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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

British Anti-Semitism

Last year saw a further rise in anti-semitic incidents in the United Kingdom. Both Muslim fundamentalists and the far right were involved in a more assertive and targeted campaign against prominent Jewish citizens. This indicates that anti-semitism in Britain is conforming to the European pattern, established on the continent in the first years of this century, without a strong response from many governments.

Whilst disagreeing with pundits who view this phenomenon as a cultural shift towards dhimmitude and Eurabia in that Europeans recognise and accommodate the superiority of Islam, there is no doubt that the issue of Palestine and the actions of Muslim fundamentalists has provided a lodestar for more traditional anti-semites. To this can be added a countervailing bias in the media that has promoted a discourse where all terrorist casualties in Israel are unfortunate and where all Palestinian deaths are victims. This has also stimulated a Manichaean view of the conflict with goodies and baddies, a framework that its supporters consider is the defining stupidity of those they oppose. As a consequence, the view of Israel and of Judaism in general has merged, and an unsympathetic span of views with shared arguments has arisen that shades from dislike of Israel to out and out anti-semitism. These developments have reinforced old prejudices. There has always been a strong strand of anti-semitism amongst certain parts of British society. Such views were banished ‘beyond the pale’ in revulsion at the Holocaust but they were never relinquished by those who accepted them. Now it is noted that they still exist and that they exercise a strong hold over a significant minority.

An ICM poll last month in Britain found that one in five Britons would oppose a Jewish prime minister, while one in seven believed that the Holocaust was exaggerated.

The far right has developed a campaign of targeting prominent opinion formers who they have identified as Jews including Lord Triesman of Tottenham and Barbara Roche, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, suburbs in North London. Even when Lord Triesman tried to protect his family, local council incompetence limited his ability to defend them.

Combat 18, the banned neo-Nazi terror group, has orchestrated a 14-month campaign of terror against Lord Triesman of Tottenham. His windows have been broken and his walls daubed with swastikas in 12 separate attacks.

The problem became so bad that he was advised by Special Branch to erect a 10ft fence around his home in Dartmouth Park, north London. The fence was dismantled in December, however, because it fell foul of the planning rules of the Labour-run Camden borough council. Lord Triesman, 61, said that he was disturbed by the attacks, which he blamed on anti-Semitic sentiment.

“When a group like Combat 18 spray swastikas and slogans on your walls and brick your windows, it’s evident what it’s all about,” he said. “My family was at home through a number of attacks and it was pretty grizzly. It has been a really bad time, horrendous, and no one should have to go through that.”

He criticised Camden council for forcing him to take down the protective fence. “The fence has come down now. I am not happy about it at all. It was there because Special Branch advised it.”

There were 350 anti-semitic incidents in 2002 and more last year. Given the factors that have stimulated an old prejudice and provided succour to new groups such as those Muslim fundamentalists who promote hate, there will be continued a rise in anti-semitism for the foreseeable future. As there is no right to self-defence in Britain at the moment, there may well be serious consequences as anti-semites become bolder, knowing that their victims are defenceless.

27 comments to British Anti-Semitism

  • Brock

    Not sure what’s more depressing – the anti-Semitism itself, or the local Council’s refusal to make a special exception for the fence (given the circumstances).

    Are the two (anti-Semitism and the Council’s actions) related perhaps? I have seen similar things in America’s history where basic, common-sense protections were denied to minorities.

    However, this incident does jive with the British government’s antipathy to individuals acting to protect themselves from danger.

  • Eric Sivula

    The meeting of the lack of minds between Neo-Nazis and Fundamentalist Muslims on anti-semitism is not a purely British affair. The Guardsman from Washington State who tried to give secrets to Al-Qeada over the Internet is now a Muslim. But before that he spent time with white supremacist groups. Apparently he did not get the AQ memo on communicating over the Internet.

    Moron.

  • Rick

    I presume that we keep using the term, “anti-semitism”, because it has such a long history. But isn’t it a bit absurd, now that a large proportion of “anti-semites” are, themselves, semites?

    Why don’t we just say “anti-jewish”? That is what we really mean.

  • Call them Judenhass not anti-semites…because anti-semitism is actually a term created by a Judenhass to make it sound better. For those who don’t know Judenhass means jew-hater which is more apt and less likely to manipulated by arsehats .

    Equating the English attitude towards with the European or worse French attitude is just total bollocks. Never mind the fact that the far-right aka the BNP/NF is are actually former LABOUR party members not former Tories.

