Howard Jacobson describes his humane pity at the suffering of victims in Gaza, his righteous anger at the inhumanity of people justifying atrocities, and finally outrage at the antisemitism which reserves victim blaming – “they got what they deserved” – for Jews (“Victim-blaming is a crime to so many progressives. Except when it comes to Jews”, Comment).
My mother watched my grandfather, like Israeli hostages, “manhandled into a car” and taken away to Dachau. My great-grandmother died in another Nazi concentration camp where, like Palestinians, she was denied food, water and medicine. So, like many, I am historically affected by the atrocities we are witnessing in Israel and Gaza; not as a Jew but as a human being.
