Shimon Peres was wrong: if anything, Britain has the strongest philo-Semitic tradition in Europe

The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | Aug 2, 2010 | Daniel Hannan

[propertius]

I’m glad Shimon Peres has retracted his claim that the British Establishment is motivated by anti-Semitism. It was a silly and unpresidential thing to say and, more to the point, it was inaccurate. No doubt it can be frustrating to deal with FCO mandarins; but, wrong as our officials are about most things, they are rarely anti-Semitic. It’s true that our diplomats tend to emphasise Britain’s relations with its former Arab protectorates, notably Jordan and the Gulf monarchies. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though you can see why it makes some Israelis uneasy. It’s true, too, that many FCO officials are Euro-federalists. Committed as they are to supra-nationalism, they subliminally resent the country which represents the world’s greatest vindication of the national principle. For 2000 years, Jews were stateless and scattered, but they never abandoned their dream of a homeland: “Next year in Jerusalem!” Then, against all the odds – providentially, we might almost say – they fulfilled it, thereby refuting the EU’s ruling doctrine, namely that the nation-state has no special legitimacy. So, are British civil servants unsupportive of Israel? Yes, sometimes. But the idea that anti-Semitism is unusually prevalent in Britain is wretchedly ahistorical. I suggest President Peres reads Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews. Johnson argues convincingly that, prior to the opening up of North America, England was the securest and freest place to live if you were Jewish.

[casuist]

Ahistorical? The Jews were expelled from Britain in 1290 until the era of Cromwell. Cromwell allowed a small Sephardic community to persist only because he needed financial assistance to finance his revolution. British elites despise Jews, particularly Zionists, or any Jew with a political programme or who insists on defending himself or herself. Does anyone remember the King David Hotel bombing?

[TheThinker]

if anything, Britain has the strongest philo-Semitic tradition in Europe

Even if that were true, and I doubt it, that's really not saying much given Europe's history.

[aquila48]

“Johnson argues convincingly that, prior to the opening up of North America, England was the securest and freest place to live if you were Jewish.”

So to make the case that they are not anti-semitic, the best they can do is go back to “Fagan’s era” - over 200 years ago!

I’m sure Peres was talking about today not 200 years ago! And today british politicians overwhelmingly take into account the sensitivities, not to mention the threats, of their muslim constituency.

[agere_contra]

So, you couldn’t be bothered to read the article.

Hannan’s argument is that BECAUSE there was no significant Jewish population during a formative period in English history, the English law didn’t inherit any religious distinctions towards Jews as opposed to Gentiles.

Also: it’s simply inane for Americans to cluck their tongues and point fingers at European history before the 1800s. BECAUSE IT’S YOUR HISTORY TOO, NUMBNUTS.

Either that, or you must accept the burden of your own Continent’s ludicrous beliefs and intolerances.

In 1400s North America, a stranger (Jewish or not) would be tortured and force-fed his own genitals.

In 1400s South America, a stranger (Jewish or not) would be sacrificed on a pyramid, his heart burnt as an offering to the Sky Gods. How does English history compare to that?

[casuist]

BECAUSE IT’S YOUR HISTORY TOO, NUMBNUTS.

The all-caps are a nice touch I must say. Most emphatic.

Yes, and I accept that European history is my own history, only my history would be the history of European Jewry, a long and rich history of being hated and despised by the British.

[agere_contra]

After Britain spent its blood and treasure destroying the Ottoman Empire and freeing Jerusalem from the Muslims, it set aside certain captured lands (all present-day Israel and Jordan) to be a Jewish homeland.

This great gift was later attenuated and hobbled by Foreign Office and international antipathies, and shrunken also by the seething hostility of the Arabs.

But the fact remains: Israel today only exists because of the actions of the British. We did all that despite - according to you - hating and despising European Jewry.

You're welcome.

[idov]

Britain needed cordite made from acetone in WWI. Otherwise when its ships fired, they gave off smoke. The Germans saw the smoke and sank the ships. They could have cut down all the trees in UK and would not have had enough acetone to supply the needs of the navy. In steps Chaim Weizmann, chemist, with a formula for biological production of acetone. The UK government said name your reward. Palestine, said Weizmann eschewing personal riches.It’s yours, they said. But at that point they were offering nothing since they had not been able to crack the Turkish defences and there was no guarantee they would ever be able to. That’s history coming forward.

[bobjam]

European immigrants often brought their old world prejudices and intolerances. Upon arrival they would settle in ethnic neighborhoods where these old world rejudices would linger on. It would typically take a generation or two for those prejudies to fade away.

