Opinion

Social media highlights antisemitism

OPINION PIECE BY JAMES J MARLOW

I recalled this week when I use to regularly travel on London transport with my friends in the seventies and eighties, the slogans: “We hate the Jews” and “Look, there go the Yidos”, were regularly shouted at us, even though we did not identify ourselves as Jews.

Perhaps some were wearing a Magen David on a chain around the neck, or we had the distinctive initialled gold ring on our finger, given to us as a gift for our barmitzvah. Or maybe, some of the girls in our group talked so loudly, they were just known to be Jewish.

But that was during a time in history, when most people did not fully understand the meaning of racial discrimination, anti-Semitic abuse or even the term, “health and safety.” If they did, they simply ignored the rules.

We went to clubs, football matches and pop concerts and were very use to the familiar anti-Jewish chanting wherever we were. It was part of life.

But today, in the twenty-first century, laws have been passed in Parliament that make it a crime, to use racial slogans against a member of an ethnic minority and this includes Jewish white people.

This week I viewed a number of videos of Jewish kids travelling on a London bus or the London underground with the same anti-Semitic slogans being chanted today as they were in my younger days.

One man in his thirties, who is visibly Jewish, (i.e. black hat, beard, white shirt and tzitzit) was attacked on the 113 bus last Saturday night, heading towards Oxford Circus at 11.30pm. The black man, identified as a possible Somalian, used all the usual swear words with “Jewish” being inserted throughout.

Yochai was pushed and hit and told by the mentally unstable deranged individual, “I will slit your throat”. This was all said in the name of “Palestine”.

There were several people sitting on the bus, but not one person stepped in or spoke up, including the driver.

I understand that passengers and the driver are fearful. Maybe the crazed suspect has a knife or pistol or at the very least, will go into a frenzy and beat the “living daylight” out of you. But Yochai had the good sense to take out his phone and record the long audio. When it got violent, he switched to video on his phone.

How many of us can keep a cool head and hit the record button when necessary? The black man knew he was being recorded, but couldn’t care, which suggested he could have been on a suicide mission.

But Yochai threatened to call the police and the man simply stepped off the vehicle, whilst continuing to scream his anti-Jewish abuse.

The 113 bus in question is based at Edgware garage and the Metropolitan took up the case once the video was uploaded to tweeter.

A short while later Yochai was heading down an escalator at Oxford Circus tube with many England football fans around him. Some were Jewish boys, but not identifiable as Jewish. Amongst the crowd on the escalator is one man singing in a loud voice, “F****** hate the Jews” and “Look we got a Jew behind us”.

The video appears to show some of his group telling him to shut up, but he ignores them and continues to sing. Once again Yochai has the smart sense to take out his phone and get a clear shot of the culprit.

So how did I connect this with my youth? Jack Adler, a young Jewish teenager with his friends turned around on the escalator to Yochai and smiled, saying “You got about 9 Jews behind”.

I watched the video over and over again and said to myself, not only do they look Jewish boys, who have just come from watching the football, that’s exactly what we looked like, many years ago. But yet these boys appeared very use to the anti-Semitic abuse last Saturday night, just like we were in the seventies.

The next day, Yochai’s brother tweeted out the audio and video and it became a national news story with the Met Police, Jewish papers, BBC, Daily Mail and everyone else responding. At first, Jack Adler himself is accused of the abuse, but his Dad then gives an interview to one of the newspapers to clear his name.

The point is that after more than 45 years, not much has really changed. The first black individual used “Palestine” as an excuse for the anti-Semitic attack. The second white English suspect probably didn’t even know what “Palestine” is, but stuck with the classic, “We hate the ******** Jews”.

The question is would you step in or say something, if someone was being racially abused on public transport?

James J. Marlow is a broadcast journalist previously working for ITN, EuroNews, LBC Radio, Daily Express and a number of Jewish publications. In addition, he runs a Media and Communications / Public Speaking Training Operation and was a consultant at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Email: James@ TheCommunicationBureau.com

A small city in Lancashire

OPINION PIECE BY ROBERT FESTENSTEIN

Just over 2 weeks ago, at a meeting of the Lancaster City Council a motion was passed which: Express its support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s demands that Israel ends injustices that infringe international laws and Palestinian rights.

There was also a reference to divestment from the Council pension fund though the monitoring officer made it clear that the council that the Council would not be making any decision regarding the Pension Fund. In other words, the motion was little more than a bit of chest thumping from the far-left councillors who got together to produce a motion condemning Israel.

It is now widely accepted that the BDS movement is intrinsically anti-Semitic, so what possible benefit is there to the people of Lancaster that their City Council should adopt a motion based on Jew-hate? The answer of course is none. This of course is not about the welfare of the population of Lancaster, nor even about the welfare about Palestinians. It is another open attempt to create hostility against Jews hiding behind the gossamer thin veil of criticising Israel.

For those who claim the two are not connected, just look at the recent increased attacks against Jews, most of which involve reference to Palestine. Its official; Palestine is the new Christ. When my mother was growing up in the 1930’s she was told that she was responsible for the death of Christ. Now, the Jew-hate is based on Palestine. The challenge for British Jews is to change the narrative. Instead of just reporting on the increase in Jew-hate, we need to be informing the wider community about the human rights abuses in Gaza and the payto-slay policy of the Palestinian Authority.

