There is, of course, no comparison between Wednesday night’s scenes at LSE and the barbarity of Kristallnacht. But the poignancy of Wednesday being the 83rd anniversary of that terrible day is certainly notable.
And there was at least one aspect in common: on Kristallnacht, Jews were attacked for being Jews. On Wednesday, the baying mob targeted a Jewish woman for being a Jew.
This was not about Israeli policy. It never is. It is about Israel being the world’s only Jewish state.
Why is it, we do not need to ask, that Israel’s ambassador is targeted by a violent mob, while the ambassadors of every other nation on earth, no matter how appalling their record may be, is able to roam freely in peace?
Israel is the word the Jew-haters insert into their screams, as if it provide cover for their bigotry.
That was the case on Wednesday; that is the case on campuses across the country where Jewish students are subject to verbal and physical attack; and that has been the case throughout history when Jews have been targeted simply because they are Jews.
Anti-Jewish racism on campus is even institutionalised, with organised hate-fests such as the so-called “Israel Apartheid Week” — an annual umbrella event for open and virulent antisemitism.
Eighty-three years after Kristallnacht, the ambassador of the world’s only Jewish state was attacked by a hate-filled mob on the streets of London. History is alive.
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