The fault line on the left
In the New Statesman, Martin Bright asks the big question: why do liberals hate Israel so much?
The Israel issue has become a terrible fault line on the British left…The internet has flushed out a whole subculture of left-wing hostility to Israel that should make even Marqusee uncomfortable. This has a regular and willing outlet on the Guardian's Comment is Free website and the New Statesman also suffers from it whenever we publish articles on Israel. Postings on our blog casually link Zionism to fascism or South African apartheid. The language is so unpleasant that it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that many of the comments are driven by anti-Semitism.
…For a long time Israel has been accused of crying wolf over surrounding countries that want to ‘drive it into the sea’. Now it has a neighbour whose president has not only made that threat explicit, but who intends to develop the capacity to do it. In such a conflict, which has already begun for the people of southern Israel, on whose side will British left-liberal opinion be?
Bright will not thank me for saying this, but his blog entry is an act of conspicuous courage. He remains a left-wing person, and he still clearly has major reservations about Israel’s behaviour. But he has a solid core of decency which has enabled him to understand that something vile has been released on the left which totally vitiates its claim to moral principle. Martin has already shown considerable courage in exposing the penetration of Whitehall by radical Islamism, bringing down on his head the wrath and scorn of some of his comrades. That’s nothing to what he will encounter now.
Update: The appalling comments by readers posted underneath Martin's article amply make his case for him.