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Bye-Bye London-The future disappears for Jews in England
FrontPage Magazine ^ | January 23, 2013 | Caroline Glick

Posted on 01/23/2013 5:39:24 AM PST by SJackson

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com -

Bye-Bye London

Posted By Caroline Glick On January 23, 2013 @ 12:33 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 21 Comments

In an interview with Haaretz in November 2010, British novelist Martin Amis said the following about discussions of Israel in his motherland:

I live in a mildly anti-Semitic country, and Europe is mildly anti-Semitic, and they hold Israel to a higher moral standard than its neighbors. If you bring up Israel in a public meeting in England, the whole atmosphere changes. The standard left-wing person never feels more comfortable than when attacking Israel. Because they are the only foreigners you can attack. Everyone else is protected by having dark skin, or colonial history, or something. But you can attack Israel. And the atmosphere becomes very unpleasant. It is traditional, snobbish, British anti-Semitism combined with present-day circumstances.

After participating last week in a debate in London about Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines organized by the self-consciously pretentious Intelligence Squared debating society, I can now say from personal experience that Amis is correct. The public atmosphere in England regarding Israel is ugly and violent.

The resolution we debated read: “Israel is destroying itself with its settlement policy. If settlement expansion continues Israel will have no future.”

My debating partner was Danny Dayan, the outgoing head of the Yesha Council.

We debated Daniel Levy, one of the founders of J-Street and the drafter of the Geneva Initiative, and the son of Lord Michael Levy, one of Tony Blair’s biggest fundraisers; and William Sieghart, a British philanthropist who runs a non-profit that among other things, champions Hamas. Levy has publicly stated that Israel’s creation was immoral. And Sieghart has a past record of saying that Israel’s delegitimization would be a salutary proces and calling for a complete cultural boycott of Israel while lauding Hamas.

We lost overwhelmingly. I think the final vote tally was something like 500 for the resolution and 100 against it.

A couple of impressions I took away from the experience: First, I can say without hesitation that I hope never to return to Britain. I actually don’t see any point. Jews are targeted by massive anti-Semitism of both the social and physical varieties. Why would anyone Jewish want to live there?

As to visiting as an Israeli, again, I just don’t see the point. The discourse is owned by anti-Israel voices. They don’t make arguments to spur thought, but to end it, by appealing to people’s passions.

For instance, in one particularly ugly segment, Levy made the scurrilous accusation that Israel systematically steals land from the Palestinians. Both Dayan and I demanded that he provide just one example of his charge. And the audience raged against us for our temerity at insisting that he provide substantiation for his baseless allegation. In the event, he failed to substantiate his allegation.

At another point, I was asked how I defend the Nazi state of Israel. When I responded by among other things giving the Nazi pedigree of the Palestinian nationalist movement founded by Nazi agent Haj Amin el Husseini and currently led by Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, the crowd angrily shouted me down.

I want to note that the audience was made up of upper crust, wealthy British people, not unwashed rabble rousers. And yet they behaved in many respects like a mob when presented with pro-Israel positions.

I honestly don’t know whether there are policy implications that arise from my experience in London last week. I have for a long time been of the opinion that Israel shouldn’t bother to try to win over Europe because the Europeans have multiple reasons for always being anti-Israel and none of them have anything to do with anything that Israel does. As I discuss in my book, these reasons include anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, addiction to Arab oil, and growing Muslim populations in Europe.

I was prepared to conduct a civilized debate based on facts and reasoned argumentation. I expected it to be a difficult experience. I was not expecting to be greeted by a well-dressed mob. My pessimism about Europeans’ capacity to avail themselves to reasoned, fact-based argumentation about Israel has only deepened from the experience.

One positive note, I had a breakfast discussion last Wednesday morning with activists from the Zionist Federation of Britain. The people I met are committed, warm, hardworking Zionists. I wish them all the best, and mainly that means, that I hope that these wonderful people and their families make aliyah.

While their work is worthwhile, there is no future for Jews in England.



TOPICS: Editorial; Israel; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: britainvsjews; britishantisemitism; britishnazis; carolineglick; englandvsjews; israel; unitedkingdom; waronterror
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1 posted on 01/23/2013 5:39:27 AM PST by SJackson
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To: KC_Lion

PING!

God Bless Bibi...he’s my president!


2 posted on 01/23/2013 5:43:37 AM PST by GOPsterinMA (Time to musk up.)
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To: SJackson
The public atmosphere in England regarding Israel is ugly and violent.

That would be the Guardian readers who stack any public meeting. Intolerant and ignorant, the lot of them.

