French riots
Consequences shape behaviour in a way no lecture can. Remove them, and you remove the mechanism that drives personal responsibility.
It is against the law to racially abuse people on public transport, to walk out of a supermarket without paying, to jump the barriers at a railway station, to openly support a proscribed terrorist organisation, and to call for Jews to be killed. Yet increasingly such behaviour carries no consequence, as the police struggle to enforce the very laws that keep us all safe.
For three years our streets have seen extremism normalised and terrorism celebrated. Hatred has posed as humanitarianism, thuggery has been excused as protest, and the defacing of national monuments has been hailed as resistance.
France has just shown us where this leads. Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands marched peacefully over the cost of living and failing public services.
Then the masks went on, the Palestinian flags came out, and luxury stores in Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille were looted. Keffiyeh-clad youths ran off with designer handbags, perhaps in homage to Yahya Sinwar’s wife, who was filmed entering a Gaza tunnel on the eve of October 7 clutching her Hermès Birkin.
Now far-left and pro-Palestinian groups intend to “mobilise” in Trafalgar Square next month. Note the language: not gather, not assemble, but mobilise.
The Metropolitan Police have had fair warning. Londoners expect a firm response, in which anyone who breaks the law faces the full consequences. Peaceful protest is a proud British tradition. Mobilising for disorder is not, and it must be stopped.
Shimon Cohen
London N2.
Palestine poppy
The hijacking of the poppy by the release of a Palestine poppy when Remembrance Sunday is not far away is an insult to all British soldiers who gave their lives in the First World War to end the yoke of the Ottoman Empire that ruled harshly over Palestinian Jews and Arabs for hundreds of years.
The website selling these poppies maintained that money raised would help “educate people about the region’s history”.
I do hope this will include the following: Haj Amin al-Hussani, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem [leader of the Palestinians], described by Churchill as the deadliest enemy and still revered by many in the Middle East today.
He met Hitler in Germany in 1941 to discuss the liquidation of Jews living in Palestine.
He also encouraged Muslims to join the brutal Nazi 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division and can be seen in photographs smiling raising his arm in the Sieg Heil position when meeting division members.
Let us not forget the Zion Mule Corps who acted so bravely at Gallipoli in the First World War and the exploits of the Jewish Brigade in the Second World War.
“When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today”
Llewellyn Gaba
Cardiff
Green politics
The Board of Deputies is to be congratulated for the passing of the resolution declaring that the Green Party has become a racist party and should be treated by the Board as it treats other racist parties.
But it is arguable that the resolution was superfluous as the Greens will continue to behave as they do and hate us notwithstanding the resolution.
What the Board should be doing, may I suggest, is directing its ire more strongly and incessantly at Miliband and Burnham and others in the Labour Party who freely condemn Israel and eagerly impose sanctions on her.
They all condemn antisemitism and express opposition to it, but ignore the fact that antisemitism is fuelled and encouraged by this anti-Israel rhetoric and policy from the government. And criticism of Israel from the President of the Board, for example in his closing remarks at last Sunday’s Plenary meeting, does nothing to help our cause!
Jonathan Metliss
London W1
Old school
Sir David Bell’s report, supported by the government but rejected by the National Education Union, painfully illustrates the seismic change in school life for today’s Jewish students. In 1951 I was a pupil in Hackney Downs Grammar School, which had a large number of Jewish pupils. I never personally experienced antisemitism either by teachers or fellow students. There was a large number of boys affiliated to Zionist youth movements, myself included, and preoccupied by the recent creation of the State of Israel. Many pupils went on to play major roles in politics, academia, arts and literature and the legal and medical professions. Being Jewish and coming from a predominantly Jewish environment was not an obstacle to contributing to the wellbeing of both secular and Jewish community life. October 7 horrifically lit a fuse to unleash an explosion of antisemitism affecting the arts, academia and schools. Many parents understandably choose Jewish schools for their children but these are guarded and secured with the pupils being confined to fortress-like protection. Those children who go to non-Jewish schools are being confronted by daily attacks and abuse. I hope that the BoD, CST and the Jewish Leadership Council do everything they can to ensure Sir David Bell’s recommendations are implemented to provide some hope for the future.
Melvyn Carlowe OBE
EN2
Radlett schepps naches
Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers, is, as you report, soon to be senior rabbi at Edgware and Hendon Synagogue.
At Radlett Reform Synagogue, now known as Hertsmere Progressive, we claim some credit.
Rabbi Young-Somers is just one of the three children of this kehillah to enter the rabbinate, the others being Rabbis Neil Janes and Daniel Lichman. With our significant number of children currently studying for bar and batmitzvahs, we may have more to offer.
Barry Hyman
President
Radlett Reform, now Hertsmere Progressive Synagogue
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