The Rise of Jew Hatred in the UK

On the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz British author Michelle Shine writes for the W&Y on the rise of anti-Semitism.

The phrase ‘NeverAgain’ is imprinted on every Jew’s mind. Now, in the week of the 75^th anniversaryof the liberation of Auschwitz, it is timely to reflect on the recent rise ofJew hatred in the UK.

The first time I noticed virulent Jew hatred in print was on social media in 2014 during Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’. I had no in-depth knowledge of politics at the time. I would have laughed if you would have said Israel is an imperialist, apartheid state; she is a democracy, the size of Wales, with citizens who have immigrated there from all over the globe.

Isoon learned to despair at the unsupported claims people chose to believe. JonSnow of Channel 4 News in particular, was a disaster for Israel’s reputation,already darkened by the UN’s perpetual bias against her and misleadingheadlines around the world that suggest that only in Israel it is theterrorists that are the victims.

JonSnow, consistently blamed Israel, day after day, for child violence which hereported directly from the perspective of Hamas. He never seemed to mentionthat Hamas, the terror organisation that controls Gaza, allegedly threatenedjournalists for reporting how they used civilian sites to attack Israel, acountry that has had to defend her citizens from Arab attacks every single daysince her creation. 

Ihadn’t expected that kind of overt prejudice. It completely blew me away at thetime. It was starting to become obvious that the bigotry was coming, not fromfar-right extremists, but from a new breed of very aggressive left-wingcampaigners. It was a discrimination that had even infected the Green Party,the party I had consistently voted for up until 2015. At that pertinent time, Iwanted to know their views on Jewish people and Israel and stumbled upon a websitecalled Greens Engage, and in particular, an article entitled In theGreen Party anti-Semitism can be affirming. 

Israel’simportance to the Jewish people is not only spiritual – the land of Israel hasbeen the indigenous home of our people for over 3,000 years and touching downat Lod airport when I was a child was an inherently emotional experience – buther survival is also our survival, as a race and as a people.  

Before1948 Jews had nowhere to flee to when persecution become acceptable in the countrythey called home. A phenomenon which has happened continually throughout ourtribe’s history. As it says in the Haggadah, the book of Passover, ‘In everygeneration they rise up against us to destroy us’. 

Asa young person, I dismissed the religion’s teachings as irrelevant to my safeand secular life in the UK, but when the leader of the Labour Party – a man whocould be elected to run our country – enabled a whole army of anti-Semites, Irealised humanity had not evolved beyond irrational Jew hatred and Jewishpeople still need to have the knowledge and the warnings of our religiousteachings. 

Ihad become the recipient of attacks on Jews via social media, mostly recycledNazi tropes and reposts of articles in magazines like The Canary and The ElectronicIntifada. I found it alarming that these postings were coming from myacquaintances and colleagues. Armed with my newly sourced historical research,I countered the attacks with well documented and often incontrovertible facts.My attackers were not concerned with the validity of my argument and retaliatedwith comments that suggested Jews should be sacrificing their own interests forthe NHS and the poor. I had been asked such strange things like, what do Ithink of Philip Green? And of course, what about Islamophobia? The favouritedeflection from Jew hatred.

Atthe same time, I was becoming aware of Jew hate in UK universities. The leaderof the NUS had been accused of antisemitism. Huge crowds of young people wererallying around Corbyn and he became the star attraction at Glastonbury. 

Iwas incredibly fearful about the possibility of a Corbyn led government and wasalready talking with my family about leaving the country if he was handed thekeys to number 10. Friends asked, ‘But where will you go?’ ‘The only countrythat will have me,’ I replied. 

Withour history, any Jew that isn’t a Zionist is against their own survival,especially when a hostile environment swells around an emblem of power. Thosewho call for the annihilation of Israel are also calling for the annihilationof our people. The fact that there are Jews who don’t realise this isincredibly difficult for someone like me to understand. As are those who stillvote Labour in denial that anti-Semitism exists

Asusual, this kind of threatening Jew hatred arrived as a warning to the rest ofsociety. For in Jeremy Corbyn, we have someone who purports to be a man of thepeople, but to date his words of support have only been for vicious regimes.For example, where is his solidarity for the Palestinian people who aretortured and abused in Syria and also by their own leaderships in Gaza and theWest Bank? 

Hehas consistently voted against anti-terror laws since he became an MP in the1980s. Has paid his respects at the gravesides of IRAand Islamist terrorists but has never once visited the gravesides of theirvictims..He is also against the UK’s deterrent weaponry but lauds those who uselethal weapons against ordinary citizens. On a more local level, he has chosento do nothing about ‘industrial scale child abuse’ happening in his ownconstituency, despite being alerted to the atrocity by social workers.

Perhapsthe most disturbing thing is that ten million people voted for him to become PMin our recent, December 2019 election. It’s not as if his immorality had beenkept a secret. The media was full of it. Everyone knew.

Michelle Shine is the author of the novel ‘Mesmerised’