If the arson attack on four ambulances run by a Jewish charity this week in London were an isolated incident, it would be bad enough. It isn\u2019t isolated, unfortunately. It is part of a pattern in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.<\/p>\n
Last year in the UK there were more than 3,700 incidents of antisemitism, with a sharp increase in attacks on visibly Jewish people and public figures, including the attack on a Manchester synagogue in October.<\/p>\n
France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands have seen similar spikes in antisemitic attacks and incidents following the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault on Israel.<\/p>\n
Each high-profile incident is followed by ritualistic condemnation by political leaders. I have no doubt they mean what they say. But their words haven\u2019t stopped the attacks.<\/p>\n
Jewish people in the UK and in Europe are genuinely fearful. Some have already left the countries they were born and grew up in, because they know these countries are not dealing with the roots of modern antisemitism and the environment of tacit permission that stalks parts of Western politics.<\/p>\n
So we end up in the bizarre situation that a community, relatively small in the case of Britain, which on the whole works hard, does well, and gives proportionately more philanthropically than any other, is targeted by bigotry\u2014and in any other case would provoke not just firm action but a concerted attempt to challenge the ideology behind it.<\/p>\n
To state the obvious, antisemitism is not new. It rolls on through the centuries with some in each generation seemingly finding new reasons, justifications, explanations, or excuses for it.<\/p>\n
But today it has new forms, on the right and on the left. The left-wing version is a pernicious and novel development in progressive politics: the alliance with Islamists.<\/p>\n
In its opposition to Israel, it has found an animating cause. And the war in Gaza has allowed it full rein in pursuing it.<\/p>\n
Parts of the left cast the Jewish community as supporters of the government of Israel. And Jews become \u201cfair game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, progressive politicians rightly say being against government policy in Israel is not the same as being against Jews.<\/p>\n
The suffering of Gaza, the death and destruction, is undeniable. You can make a legitimate criticism of Israel\u2019s tactics in the conduct of the war. Many Jews around the world make exactly those critiques.<\/p>\n
But you cannot engage in such criticism legitimately if you do not also condemn the terrorism of October 7. You cannot pretend that Israel does not face a substantial terrorist threat from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and other groups that do not recognize Israel\u2019s right to exist.<\/p>\n
You cannot complain about the restrictions on goods and material going in and out of Gaza unless you also reference the reasons for the restrictions: the fear in Israel that such materials will be used for the purpose of building a terrorist infrastructure, which is precisely what nearly 300 miles of tunnels underneath Gaza represent.<\/p>\n
You should not diminish the charge of genocide\u2014whatever your views of Israel\u2019s actions\u2014by a barb particularly aimed at Jewish memories of the Holocaust, which was a genocide.<\/p>\n
And it was disingenuous to call for Israel to end the war without accepting what is undoubtedly true, which is that the war would have ended at any point in time if Hamas had said they were releasing the hostages, withdrawing from the government of Gaza (directly or indirectly through their weapons), and accepting the united position of the international community that a Palestinian State must be achieved through negotiation, not violence.<\/p>\n
These counterarguments need to be made loud and clear by leaders. I don\u2019t know exactly what the response of the people of Britain would be if we woke up one day and between the hours of 6 a.m. and midday, 1,200 of our citizens were murdered, including young people at a music festival, with women raped and others taken hostage (and for Britain, proportionate to the size of population, the figures would be much larger). But I suspect it would be total determination that those responsible were going to be removed as a threat, and nothing would deter us from doing so.<\/p>\n
The problem is that, under pressure from party activists and parts of the Muslim community, many progressive politicians who do sincerely reject antisemitism are not making these arguments, and failing to take head-on this literally \u201cunholy alliance\u201d between parts of the left and Islamists in our own societies whose ideology leads inexorably to antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if antisemitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.<\/p>\n
One poll during the Gaza war showed that only 24 percent of the British Muslim community believed that October 7 happened in the way it did. Some even believe it was all an elaborate Israeli plot. That is frankly unacceptable.<\/p>\n
I know some say that defending the State of Israel is not the way to defeat antisemitism. But there is more at stake than simply defending Israel. It\u2019s about defending reason. Defending facts. Standing up to the noise and intimidation to assert the truth.<\/p>\n
None of this means that you cannot support the creation of a Palestinian State or disagree strongly with this or that action of the government of Israel, particularly when that government includes within it figures from the very far right\u2014with whom, it should be said, most members of the Jewish community would disagree.<\/p>\n
But it does mean understanding that without a challenge to the ideology that encourages antisemitism, whilst clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society.<\/p>\n