    I am loath to see that a writer on Samizdata continues the “far-right anti-semitism” meme when in fact the Judenhass in the UK eminates from the left not the right. I would expect Sam readers to realise that Nazi means National Socialist Workers Party…which has bugger all do to with the right.

  • There’s nothing new under the sun.

  • Jake

    I am with Andrew. Anti-Semitism is a characteristic of the left not the right. This especially true in France where fanatical Moslems have taken over the left-wing parties.

    This is scary stuff. Is it time for Jewish families to flee Europe just as they should have done in 1934?

  • Mashiki

    Anyone take a look at their political compass lately? Being ‘Authoritarian’, can be a trait of the left or the right, as much and in so much as being a ‘libertarian’.

    But for what it’s worth, Neo-Nazi’s are religious-zelots, bent on their own supiroity, with a will to dominate and supress anyone who is less then what they are. That makes them, a part of the far right.

    This is as equal to PETA being part of the libertarian left. That being a penchant towards anarchism, and disregard for ones property for a ‘higher goal’, while still holding to the belief of communal property.

    Hopefully that makes some sense. I should probably get some sleep now. heh.

  • I’m with Jake, it’s time for Europe’s Jews to get the hell out of Dodge.

    In New York these days one runs into more and more young French Jews who’ve left “la mere Patrie” Because they could no longer take the abuse.

    The combination of the State owned media abuse, from the likes of the BBC’s Orla Gerin and the satellite transmitted Hezbollah propaganda makes any hope for a notmal Jewish life on the continent impossible.

  • Jewel Crowns

    Canada moves up the ladder in corrupt governments. It was once considered that Nigeria was the most corrupt government in the world, followed by China, and many other African countries and many small dictatorships in South America. And now low and behold Canada has now leaped to the forefront and has become # 1. What a tremendous honor. Signed: Ashamed to be a Canadian

  • Guy Herbert

    The Manachaeism isn’t just on one side.

    If the Muslim Council of Britain were opining about increasing “Islamophobia” in advance of the police releasing figures purporting to show an increase in racist harrassment of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, then Samizdata habitués would be a little more skeptical. One needs to ask how much of the increase is real, how much an increase in reporting and recording, and how much mere statistical variation.

    Anecdotes, no matter how individually horrific, do not make a rising trend. Campaigns against high profile individuals do not mean that many ordinary Jews in Britain live in fear of attack–or even of being noticed

    The ICM Poll quoted is more interesting. It was commissioned by the Jewis Chronical for Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the PM question is presumably in response to Michael Howard’s becoming leader of the Tory Party. The details are here. The raw data show–as one might expect–that, anti-Semitic opinions are held to a much greater extent in the lower social classes (who are generally inclined to feel threatened by everybody).

    Before I conclude anti-Semitism is very important in Britain, I would very much like to have an historical comparison on the same questions to know how views have changed, and also opinions of other minority groups in a similar light. In casting around for comparison I found that an ICM did a poll for the Guardian in 1998, in which they found 33% of the population thought being gay to be incompatible with holding a cabinet post. Are homosexuals be8ing advised to flee Britain?

  • Other than the predictable yapping of the Muslim looney fringe and some nasty Idiotarian elements within the media elite, I think the notion that there is any ground swell of anti-Jewish feeling within the population at large in Britain is simply not correct.

    Certainly it is true that there is broad ambivalence to Israel in Britain (particularly compared to the USA), which is not hard to understand when viewed historically, but the idea that this translates into hostility to British Jews, who frankly are so well assimilated as to be almost invisible, is quite wrong I suspect.

  • Verity

    I ask this as a serious question: in whose interest is it that Britain be perceived as turning anti-Jewish?

    It’s in someone’s interest, that’s for sure, otherwise such a wild-eyed statement wouldn’t have been made and given prominence. But whose?

  • Matthew O'Keeffe

    I rather agree with Perry. My wife is Jewish and her family, who are ultra-sensitive to the issue, suggest to me that there is little anti-semitism in England (let alone London). England is the true multi-cultural centre of Europe (in the proper, liberal, sense of the word). The anti-semitic incidents described are horrible, of course, but you have to go back a thousand years to the York massacre to find anything of which the English should be truly ashamed in their treatment of Jews.

  • I have spoken to quite a few British Jews and not one of them has told me about their fear or desire to leave. Generally, I find, when it comes out that someone is Jewish (unless he wears a kippah) most people are surprised.

