Physical attacks on British Jews obviously provoke unambiguous horror in the Jewish community.
When two Jews were stabbed in Golders Green at the end of April, there was an outpouring of shock and outrage that, even now, nothing was being done to keep Jews safe in Britain.
Nevertheless, the response by a sizeable number of British Jews to the current tsunami of antisemitism is not itself unambiguous. Reacting to these attacks on Jews, they blame other Jews. To be precise, one specific Jew. They blame Benjamin Netanyahu.
It’s Israel that’s put us in danger, they say, because people hate it; and the reason they hate it is because of Netanyahu.
If only he wasn’t prime minister, they say; if only he didn’t run such a shocking government with those extremists, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich; if only he would end “settler violence” and punishing wars, the hatred would fade away.
Seriously?
You don’t have to be a fan of either Netanyahu or the more extreme members of his government to see how spectacularly and dangerously wrong-headed this is.
For a start, security officials tell us that the Iranian regime is behind the attacks on British Jews, with Iranian cells in Britain posing an acute terrorist threat.
Much incitement against Israel and Jews has been generated by the inflammatory hate marches since the atrocities in Israel on October 7 2023 – marches organised by Iran, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Imams incite murderous hatred towards Jews in British mosques. In 2021, a convoy of vehicles flying Palestinian flags descended on Jewish neighbourhoods with loudspeakers blaring, “F*** the Jews, rape their daughters”.
Was any of that Netanyahu’s fault?
Then there’s the eye-watering anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred on the left. The Greens are having to investigate dozens of candidates who make or support statements such as “Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism. It’s revenge,” describing Israel as a “colony of inbreds, rapists and thieves,” and claiming the British police are “in the service of Zionism”.
On the right, Restore supporters have said Hitler was “very much a misunderstood politician,” have demanded an end to “Jewish control over our people” and blamed Netanyahu absurdly for dragging Britain into foreign wars and causing Britain’s immigration problems.
The “if only Netanyahu” crowd seem to have excised all that from their minds. So what exactly has Netanyahu supposedly done to turn Britain into an antisemitic cauldron?
Well, they claim he prolonged the war in Gaza in his own interests to somehow obviate his corruption trial and keep his coalition going.
But his war aims, to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas and return all the hostages, were shared by the vast majority of Israelis. They were extraordinarily hard to achieve (and Hamas remains undefeated).
Is it rational to believe it was in Netanyahu’s political interest to continue the war unnecessarily, causing such anguish and trauma to Israelis whose loved ones on the front lines were dying or returning maimed in ever greater numbers?
Are the “if only Netanyahu” crowd really so ignorant of the terrible threat Iran posed to Israel through its proxy seven-front “ring of fire”? Are they really unaware of the genocidal hatred of Jews held by so many Palestinians?
Do they actually believe the grotesque libels by the media pumping out Hamas and Iranian propaganda that have incited hatred of all Jews by alleging starvation and famine in Gaza?
Don’t they grasp that the ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza was lower than in any war anywhere else, ever?
Is their hatred of the “settlers” so great that — although there’s indeed a problem with a small minority of delinquent Jewish youths — they don’t care that vastly more attacks take place on those “settlers” by local Arabs than by them upon those Arabs?
Don’t they realise that hatred of Israel has been soaring since the 1970s, peaking whenever Israel defends itself — a defence that’s misrepresented as aggression by a media class that never reports the thousands of missile barrages and terrorist attacks endured by Israeli civilians?
Instead of calling out the infernal demonisation and delegitimisation of the world’s only Jewish state through treatment meted out to no other country on earth, these “if only Netanyahu” Jews fuel it still further.
You can detest Netanyahu and want him gone. But to hold him responsible for the onslaught on Israel and the Jewish people is not just warped and perverse. It’s also cowardly and despicable.
It’s propounded by the kind of British Jew who thinks it’s clever to protest “Jews don’t count” — but who is in fact saying, “Israelis don’t count”.
It’s a way of saying to the world, “Don’t hate me; I’m holding my nose over Israel. I’m the right kind of Jew”.
Blaming the victims like this is not only disgusting. It’s also a weapon in the armoury of those who want Israel and the Jews destroyed. For shame.
Melanie Phillips is a columnist for The Times. On June 24 at a special JC event she will be discussing her new book Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege with JC editor Daniel Schwammenthal. Book tickets here
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