they are considering leaving the country as it “feels like Nazi Germany”, amid a surge in antisemitic incidents since the 7 October Hamas massacre in Israel.

Physical attacks, threats and accusations of “slaughtering babies” are among the incidents suffered by terrified residents, after recent figures showed more than 4,000 reports of antisemitism last year.

This week, Rishi Sunak pledged an extra £54m for the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and provides security for the Jewish community in Britain. CST figures revealed there were 4,103 antisemitic incidents in the UK last year, way up from the previous record of 2,261 in 2021. The number of Islamophobic incidents in the UK has also soared.

And on Friday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned George Galloway’s Rochdale by-election win as a “dark day” for the UK’s Jewish community. Mr Galloway – who has always denied allegations of antisemitism – won the seat from Labour, who were forced to disown their candidate, Azhar Ali, after he made “deeply offensive” comments about the 7 October attacks.

Among the victims of abuse in the UK is Jack Christie, 25, who says he had never felt threatened by antisemitism until recently. While on a train home after a march against antisemitism in November, Mr Christie and his friends were targeted by a man who used racial slurs and threatened to assault him.

“There was nothing to do with the conflict, just a few people holding signs about antisemitism like ‘never again means now’,” he told The Independent. “Some people were wearing kippahs on their heads and there were quite a few visibly Jewish people on the train.

'Tornado of antisemitism' working through UK, government advisor warns

“I was talking to my friend and then next to me I hear someone say ‘pigs’. The guy next to me was on FaceTime and says, ‘I’m on the train with a bunch of dirty Jewish pigs, scumbags and baby killers’.

He went on to accuse other passengers of “supporting killers”, being “donkeys” and branded them “child molesters”.

“No one said anything to spark a reaction, it was out of nowhere,” Mr Christie said, adding that it has made him not want to be openly Jewish on public transport anymore. “It wasn’t even about Israel, it was just plainly antisemitic.”

When he uploaded footage of the incident on social media, the tech professional received a barrage of threats and abuse.

“I got many hate comments and even had people say to find the boy in the orange jumper [himself] and that I should be lynched,” he said. “I was scared as this happened near where I lived. I was looking over my shoulder for a long time and for a few months I stopped wearing my necklace.”

Another Jewish person who shared their experience of antisemitism is a 47 year-old woman, who says she has been attacked several times since 7 October.

Sharon, who did not want to give her surname, said she was approached by a man who began aggressively questioning her religion and the conflict in Israel, while she was putting up hostage posters in east London.

When she began filming the incident for her safety, the man pushed her to the ground and snatched her phone before smashing it on the pavement. The man then tried to punch her as she tried to get her phone back, she added.

It was the second antisemitic attack Sharon had suffered within a matter of weeks. While out in the Kensal Rise area of London, she says she was faced with a barrage of antisemitic abuse after she confronted a woman and her young daughter tearing down missing hostage posters.

She was told she was a “child slaughterer” before the woman hurling abuse told her that she, “used to feel guilty [about being antisemitic], but not anymore”.

“Every time this happens, it’s like someone is reaching out and ripping out my heart,” Sharon said. “I don’t feel safe anymore. None of us feel safe. I feel like I have to put another lock on the door because Britain feels like Nazi Germany.

She added that she feels she has been forced to consider leaving the country as she no longer feels welcome in Britain as a Jew.

“I’m scared to go out,” she explained. “I’m always looking behind me to check if someone’s following me.

“Everyone feels like this. Everybody’s thinking about leaving and having conversations with friends about whether to stay or not.

“I’m definitely not staying, I think by the end of the year, I will be gone. There’s no room for people like me in London – it’s turned into a fascist state.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said the scale of antisemitic incidents seen across the UK since 7 October is “terrifying”.

“According to our polling, more than six in ten British Jews have either personally experienced or witnessed an antisemitic incident since 7 October or know somebody who has,” a spokesperson said. “The Jewish community in this country is on high alert, and there is no end in sight.”

If you have been a victim of antisemitism you can report it to the CST by emailing [email protected] calling 0800 032 3263

But this narrative of London’s becoming a “no-go zone” for Jews has been deliberately built up and inflamed. Rather than stemming purely from concern for Jewish safety, it is being driven by a political agenda: to delegitimize and curtail the mass demonstrations in support of a cease-fire in Gaza that have filled the streets of central London on a near-weekly basis over the past five months.

Moreover, the crowds are probably the closest thing you will find to a representative cross section of British society: from toddlers to pensioners, and comprising virtually all ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds. That includes a substantial Jewish bloc, which some weeks has numbered more than 1,000 people—roughly tracking with Jews’ proportion in the British population as a whole.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/uk-antisemitism-panic/

But, wait

Anti-Semitism is so bad in Britain that some Jews are planning to leave

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/uk/uk-anti-semitism-intl/index.html

Except this is from 2018. The Zionist lie/fear campaign is not new. All in the service of silencing opposition to Israel.

