The English were always slighly anti-semetic. Even so, I don’t think the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 helped matters any.
It helped matters greatly. It destroyed British administrative and intelligence files, thereby making it impossible for them to continue governing, so they had to leave, and take their White Paper blockade of Jewish immigrants with them, using a minimum of bloodshed and a maximum loss of face for the British Mandate.
Did this lessen or exacerbate anti-Semitic feelings among Britons? Probably the latter at that time, but that’s academic. You can’t win a revolution without ticking off those against whom you revolt. How long were there anti-Yank sentiments in Britain after the American revolution?
The British have been at times a force for freedom and democracy in the world. When they haven’t directly promoted it and instead opposed it, they still struck a blow for it. Just look at all the great revolutionaries they’ve inspired:
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams, Muhandas K. Ghandi, Menahem Begin and Jomo Kenyatta. They all successfully fought British tyranny and later befriended the British parliamentary democracy. Lin Yutang (Between Tears and Laughter, Doubleday, 1940) said that the Briton is a splendid fellow, so long as he is at home in Britain, rather than out ruling the world. At home he is a philosopher, a democrat, a scholar and a gentleman. Abroad in a pith helmet and pack, in his finest hours he’s a hero, but other times not. In Mandatory Palestine he was not, and therefore was driven out by heroes soon after he heroically beat the Huns and Nips.
Not really.
Any anti-semitism has been confined to the fringes: either neo-nazi groups/fascist groups OR to a section of the upper class. And in modern times, to a section of the left.
The average English working class and middle class has never been anti-Jewish, in fact many tenets of Judaism and Jewish identity have been admired. Many British icons and ‘national treasures’, from shops and businesses to entertainers and academics, have been Jewish, some very open about it, others to whom it wasnt a major part of their identity.
And never forget that whilst Europe embraced Fascism or Communism, Britain rejected in the 1930’s the antisemitic fascism of Oswald Mosley and has done so to the present day, with the likes of the BNP and neo-nazi parties. England and Britain as a whole has always rejected that sort of naked, unpleasant racism/antisemitism.
Elements of British society certainly were (and are) anti-semetic. But then there were other elements that were (and are) quite definitely pro-Israeli.