The Battle of London?

Thursday, 22nd January 2009

It was a victory for "the Palestinians", according to the New Republic's Martin Peretz. If you actually watch the video he links to, you see small groups of harrassed policemen retreating from the louts at the front of an anti-Israeli demo. Some of the marshals try to calm the morons down, to no avail. There's a scuffle or two as well, objects are thrown. On one of the tapes you can hear the disgusting chant of "Wipe out Israel". Stick around to the end of the first tape and you see a cop finally lose patience and dish out a well-deserved swipe. It's not pretty, but it's not a battle - or a rout either. Peretz asks "What should they [the police] have done? You all know what they should have done." What does he mean? Would he like to see them issued with shotguns?

And then I can't help noticing that the blog which provided the video runs the headline "Adventures in Cringing Police Dhimmitude". As we all know, people who use the term "dhimmi" have a habit of dwelling on the lunatic fringe of comments threads. Browse deeper on that blog and you'll find, among other things, an entry reprising the allegation that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Similarly, another blog that Peretz has linked to in the past, Atlas Shrugs, has made a cottage industry out of printing unhinged conspiracy theories. I've mentioned this before.

"Europe is convulsing with anti-Semitic hatred and violence again," says Michael Totten. Convulsing? Really? I'm not interested in minimizing the threat of jihadism, a phenomenon that Harry's Place tracks diligently, day in, day out. But why the need to exaggerate? Are some people deliberately trying to confuse anti-semitism with criticism of Israel?