How do you stand for Palestine without traducing British Jews — and Palestinians themselves? Righteous people want to know, and they should. You may have seen the video of the woman in Gaza weeping over the body of her son and calling Hamas dogs. She was silenced, though why would she care if she told the truth? What more does she have to lose? The Arab world has betrayed Palestine, and the mirroring between Palestinians and Jews, whom Europe betrayed, is obvious, which is partly why the conflict is so mesmerising: both peoples, as the novelist Amos Oz said, are right. A continent away, a crowd of Londoners stood for Palestine on Saturday. How will they ensure that their rhetoric does not translate into the demonisation of Jewish people in Britain? Do they even want to?
It is usual to call the rallies one thing or the other, depending on bias: peaceful or violent. Rather, they are multiple. I believe that many of the marchers are fair-minded. They know there is a line between calling for justice for Palestine and inciting violence against the Jewish diaspora in Europe, which has suffered enough. I have seen the train tracks to Auschwitz- Birkenau and so have they; they know what is there. Don’t weaponise the Holocaust, people say. Quite so. But don’t forget it either. Most of them want two states in Israel and Palestine, and an end to the occupation in the West Bank, as I do. They do not want to see, as Hamas promises, the butchery of every Jew in Israel and worldwide if they can get there. They would hate that, I am sure. They would be shocked.
Most want two states in Israel and Palestine and an end to the occupation in the West Bank, as I do
And so, they have two moral responsibilities. The first is to disown the violent, anti-democratic elements among them: the grifting; the sadistic; the idiotic; those who imbue Jew hatred as a religion of joy, which it surely is; those who see in Hamas’s bloodlust their own fantasies.
On Saturday in London an Iranian man stood with a sign that said, “Hamas are Terrorists” because the Iranian diaspora understands religious fundamentalism better than any Liberal Democrat from Stroud. He was heckled, which is outrageous. A few weeks ago, an Iranian with an Israeli flag was chased and surrounded; only a police presence prevented a beating. How dare people in a western liberal democracy wish murderous theocracy on Israelis — and Palestinians, who they claim to support? There are signs that compare Jews to Nazis — it is designed to hurt, and it does — and signs mocking Jews for their expulsions throughout history. I watched the heckler’s face. Some people love tyranny. They sense its opportunities for mayhem.
The second is this: don’t use Palestinians as a metaphor for everything that wounds you, and an argument against a world you despise. It’s self-serving and contemptuous. I want to contact the leaders of the Palestinian solidarity campaign and say: how will you ensure you do not cross the line between righteous protest and the incitement of Jew hatred and theocratic tyranny? How will you advocate for Palestinians — not their leaders — by burying their agony with your own suburban dreams? But I won’t. For one thing, I am a liberal Zionist Jew and, as such, my testimony is suspect. More importantly, I shouldn’t have to.
Suella's cynical policy on the homeless
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman calls street homelessness a choice. She wants to restrict access to tents for homeless people — my guess is they will be seized — which is a typical example of this Government’s cynicism: it would rather deal with the result of a policy than its cause, which is their policy.
Perhaps homelessness was a choice once. I have known homeless people who sought the streets because they felt they fitted there (though it was never safe for women). That, though, ended with Blairism.
There has been an explosion of street homelessness in the last 13 years: from the bedroom tax; lack of social housing and insane costs for private housing; an explosion of in-work poverty; a loss of provision from addicts; a failing asylum and immigration system.
Now she wants to sweep it from our eyes. You go to the streets if you have nowhere else to go. Where’s next?
