I’m not going to pretend that I would protest for any movement that has the support of Hamas or Fatah, but of course anyone in a liberal democracy has the right to express their views on what happens in Gaza. The consequences of some of those views are to stir up not just hatred of Israel, but hatred of Israelis and of course of Jews, despite the claims of best efforts of many protesting that they oppose all forms of “anti-semitism” (and curiously then say also “Islamophobia” et al, because you can’t just criticise Jew hatred without relativising it with hatred of the people of the religion that seems to have a disproportionate number of promoters of Jew hatred).
People can protest for an independent Palestinian state (the idea it would be “free” is fanciful, but the far-left, which dominates these protests, regarded leaders from Robert Mugabe to Macias Nguema to be “liberating” their people), but perhaps some of the following might be less likely to encourage and promote Jew hatred:
• Exclude anyone calling to “globalise the intifada”: Don’t kid yourself. If you read about what the Palestinians intifadas involved, it was targeting Israeli civilians in terror attacks. Intifada is violent resistance. If you want to undertake it globally, who do you want to target? Who will get targeted? It’s Jews (nobody undertaking such attacks.
• Exclude anyone supportive of Hamas or the 7th October attack or justifying them: Justifying most murderous pogrom of Jews since the Holocaust, at a music festival is justifying violence against civilians. It wasn’t an attack on a military target, but much worse than that, it took men, women and children as hostages. It saw the gleeful slaughter of young people because they were Jews. If you want to justify the sadistic slaughter and taking of civilian hostages because of who they are, then you’ll justify it happening anywhere.
• Exclude anyone using symbols that place the Star of David into a rubbish bin or depict it with a swastika: Equating any regime with Nazi Germany is a tall order. Russia’s actions in Ukraine could justify it, given the use of the Z slogan, the abduction of children, the direct targeting of civilians and the desire to destroy Ukrainian culture, but the Gaza protestors are uninterested in that. North Korea has many shades of Nazism, given its totalitarian system that tolerates zero dissent and promotes racial superiority. However, to link Jews to the regime that sought to eliminate them is promoting Jew hatred. That’s not a call for a Palestinian state it’s a call to wipe them out wherever they may be.
• Promote peace talks and a two-state solution, not the extinction of Israel: Most governments agree that this is the only solution for a lasting peace, but so many protestors call for Israel to be destroyed. If you are chanting for the destruction of the Jewish homeland (where Jews have lived for thousands of years), then you’ll justify destruction of those who want to retain it and to keep Jews as a global diaspora always at the mercy of others.
• Call for the overthrow of Hamas and for Gaza (and the West Bank) to be a secular liberal democracy: If you just think Gazans should live under the jackboot of Hamas, with its explicit Jew hatred and support for eliminating Jews, then you’re hardly damning attacks on Jews are you?
• Demand an end to foreign support for Hamas: Iran and Qatar both fund and support Hamas, and Iran in particular constantly expounds Jew hatred, including Holocaust denial and tropes about Jews running the world. Maybe, just once, protest against the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Of course you can criticise Netanyahu, any Israeli political party, you can call for the occupation to end, you can call for a Palestinian state, but if you are silent on Hamas, silent on the Jew hatred that drips from Palestinian political movements and welcome explicitly anti-semitic individuals and their rhetoric into your protests, you’re part of the problem.
Some activists say that if you have one Nazi at your protest, you’re at a Nazi protest. Well, there is no lack of people that are part of the pro-Palestine movement who expound Jew hatred. Whether it is the trope that the Jews run the world, or that Mossad was responsible for 9/11, the Holocaust was exaggerated (or there was a good reason for it), there is plenty of evidence that that movement attracts Jew hatred.
Maybe, just maybe, treat these like you claim to treat people who are racist…
Oh and calling "despicable" the act of lighting a museum in the colours of the Israeli flag days after it had suffered an explicitly anti-semitic attack of Jew murder, isn't caring about Jews, is it MP for Auckland Central?
Sadly I wont be holding my breath while you pretend all your colleagues, friends and fellow travellers are all good people who are “anti-violence”.
It's all empty words.
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