Aiming for a little escapism last week, I sat down with my son to watch an old spy movie. We chose Page Eight, a 2011 TV thriller by British director David Hare. The main plot involved intrigue within MI5, but there was a subplot, more twisted than a twist.
For no discernible reason other than gratuitously bashing Israel, the subplot involved a Syrian-born, peace-loving protester killed by brutal Israeli forces as he demonstrated against the construction of a wall through the home of Palestinians in the West Bank. So much for escapism.
I was struck by how pervasive anti-Israel bias is. Drip, drip, drip. A bit more hatred, a dash more incitement, another lie, a new blood libel. While the world worries about Islamophobia, encouraging antisemitism has become the bon ton.
When I was growing up in London in the 1960s and ’70s, we used to talk about “kid-glove antisemitism,” something subtle and understated in that British way. The kid gloves have been replaced by boxing gloves, and the keffiyeh has replaced the suit and tie.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews last week published the findings of its Commission on Antisemitism, drawn up following the “dramatic upsurge in antisemitism following the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.”
Hamas invaded Israel – murdering 1,200 and abducting more than 250 people; 50 of them are still in Hamas hands in Gaza, with 20 of them believed to be alive. Even before Israel struck back, pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets decrying a “genocide” while calling for the destruction of the Jewish state – the meaning of the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Among other things, the report found disturbing problems within the British National Health Service, for patients and employees; professional bodies and trade unions that have become politicized with anti-Israel platforms; “hidden barriers” against Jewish artists and performers; and “inadvertent” use of antisemitic tropes when teaching subjects like religious education in faith-based primary schools.
The situation on campuses in the UK and elsewhere also provides a sober lesson, with Jewish and Israeli students suffering from pro-Palestinian rallies and biased lecturers and curricula.
One of the commission’s recommendations is that “Judaism should always be seen and understood in the workplace, and by human resources directors across all sectors and organizations, as an ethnicity as well as a religion to ensure issues of antisemitism are dealt with appropriately.”
I wasn’t surprised when a performer unfurled a Palestinian flag on the last night of Verdi’s Il Trovatore at London’s Royal Opera House last week, but at least a backstage staff member (unsuccessfully) tried to wrestle it from him, and the Royal Opera House swiftly distanced itself from the dancer and the deed.
The protester was later named by The Telegraph as Daniel Perry, who self-describes as a “queer dance artist.” It’s a job description that would get him a final curtain call in Gaza.
Perry, reportedly the recipient of a hugely expensive private education, might have thought he was pulling off a classy act at the opera, but his message was no different from that of rapper Bob Vylan encouraging the crowd at the Glastonbury music festival to chant: “Death, death to the IDF.”
Opinion writer Stephen Daisley noted in The Telegraph this week: “From Parliament to the press, churches to the universities, the BBC to the NGOs, Britain has become fixated on the war in Gaza, to the exclusion of other, deadlier conflicts. And in a way, that is detached from all reason so that even the sketchiest Hamas propaganda is accepted at face value.
“It is not simply that Britons are troubled by the human suffering in Gaza – a very real and very grave situation – but that the public square has become thoroughly Palestinianised in a short space of time. All other foreign conflicts, and even some domestic matters, have been pushed aside. Gaza is the new unifying issue of British politics…”
Referring to the Palestine Action group, which was banned under British anti-terror laws after members caused massive damage to two Royal Air Force jets, Daisley wrote: “… It’s not just Israel’s defensive capability that is under attack. Nothing Palestine Action or its acolytes do will change [the] reality on the ground in Gaza or alter the strategic aims of the Israeli government.
“Israel draws strength not only from its military but from the national self-confidence of its people. In Britain, they take to the streets in the name of foreign nations and imported hatreds.”
Some of the problems can be marked down to ignorance, others are due to malevolence, and sometimes there’s an unhealthy mix of both factors at play. While the world focused on Gaza, a dreadful massacre was taking place in Syria. It was what Druze in both Israel and their brethren over the border on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights described as “our October 7.”
Hundreds of Druze were murdered by local Bedouin and Syrian forces. President Ahmed a-Sharaa was either complicit (most likely) or not in control: Neither option bodes well.
The footage coming out of Sweida Province, home to many Druze, was distressing: An 80-year-old sheikh was forcibly shaved, removing his mustache, which is of religious significance, before he was murdered; women – young and old – were raped; the Druze staff of a hospital were slaughtered along with their patients and the bodies left to rot; families were shot in the street or in their homes, which were looted and set on fire.
It wasn’t until Israel came to the defense of the Druze that the media picked up coverage – mainly to depict Israeli bombing of the new Syrian regime forces and facilities. To hell with context. To hell with the Druze, who are they anyway?
The world barely paid any attention to them last July when a Hezbollah rocket fired from Lebanon killed 12 children playing on a soccer field in the Israeli Druze village of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights.
UN's guilt in creating anti-Israel demonizing bias
The UN itself is guilty of creating much of the atmosphere in which Israel is demonized.
It has an entire department dedicated exclusively to “the inalienable rights” of Palestinians and mandates regular sessions on Israel’s activities; singles Israel out for condemnation, including maintaining an open-ended probe on Israel; and, of course, it grants perpetual refugee status to Palestinians and their descendants, even today, nearly 80 years after the upheaval caused when the Arab world attacked the nascent Jewish state in an effort to destroy it.
On Monday, the foreign ministers of 28 countries issued a joint statement calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and condemning settlement activity in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
Meanwhile, on the eve of the country’s national day, Belgium’s King Philippe deviated from the normal speech on domestic affairs to “denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves.” No mention of Hamas’s barbarity or the hostages it holds; no hint Hamas could lay down its arms and end the war.
No two-state solution is going to stop Islamist jihadists from attacking Israel.
Twenty years ago, Israel pulled out entirely from the Gaza Strip, uprooting communities and even disinterring the dead. What followed? Instead of building their own version of Dubai, the Palestinians launched ever more rockets on Israeli communities, dug terror tunnels to facilitate the abduction of Israeli civilians and soldiers, and ultimately carried out the October 7 invasion and mega-atrocity.
For that reason, permit me to be skeptical of the chances of a true peace with the regime of the jihadist-turned-Syrian president if Israel gives his regime strategic control on the Golan.
If I sound tired, mark it down to the early morning wake-up call with yet another rocket alert courtesy of the Houthis. That Israel is still under rocket fire remains under the international radar.
An anonymous meme shared on Facebook summed up the situation:
“Israel is expected to:
Stop a war it didn’t start
Free hostages it didn’t take
Aid those who want to kill them
Make peace with those who don’t want it
Be the perfect victim and never fight back
But here’s the thing… We’re sick of your double standards.”
And, let me add: Your double standards are sick.