Where Is Safe For Us?

A week of antisemitism

The question of ‘where is safe for us?’ is one that I see asked at least once a week in Jewish groups. And every week, another country is crossed off the list as Jews see themselves attacked.

Pro-Palestine fetishism has taken hold across the West because it taps into a cultural memory of Jew hatred. The question for me – for all of us – is just how big is this problem?

That’s partly why I want to chronicle it. I want all of us to know. And I want you to see what I see.

This week, I wrote about a group of British Jews who were thrown out of a Greek restaurant for remonstrating against anti-Israel propaganda on the walls. One of the diners asked why this war and not others? The owner told the group to get out of his restaurant and, within seconds, had resorted to medieval-style antisemitism, screaming at them that they were ‘killing fucking babies’.

He screamed they were ‘killing fucking babies’

I spoke to several members of the group and they told me how the worst bit of the evening was when, with the owner having shouted out that they were Zionists, other tables jeered and applauded as they were forced to leave.

One member of the party told me: ‘It was that public humiliation which was the most shocking thing. It was like we had yellow stars from the Holocaust imprinted on us. That’s how it made me feel.’

On another Greek island, Crete, on Thursday, a group of Israelis were attacked by Jew haters as they tried to get off a cruise ship. The ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists – who are motivated not by love for Palestinians but by hatred for Jews – threw iron bars and rocks at the passengers and police who were protecting them. All the passengers were ordered back onto the yacht until the Greek police had dispersed the protesters.

This movement is becoming increasingly violent as we can see from the omnicause killer, trans-identified school shooter Robin Westman, who posted several anti-Israel and antisemitic videos shortly before killing two young children and injuring 17 others during a church service at a local Catholic school.

In Canada, a Jewish woman in Ottowa was stabbed close to a kosher supermarket. The suspect, Joseph Rooke, had written his hatred of Jews on his social media accounts: ‘Jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting and demonization, demagoguery and outright lying.’

This week, we also learned that it was Iranians who were behind at least some of the arson attacks against a café and a synagogue in Australia, where schools, Jewish homes, and, of course, people have all been attacked.

In some ways, that makes Polish musician Krzysktof Zalewski, spewing hatred and Holocaust inversion at a music festival, and protesters temporarily blocking the Israeli cycling team in the Vuelta a España race seem relatively tame.

But words lead to violence. And those words are becoming increasingly hateful. Israelis and Zionists are being dehumanised. Hurting us is the inevitable next step, as we now see.

On Saturday, I attended a counter demonstration in Hampstead, North London, where the tiny number of Israel haters were forced to turn around. It felt like a small victory, but 100 miles away, in England’s second city, Birmingham, the Jew hate was palpable at a ‘pro Palestine’ rally.

One of the speakers, Rehiana Ali, is an NHS doctor who sounded like a Nazi as she blamed ‘the most pressing problem in the UK’ on ‘Israeli lobbies’. She added: ‘You will never be able to address the societal issues of poverty and injustice until the scourge of Israeli lobbies are removed…we need to end the occupation of the UK.’ How is she planning to do that?

Ali was previously suspended by the GMC, the body that oversees doctors, for antisemitism, but last month that suspension was revoked while the investigation into her continues. It feels like she is almost goading the GMC group, which will decide on how to punish her. Is she seeing just how much she can get away with?

Meanwhile, on the same day, down in Bournemouth, on England’s South Coast, an ultra-Orthodox community was attacked. One boy was shot by an air rifle on his way to synagogue while swastikas were painted on their homes.

Once again, this is just a snapshot of hatred Jews are facing around the world.

Part of me thinks, knows, hopes this is just an increasingly shrill minority. That it will go away. But the other part of me feels like we are in a pot that is beginning to boil. When do we jump? Where do we jump to?