    Many of my Jewish freinds, including Jon Hyman who writes for us, have made it rather clear to me that they dislike the Judenhass that comes from some in the BBC and the loony Islamokazi brigade. He feels that it reflects badly and inaccurately on the reality of being a Jew in the UK.

    I agree with Perry, that they are very well assimilated in the UK.

  • Guy Herbert

    […]they are very well assimilated in the UK Which is part of my tentative answer to Verity’s cui bono?

    Beneficiary Guess 1:
    The self-appointed spokesmen of Britain’s Jews are guardians of the orthodox faith, and are pretty seriously anti-assimilationist. Better persecuted and paranoid than lose one’s sense of specialness, separateness. Hence all those “community security” newsletters. It’s not there’s real danger, but if people can be persuaded to believe they can only trust their own community then the community will be strengthened.

    When I was a member of a Jewish Student Society I was continually bombarded with propaganda to strengthen my presumed orthodoxy, and (little suspecting I might be out already) to prevent me marrying out. Though I imagine there’s more English prejudice against his Welshness than his Jewishness, poor old Michael Howard is damned either way: in public by anti-Semites as a Jew, but in petto as an assimilator.

    Beneficiary Guess 2:
    The less scrupulous supporters of Israel have long operated on the basis that criticism of Israeli policy can be dismissed as driven by anti-Semitism. Unless there’s a significant amount of proper anti-Semitism about, it is much harder to make that charge stick.

    Beneficiary Guess 3:
    The anti-racism and equality-promotion professions, with their hooks in every public organisation in Britain (Samizdata, passim) would like to show something really nasty will happen if we don’t follow their prescriptions. What nastier in Western Europe than the Holocaust?

  • Verity

    Guy, thank you. I am not Jewish, so my opinion may be of no consequence in this, but although your first two guesses have a ring of truth, I think they’re a bit weak. This promotion of the idea of a surge in anti-semitism in Britain is a large undertaking and I don’t think the first two beneficiaries carry enough weight to make an impact on the public consciousness.

    I think you’ve hit the nail of the head with guess No 3. It’s the slimeball thought fascists, with their interfering finger in every pie, in their eternal quest for control. Make everyone fearful and suspicious of each other. The university sociology departments, socialist think tanks, socialist journalists who seize any chance to “prove” how intolerant the Brits are in their multi-culti paradise. It definitely fits in with their agenda.

    The CRE probably has a hand in it too.

    I agree with Perry and the rest that Jews in Britain seem well assimilated and relaxed.

  • Shtetl G

    I feel a little better after reading the comments about anti-semitism in the UK.

    Anti-semitism is also on the rise in the USA. Fueled by the left and blurred by “anti-zionism”.

    Big difference between Anti-Semitism in the USA and the UK is that this yid is packin’ a .357 magnum.

    Shtetl G is not going out like a punk ass bitch and I pity the muslim extremist (not too much) who “targets” this Jew.

  • Verity

    I’ve just picked up on this in Philip’s post: “… more assertive and targeted campaign against prominent Jewish citizens.”

    Yes, this is definitely the language of the divisive lefties who seek to destabilise society. Which “prominent Jewish citizens” if I may make so bold? If they’re that prominent, I expect we would recognise their names. If it were true, they would have had no hesitation in using their names to give themselves credibility.

    I challenge them to name one “prominent Jewish citizen” who’s received anti Jewish threats. Actually, I challenge them to name one non-prominent Jewish citizen. What a load of Marxist balderdash!

  • A_t

    🙂 aaah.. lefty conspiracy to destroy everything we love. Strange that they put the article in the Torygraph then, eh? Still, bummer the way lefties seem to hate everything that’s good about Britain. I’ve not met any of them so far, but i’m sure you’re right, there must be tons of these people out there, hiding.

    And Verity, what are you on about? “I challenge them to name one “prominent Jewish citizen” who’s received anti Jewish threats.”??? They name several ‘prominent jews’ in the article. Did you even bother to read it before cooking up your latest “how PC lefties are conspiring to destroy western civilisation” rant?

    I agree with Perry etc.; I’d be very surprised if there was much antisemitism in the UK; i’ve certainly never come across any, or anyone antisemitic. It’s a fringe loony thing. Homophobia’s much, much, much more widespread & acceptable.

  • Guy Herbert

    Verity: I am not Jewish, so my opinion may be of no consequence in this

    That puts me in mind of a proverb: “Two Jews; three opinions” But if you have to be Jewish, gentile, or in any other arbitrary category to have an opinion of consequence on some topic, then all us rational individualists might as well quit now, and leave the New Tribes to fight it out.