3 posted on 01/23/2013 5:45:36 AM PST by agere_contra (I once saw a movie where only the police and military had guns. It was called 'Schindler's List'.)
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To: SJackson

Jews vote constantly for the most liberal/socialists politicians and are all for ‘open borders”, diversity and multiculturalism.

Then they wonder how this could happen...


4 posted on 01/23/2013 5:47:27 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

5 posted on 01/23/2013 5:48:01 AM PST by SJackson (The Pilgrims—Doing the jobs Native Americans wouldn’t do !)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

6 posted on 01/23/2013 5:48:32 AM PST by SJackson (The Pilgrims—Doing the jobs Native Americans wouldn’t do !)
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To: SJackson
Levy has publicly stated that Israel’s creation was immoral.

Hey Daniel, tell that to G-d when you see Him.

5.56mm

7 posted on 01/23/2013 5:57:20 AM PST by M Kehoe
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To: SJackson

This is the same reaction she would have gotten on any major US campus. And it’s going to get worse over the next 4 years. A lot worse.


8 posted on 01/23/2013 6:08:12 AM PST by circlecity
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To: SJackson
“I honestly don’t know whether there are policy implications that arise from my experience in London last week.”

Seriously! You don't see the exchange of Arab governments from previous conservative Muslim governments to out and out rabid anti- Israel ones playing out all around you as a out working of European and Socialist American hatred for Israel. The policy implications are nuclear.

Mel

9 posted on 01/23/2013 6:09:13 AM PST by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong....)
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To: SJackson

One should also note that many upper crust British hold to the British/Israel Theory in which modern Britain is the continuation or replacement for the missing tribes. Also called Armstrongism it actually proceeds Armstrong and has been a prevelant belief amongst royals etc for hundreds of years.


10 posted on 01/23/2013 6:15:01 AM PST by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong....)
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To: melsec
precedes (sorry)
11 posted on 01/23/2013 6:16:27 AM PST by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong....)
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To: GOPsterinMA
That is very sad news.

Especially when there a great organizations for Jews in the U.K. like The Board of Deputies of British Jews.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FMOL81JxJ4

Sadly you can at their like bar and see a microcosm.

12 posted on 01/23/2013 6:18:30 AM PST by KC_Lion (Build the America you want to live in at your address, and keep looking up.-Sarah Palin)
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To: SJackson

I am fascinated by inherited talent, if not genius, from the Bachs to the Bernoullis. The Amises are one such bunch. Martin’s father Kingsley was the best comic novelist of the previous century of which I’m aware. And it us no fluke of nepotism that we know Martin’s name. Appropriate to this article is his “Time’s Arrow,” which is not just another holocaust tale. It was good enough, even, for me to ignore the experimental structure (it’s told in reverse chronology).

I have no clue about Martin’s politics. His father is usually classified as a conservative, and certainly his jokes are at the expense of lefty types.


13 posted on 01/23/2013 6:39:14 AM PST by Tublecane
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To: KC_Lion

JDL all the way!!!


14 posted on 01/23/2013 7:03:05 AM PST by GOPsterinMA (Time to musk up.)
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To: SJackson
I have for a long time been of the opinion that Israel shouldn’t bother to try to win over Europe because the Europeans have multiple reasons for always being anti-Israel and none of them have anything to do with anything that Israel does.

They - Europeans - used to hate the Jews for being The Other in their societies, or being simply different. So after WW II and their near extinction, they went off with the sabras and Sephardic Jews and founded Israel. Now they hate them for that instead!

15 posted on 01/23/2013 7:26:27 AM PST by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: SJackson
....there is no future for Jews in England.

If true, then there is no future for Jews in Western Europe.

16 posted on 01/23/2013 7:28:36 AM PST by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: 2banana

“Jews vote constantly for the most liberal/socialists politicians and are all for ‘open borders”, diversity and multiculturalism.”

Really? What poltical parties do most English Jewish people belong to?


17 posted on 01/23/2013 7:33:24 AM PST by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
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To: Rummyfan

In the 1930s a lot of Brits admired Hitler for his anti-semitism, Churchill was the “voice in the wilderness”.


18 posted on 01/23/2013 7:34:53 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: SJackson

Picking on the Jews who won’t hit back. How’s that working for England?

Genesis 12:3 isn’t a myth. Unfortunately, the nation is beginning to reap what they’ve sown.

“Muslim patrol Hooded vigilantes walking streets of London telling women to cover up (Video)”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2979900/posts


19 posted on 01/23/2013 8:32:13 AM PST by 444Flyer
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To: SJackson
We are plunging ever more rapidly into End Times,
about which the Prophets had much to say.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

20 posted on 01/23/2013 8:33:36 AM PST by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your teaching is my delight.)
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