While anti-semitism may have existing in the social fabric in some places, it did not exist in the law.

[Vanders9]

I remember the King David Hotel bombing.

[propertius]

Ah indeed, the King David Hotel bombing. For many decades the world’s single deadliest terrorist atrocity carried by a bloodthirsty extremist gang of thugs (although at least, unlike the Stern Gang — still revered in Israel — they did not try to collaborate with Hitler.)
What happened at the King David, which killed Jews, Arabs and Britons without discrimination was used and studied by Islamist terror groups today. Indeed it was the blueprint of modern terrorism.

Thank you for having the courage to bring it up (many here wouldn’t)

[Vanders9]

That's a long and rich history of being hated and despised by the British, French, Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgians, Dutch (probably not so much), Swiss, Danes and Poles. There's no reason to just pick on one part of Christendom.

However, more recently (in the 1930's) Britain was the only nation to offer refuge to German Jews fleeing the Nazis. Not even the US did that.

[Vanders9]

Wasn’t it the Irgun who did that?

[casuist]

But the fact remains: Israel today only exists because of the actions of the British. We did all that despite - according to you - hating and despising European Jewry.

Balfour was an alibi for British ambition in the region, the British opposed the Ottomans for their own reasons, and it was the Israelis, not the British, who liberated Jerusalem in 1967.

Britian remained in Palestine as military occupier and colonial administrator, and it's never-specified civil mandate transitioned from neglect of Jewish interest to the containment of Jewish settlement and the suppression of Jewish institutions.

General rule: If it's British, it hates the Jews.

[casuist]

Thank you for having the courage to bring it up (many here wouldn’t)

What took courage was to resist a colonial occupier intent on imposing it's policy of divide and rule by playing one tribe off of another as in India or Nigeria. The Palestinian "national identity" is the sad legacy of British propagandists and their attempts to pit Arabs against Zionists only the Zionists refused to play the game and instead attacked their real enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

[Winniesboy]

There's a tendency to speak of the Balfour Declaration as if it somehow arose spontaneously out of the ether. It's worth remembering that it was the fruit of a long-running campaign in Britain in which Gentiles and Jews played an equal part, and which was led in the media by the then Editor of the Manchester Guardian, C P Scott. This may come as something of a surprise to those who take The Guardian, as the same newspaper is now called, to be inveterately anti-Israeli and pro-Arab.

Britons above a certain age will also remember that the young state of Israel was hugely popular in British public opinion, especially among the idealistic young, during the first 20-odd years of its existence. It was only later that British public opinion on the subject became rather more mixed.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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Not sure it's an arguement I'd engage in. The inventors of the blood libel which persists to this very day, Judaism being illegal from the late 13th to mid 19th century. It could be argued that their treatment of Jews was better than most of western Europe at the time, but it's kind of like argueing about who was the most enlightened slaveholder. More modern times, the Brits accepted the burden of resettling the Jewish Homeland with Jews. A charge they consciously failed, dividing the Jewish homeland and not only refusing to accomodate large scale Jewish immigration but eventually barring it. Resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, likely hundreds of thousands of Jews who were trapped on the continent. And the author wins the arguement, there were other countries far more complicit in the slaughter of Jews. Not a pleasant arguement, we persecuted them less through most of the history of Jews in western Europe, even if true. Unmentioned on the thread, the King David Hotel was the headquarters of the British Mandate Authority, as well as of the British Military in what is now Israel and Jordan. A perfectly legitimate target.

[propertius]

Colonial occupier? Perhaps of Ottoman land, yes. But remember Zionism hardly at any following at all until Herzl in the late 19th century and if it hadn’t been for the Balfour Declaration, the whole dream would have died.

Of course the British had to juggle the difficult realities on the ground and the wide geopolitical situation (not least when Britain faced the Nazi threat alone between 1939 and 1941).

Whatever you want to believe, even the early Zionists who went to Palestine acknowledged that this was not “a land without a people for a people without a land” — remember the report back to the first Zionist conference: “The bride is beautiful, but she is already married to another man”.

Uprooting an entire population and dumping them East of the Jordan river would have amounted to ethnic cleansing. WHile some Zionists acknowledged the inceredibly tricky position in which Britain found herself, a bunch of extremists didn’t. I would call them cowardly, rather than courageous.

[propertius]

The Irgun carried out the King David Hotel bombing, but it was the Stern Gang (which assassinated Lord Moyne and later the Schindler-like figure of Folke Bernadotte) that sought to ally itself to the Nazis against Britain — and is still, to my amazement, revered in street and city names in modern Israel.

[HiTech RedNeck]

with friends like this who needs enemies