  • David Gillies

    Verity, you’re normally pretty sensible, but I somehow doubt it was Uri Geller who sprayed ‘Jew’ on his fence in red paint.

    I would assume that anyone who is in the public gaze and is Jewish has received some form of anti-Jewish sentiment, just as I would assume that any black person in public life, no matter how loved in general, gets his or her share of racist bigotry (I bet Floella Benjamin and Frank Bruno could attest to this). Just because the race-baiters of the CRE exaggerate the problem, doesn’t mean there’s not a problem.

  • Nick Timms

    A thousand years ago England was run by the French, well a bunch of Normans anyway!

    Seriously. Like many of the other commenters above I have thankfully seen very little anti Jewish behaviour in Britain even in the very few places where Jewish people stand out such as Golders Green. There are obviously some incidents but then mindless yobs will cause problems for anyone given the chance. I am a white gentile who is not gay but I live near a large pub so, from time to time over the years, my fence has been grafitied (spelling?) and my car has been keyed. If these idiots thought I was from any minority group I expect the grafiti would be explicitly racist instead of just the general abuse variety.

    I do not believe for a second that there is any rise in anti Jewish behaviour in Britain and what there is seems to be fairly rare. I wish the same were true of anti black/asian behaviour which is at a much higher level in some parts of Britain.

    Nick Timms

  • ade

    As a Jew living in London, and one who is immediately noticeable as one, I don’t sense any overt anti-Jewish feeling as I go about my daily business.

    As to who gains from reporting scare-mongering ‘statistics’, well, that would be the same self-appointed bodies who produce daily these reports on all aspects of ‘racism’, ‘sexism’ and other froms of percieved discrimination, in the hope of securing more public ‘funding’ and ‘investment’.

  • As a Jew living in liberal Los Angeles, I was surprised the other day when my friend asked me if my family was rich (her mother told her that Jews tend to be rich.) I told her that if we were rich, we would be living in the same place but the way my family deals with themselves make us appear rich.
    There’s a good joke my grandfather told me (from Canada):
    Three Jews are walking. They see an ad in a church saying “We’ll give you 100$ if you convert!” So one friend goes in. An hour later, he walks out and the friends ask if he got it. “Ah, you Jews are all the same!”
    If the Shoah were to repeat itself, everybody, or at least most people would know now in order to prevent it. There will always be anti-Jewish senitment in some for or another. And yes–it can be rightwing or left wing, but mostly comes from the Islamic sympathisers and the traditional anti-Jewish sentiment from the extremists on the right. Libertarians are practically the only ones who escape the title of authoritarian, or extremist due to the broad range of thought process.
    Of course such incidents should be taken seriously, but to worry that another shoah will occur is ludicrous.

  • Guy Herbert

    David Gillllies: I would assume that anyone who is in the public gaze and is Jewish has received some form of anti-Jewish sentiment[…]

    Actually there are sufficient loonies out there that anyone who is in the public gaze at all is likely to receive racist literature soliciting their support, abuse on grounds of presumed racial or religious sympathy, bundles of photocopies of newsclippings annotated with conspiracy theories in red and green pen, usw.

    Publish a letter in The Times and you join the lucky dip. Monomaniacs tend not to be terribly discriminating (as it were), so Uri Geller is astonishingly lucky if it has taken 20 years for a local idiot to work out that he’s Jewish, or for someone else to make a special trip. Once you are a minister or a tv star the Post Office probably have to allocate you a special van.

  • Verity

    Guy Herbert – You took the words right out of my mouth!

    A_t – No. I’m sorry to say, I read the post by Philip but didn’t go to the whole article, so I shouldn’t have assumed that no names were mentioned, and I shouldn’t have commented without reading the whole piece.

    However, as Guy says, anyone who is prominent gets hate mail and abuse from disaffected people who search for targets to blame for the circumstances of their lives. You don’t have to be Jewish.

    I have noticed no anti-Jewishness in Britain. There may be some, but there’s some of everything in a country of 60m people.

    Cecile – Great joke!

  • Holly Day

    There dont seem to be any comments on this site after Feb 17th. I`ll add to it anyway. All the references to the far left and right are not really helpful. There are good and bad in all camps. There is very little antisemitism today, it just a whitewash (can I say white) to cover the PC brigades plotting and manipulation of the people through the press and media. PC is the enemy – get rid of this and we can sort out the rest.