Those claiming to be supporting Palestine are not interested in peace, that much is evident. What is also becoming clear is that it is only the far-left who are obsessed with promoting the idea that BDS is about peace and human rights. The difficulty is that these people are influential, not because of the virtue of their cause but by virtue of their noise. The answer is not only to expose the people for their antisemitism, it is necessary to expose their claimed cause as being empty and ultimately wholly against the interests of the Palestinian people.

Currently there are seen to be two sides – Israel and the Palestinians. This is inaccurate. The protagonists are better described as Israel which wishes to live in peace and those who wish to see it destroyed. It is though the people who live in Gaza and the West Bank who need to be engaged with the process, not far-left antisemites from Lancaster. And there lies the problem, since the regime there has no interest in peace, just a continuation of either an ideological battle or a simple desire to continue with a corrupt rule.

Light needs to be shone on the impact that these regimes are having on the ordinary people of Palestine. These are repressive entities where the rights of women and gays are not only routinely dismissed but deliberately ignored by the far-left. The cynical manipulation of these ordinary people by Hamas and the P-A should be set out centre stage, so that the crocodile tears and lies of those who voted for the BDS motion last month in Lancaster will be seen for what they are. Instead of just reporting on the increase in Jew-hate, we need to be informing the wider community about the human rights abuses in Gaza and the pay-to-slay policy of the Palestinian Authority.

Robert Festenstein is a practising solicitor and has been the principal of his Salford based firm for over 20 years. He has fought BDS motions to the Court of Appeal and is President of the Zionist Central Council in Manchester which serves to protect and defend the democratic State of Israel.

We must not simply stand by

OPINION PIECE BY MARIE VAN DER ZYL

Because of our history, many Jews feel that it is the responsibility of all of us in our community to stand up against persecution. Indeed, this year, we commemorated 76 years since the end of the Holocaust of Jews by Nazi Germany. Every year, on the 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the World remembers how one of the mightiest, most advanced nations in the world sought to commit genocide against a religious and ethnic minority in its midst.

Let us remember what Elie Wiesel once said: what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander. And so while we must continue commemorating and educating about the horrors of the Holocaust, we must also devote ourselves to coming to the aid of those who are facing oppression and persecution today, such as the Uyghurs.

With that in mind, it is to its great credit that Magen Avot are hosting an entire conference on the topic of the Uyghurs this month.

Indeed, for some time now we at the Board of Deputies of British Jews have been gravely concerned about the treatment of the Uyghur people in China.

In the past 18 months, as well as hosting a number of events with the World Uyghur Congress and Muslim partners to highlight this issue, and making a number of interventions with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the subject, I also went on record – for the first time – to compare China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews.

This is not a comparison that I make lightly. Indeed, it is not one that should ever be thrown around recklessly.

But nobody could watch the news reports over recent months about the Uyghurs, and fail to notice the similarities between what is alleged to be happening in the People’s Republic of China today and what happened in Nazi Germany 76 years ago. • People being forcibly loaded on to trains; • beards of religious men being trimmed; • women being sterilised; • and the grim spectre of concentration camps.

And so, as President of the Board of Deputies, I took the decision that this was something that had to be said.

Germany has rightly paid a heavy price for its persecution of the Jewish people. Its historic guilt rests heavily on it and, 76 years on, its leaders and representatives continue to do all they can to make amends for the sins of their forebears.

Germany has physically marked the atrocity with a moving memorial in the centre of its capital city and across the country individual paving stones bear the names of the people who were taken and murdered.

We know that China has faced its own persecution and humiliation by other countries over a number of centuries. But China risks squandering its achievements and sabotaging its own legacy if it fails to learn the lessons of history.

Earlier this year, the UK Parliament made a unanimous declaration that the treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang Province by the Chinese Government amounts to genocide.

This historic vote, backed by MPs of all Parties, would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of Nusrat Ghani MP, Lord Alton of Liverpool, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and of course the World Uyghur Congress. I pay tribute to their determination to ensure that the world does not turn aside and abandon the Uyghurs to their fate and reiterate, in no uncertain terms, that we stand with them in this struggle, now and always.

The World will neither forgive nor forget a genocide against the Uyghur people. So we urge China today to: • release the Uyghur people and other

minorities from all ethnic and religious oppression; • throw open the doors of the camps to a full and impartial international investigation; - take action against the perpetrators of any human rights abuses; • and ensure justice for the victims and their families.

This message ought to be heeded immediately, but sadly our experience to date shows that – so far - they are not listening.

So I applaud the work that Magen Avot Synagogue and the United Synagogue are doing to raise awareness and push for action, such as this month’s conference.

Campaigners on this issue have my support for important measures such as adding the names of more Chinese Government perpetrators to the UK ‘Magnitsky’ list, and proscribing companies and institutions which are facilitating these atrocities.

As I wrote in my letter to the Chinese ambassador last year, our message to China is simple: The world is watching, and the hand of history is poised. For its future, China has a choice between great pride, or eternal shame. Let it choose the former.

Marie van der Zyl is President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The Jewish community conference to support the Uyghurs will take place on Sunday, 5-8pm, via www.TheUS.tv/action. Speakers include Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP and Bennett Freeman, the former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights & Labour.