Palestinian Mohammed Hawajri holds the key to his family's old home in the town of Aljmama, from which they were expelled in 1948.

..from the global front.

Civil Society Demands the Suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement

Respect for human rights is an essential element of the EU’s association agreements with partner countries. Article 2 states that “relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.” Violation of the so-called “essential elements” clauses allows the EU to denounce or suspend the agreements in whole or in part under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. In the light of the deaths and suffering endured by the Palestinian people, the European Union has the duty and the means to act to prevent Israel’s crimes in Gaza and to reduce the extent of human suffering.

Dear Madams/Sirs,

The undersigned organisations call on the EU to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of the violation of human rights by the State of Israel. These human rights violations constitute a violation of the “essential elements” clauses, which state that the Agreement is conditional upon the parties’ respect for human rights and democratic principles. We unequivocally condemn all violations of international law, in particular, the killing of civilians, and we call on the relevant authorities to investigate them without delay.

Israel’s current war on Gaza is causing massive civilian casualties, extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the displacement of the overwhelming majority of the population in Gaza. The health system in Gaza has collapsed, hospitals have been bombed and destroyed, health staff killed. The population of Gaza is at imminent risk of famine and death by contagious disease. This is the result of the bombardment of Gaza and blockage by Israel of food, water, fuel, medicines, humanitarian aid, as well as the disruption of the sewage system. These are clear, well-documented violations of the human rights of Palestinians......

More than 200 civil society organisations demand the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement

..the above includes an interesting view of '48 nakba from a labour perspective. 

..fixed. txs.

https://bdscoalition.ca/2024/03/23/24-billion-of-our-public-pensions-inv...

epaulo13 wrote:

..the above includes an interesting view of '48 nakba from a labour perspective. 

The UN legally established the State of Israel in ‘48. The desire to ignore the legality of this and instead attempt to destroy Israel, militarily and otherwise, is the root cause of this conflict.

The Balfour Declaration supported creating a "Jewish homeland" not a Jewish state. It stated that "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." 
 

A "national homeland for the Jewish people could have been established without creating a Jewish nation state if Arabs had chosen to accept that Jews in the British Mandate had the right of self determination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

JKR wrote:

The Balfour Declaration supported creating a "Jewish homeland" not a Jewish state. It stated that "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." 
 

A "national homeland for the Jewish people could have been established without creating a Jewish nation state if Arabs had chosen to accept that Jews in the British Mandate had the right of self determination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

Really? And pray tell how would that have happened? Since, among other things, Zionists were pushing for a state. They were already free to make it their home.

josh wrote:

JKR wrote:

The Balfour Declaration supported creating a "Jewish homeland" not a Jewish state. It stated that "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." 
 

A "national homeland for the Jewish people could have been established without creating a Jewish nation state if Arabs had chosen to accept that Jews in the British Mandate had the right of self determination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

Really? And pray tell how would that have happened? Since, among other things, Zionists were pushing for a state. They were already free to make it their home.

That would have happened if Arabs and Jews in the British Mandate had got along with each other and cooperated with each other instead of going to war with each other. The Balfour Declaration was established during the very end of the Ottoman Empire and before the British Mandate. During the British Mandate Arabs and Jews unfortunately began violently attacking each other. This led to a chain of violence that has never ended till this very day with still no end in sight. Once the Arabs and Jews began fighting each other and escalating their conflict with each other the only political solution became some kind of two state solution. A one state solution required Arabs and Jews to get along with each other and view each other as equals. That was a possibility when the Balfour Declaration was written at the end of the Ottoman Empire. That’s why the declaration referred to “a homeland” and not “a state.” The Balfour Declaration clearly stated, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Putting aside the "irony" of an imperialist declaration giving away land that was not theirs supposedly being some sort of anti-imperialist action, the states created by the fall of the pre-WWI empires were among sizable existing groups.  Not a colonial project.  

JKR wrote:

Jews have been existing around Jerusalem, the Levant, the Arab world, and the Middle East, for over 3,000 years so they're not a "colonial project."Judaism is older than Islam. Hebrew is older than Arabic. Judaism is also older than Christianity. Hebrew is also older than English, Spanish, French, German, etc…. The Hebrew Jewish State of Israel is not a “colonial project.” Trying to erase Jewish identity and history is antisemitic and genocidal,

The state was a European colonial project. Hence the Balfour Declaration

NDPP wrote:

'Israel is the heart and soul of Canadian jewry in general and of the Toronto community in particular, and in fact is the strongest source of unity among Canadian Jews - and a central element in Jewish identity here.'

