Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart

Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart
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Tuesday 21 July 2009

Bloody Brit's

If there's one consistent feature to British history, it's anti-Semitism. The English have kicked us out of their foggy island, occupied our Land and tried to give it to our enemies, and generally functioned as a thorn in our side throughout European history. It comes as no surprise when jerks like Jack Straw or other British functionaries pick up in the best tradition of Bevin and Eden with their anti-Semitic approach to Jewish affairs. Thus this article in The Jerusalem Post exemplifies what most people with their eyes open have come to expect from Brittania:
It has been a terrible month for Israel's reputation in Great Britain. The government has announced a partial arms embargo in protest of Operation Cast Lead. The Charity War on Want has held a launch event for a new book entitled Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide. The Guardian has featured commentaries promoting the apartheid analogy as well as accusing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of using Nazi language to defend settlement policy. The BBC and other media outlets have given massive coverage to the recent Breaking the Silence report slamming the IDF for committing "war crimes." Barely a day goes by without a new front being opened against the Jewish state. Those of us who follow such matters are always in danger of getting too close to our subject. But, given that the IDF is not involved in combat operations, I for one have never seen a period like it. On Friday, the Guardian ran two anti-Israel opinion pieces on one and the same day.
There's something in the air. The Israel-haters smell blood, and they're going in for the kill. It could be that we are on the threshold of a new era. But why now? The simplest explanation is that the relentless, unremitting stream of anti-Israeli invective that has been pumped into the public mind in Britain over the last decade or so was always going to reach critical mass at some point. There is nothing particularly significant about the timing. The clock has been ticking for years. Israel's time has simply come.
ULTIMATELY, THE simple explanation may be the best explanation. But there are a number of other factors now at play which may have helped bring the situation to a head.
First, the election of Barack Obama is perceived by many British opinion formers as heralding a refreshing new approach to Israel from the United States. For linguistic and historical reasons, political change in America is keenly felt in Britain. Obama's comments calling for a freeze on the settlements have provided the pretext for a renewed assault on Israel in general using the American president's huge popularity as cover. Second, the election of Netanyahu combined with the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister have offered new opportunities to make the attack personal. Even for Israel's most virulent detractors, it was not easy to mount a hate campaign against Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Netanyahu has been demonized in Britain for years. Lieberman is portrayed as little better than a skinhead. The wolves have been thrown fresh meat. Third, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has recently recast the tone of British pronouncements on the Middle East and relations with the Islamic world in a way that serves the broader agenda of Israel's opponents. For example, in a speech in Oxford in May and reported in the Guardian, he spoke of abjuring distinctions between "moderates and extremists" - a line that, despite Foreign Office denials, was widely interpreted as potentially paving the way for talks with Hamas and other militant groups. He also referred to "ruined crusader castles," "lines drawn on maps by colonial powers" and to the failure "to establish two states in Palestine."
Miliband cannot be held entirely responsible for the way his words are interpreted. But it is precisely in such guilty, post-colonial terms that Israel's opponents in Britain have always talked. To hear their own kind of language echoing back at them from the leading figure in the UK foreign policy establishment is likely to embolden them further.
Fourth, in a country whose opinion formers still fulminate about the invasion of Iraq - sometimes portrayed as a venture inspired by Israel and Zionist neoconservatives in America - the Netanyahu government's hard line stance on Iran has got the alarm bells ringing again. Are we going to get sucked in to yet another war in the Middle East for the benefit of Israel, they ask.
Fifth, Netanyahu's new emphasis on insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a specifically Jewish state is pushing Israel's opponents against the wall and forcing them to declare themselves with greater clarity. Of course, this does not just apply to Britain. But as a country whose opinion forming classes rank among the most hostile to Israel in the Western world, the move has provoked a particularly hysterical reaction. Since the Palestinians have made it clear that they have no intention of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, British opponents of Israel have been forced to choose between accepting that Palestinian rejectionism forms the real root cause of the conflict or themselves rejecting the Jewish character of Israel and the whole Zionist enterprise to boot.
PUT ALL of these factors together and it becomes easier to understand why a situation which was awful to begin with has deteriorated so rapidly.
The obvious question now is where next. With the partial arms embargo in mind, we should obviously be watching for an extension of formal sanctions. Outside the governmental sphere, it is a racing certainty that unions will renew efforts for trade and academic boycotts. Media hysteria will grow as each new assault on Israel's integrity helps legitimize and validate the next. For the Jews of Britain, the prospect of increasing anti-Semitism against this backdrop is all too real.
It is fortunate for us that a decade of self-hating misrule by the Labour party has reduced Britian from its importance during the Thatcher years to that of a corrupt second world country. As a result, Israel doesn't have to worry quite as much as one might think about British pique. But while the English lion may be old and arthritic, it still has quite a bite to it. The bastardly British can still do a lot of damage to Israel and the Jewish people in general.
Perhaps all this rising anti-Semitism, in combination with the transformation of London into Londonistan, is writing on the wall for the Jewish community there. Times will shortly be getting much worse for them. Perhaps it's time to pack up and move east so that Israel can be anglicized a little more.

8 comments:

E-Man said...

Just for future consideration, the green is hard to read with the light blue backround, maybe try red or something.

E-Man said...

Thanks you

Anonymous said...

Did you see Maryles' post today? he actually wants Israel to give parts of itself away!

DISGUSTING!!!!

Anonymous said...

FWIW: Both Straw and Miliband are Jewish, AFAIK

Garnel Ironheart said...

So are Obama's top people.

Pen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mighty Garnel Ironheart said...

hi Pen, and welcome.

First of all:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/24/antisemitism-britain-racism

The British Jewish establishment has always had an odd relationship with the rest of the community. Don't forget how when the last Gaza op began several dozen prominent British Jews signed a declaration condemning Israel.

Add to that the long line of openly anti-Semitic British prime ministers and more than one sovereign as well as the efforts to make sure that Hitler, y"sh, maximized his body count. Rabbis in the UK praising the British government carries as much coin as Iranian Jews praising Ahmewhathisname.

And Jack Straw having a Jewish ancestor? Those are the worst!

As for America, no country is perfect and yes, America has had anti-Semitic leaders. That being said, the existence today of the State of Israel is a result of American support more than anything the Israelis have done for themselves. Unlike the average Brit, the average America does NOT hate Jews. He wants to live in peace and prosperity and be left along to enjoy his apply pie. This is a fundamental difference between ethnocentric European culture and America's.

Pen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.