...This is a strong and well-established community with great influence in Canada in all areas - political, economic, media, academic and more.

The Jewish community in Canada is more conservative and sympathetic to Israel than the United States and there is no clear support for only one political party in Canada..."

https://www.jewishtoronto.com/news-media/toronto-the-most-zionist-commun...

NDPP, your antisemitic attitude toward Jewish Canadians living in Toronto is getting repetitive, boring, and even more disgusting. Your support for the persecution of Jewish Canadians says a lot. On the bright side, your attitude towards Jewish Canadians helps elucidate what this conflict is based on.

Quebec doctors sign open letter demanding ceasefire in Gaza

Nearly 500 Quebec doctors have signed an open letter demanding their medical associations denounce the crisis in Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire and access to humanitarian aid.

“We, physicians in Quebec, are deeply concerned with the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that worsens each day,” reads the letter, published Thursday morning. “One hundred and fifty eight days of devastation, 31,272 killed and 73,024 injured, 1.5 million refugees. …

“Remaining silent in the face of suffering of this magnitude is contrary to our role as physicians and a forsaking of our shared humanity.”

Included among the signatories are Joanne Liu, former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and a professor at McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health, and Amir Khadir, former Québec solidaire MNA for the Mercier riding and a specialist in infectious diseases.

The petition is calling on four provincial medical associations — the Collège des médecins du Québec, the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec, the Fédération des Médecins spécialistes du Québec, and the Collège québécois des médecins de famille — to issue a statement demanding an immediate ceasefire, immediate access to drinkable water, an end to blockades preventing entry of medical supplies and the release of hostages on both sides of the conflict.....

..the populations across the region fully understand us hegemony. and how that supports their autocratic leaders. us / israel = death and destruction.  

..from the global front.

Protesters gather in Amman in Jordan demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Photo: Al Mayadeen

JKR wrote:

josh wrote:

JKR wrote:

Jews have been existing around Jerusalem, the Levant, the Arab world, and the Middle East, for over 3,000 years so they're not a "colonial project."Judaism is older than Islam. Hebrew is older than Arabic. Judaism is also older than Christianity. Hebrew is also older than English, Spanish, French, German, etc…. The Hebrew Jewish State of Israel is not a “colonial project.” Trying to erase Jewish identity and history is antisemitic and genocidal,

The state was a European colonial project. Hence the Balfour Declaration

The whole map for the Middle East was an Anglo-Franco project created by the Sykes–Picot Agreement between the UK and France during WW1. Israel and all the countries in the world have to deal with history the way it was not the way they wish it had been over a century later. The fact is that the Ottoman Empire lost WW1 and the UK and France won that world war. Jews or Israelis are not to blame for that. After World War I Israel was created legally through international law through the support of both the League of Nations and the UN. Jewish people living in the British Mandate followed the international laws and rules of the time in navigating a world of antisemitism that pervaded both Europe and the Middle East and elsewhere. Jews during the period between World War I and the establishment of Israel were willing to negotiate their status within the British Mandate but understandably they were not willing to negotiate away their existence as some till this very day insist they do.

Israel wasn’t created until 1947. And, of course, you move off the issue that it was a colonial project by saying, in effect, hey, we can’t help it was a colonial project.

You said after WW I.  Not after WW II.  

So now you've conceded that it was a colonial project.

JKR wrote:

I know when Israel was created. Israel was legally established by the UN.

Very many countries in the world can be described as “colonial projects” including Canada. No one is demanding that these countries be abolished.

It so happens that Israel is a colonial project in a much earlier stage than Canada, perhaps where we were around confederation. So, while we can't prevent the wrongs that happened in the Canadian colonial project, we can imagine what we might have done better, and project that on Israel/Palestine for ideas on how to minimize harm in this colonial project, if it is forbidden to even think about ending it.

josh wrote:

You said after WW I.  Not after WW II.  

So now you've conceded that it was a colonial project.

It was as much a colonial project as creating other independent countries in the British Mandate and French mandate was like such as Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

JKR wrote:

It seems like many Jews living in the UK disagree.

It seems many Jews living in the UK find your opinions on Gaza repugnant, that is why they march in the street with other peace activists with signs that say, "Not in Our Name."

Most Jews in the UK and the rest of the world support the existence of the State of Israel. Most Jews in the world find your opinions on Israel to be repugnant.

JKR wrote:

josh wrote:

You said after WW I.  Not after WW II.  

So now you've conceded that it was a colonial project.

It was as much a colonial project as creating other independent countries in the British Mandate and French mandate was like other countries like Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

How many Europeans settled in those countries. Those were the result of imperialism