It is doubtless apocryphal, but it’s said that when Ernest Bevin heard someone say that Aneurin Bevan was his own worst enemy, he replied, ‘Not while I’m alive ‘e ain’t.’
Sometimes Israel behaves as if it is its own, and the diaspora’s, worst enemy
That came into my mind when it emerged that the Israeli minister for Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli and Amir Ohana, the Speaker of the Knesset, have invited Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, more widely known as Tommy Robinson, to Israel.
I am, as regular readers will know, a strong supporter of Israel. That’s not just because I am Jewish (although writing a history of Jewish migration, my latest book, brings home to me how different my people’s history would have been had we had our own state before 1948). It’s also because as a proud Brit, I see Israel as a proxy for the West standing up for our values and against barbarism.
But sometimes Israel behaves as if it is its own, and the diaspora’s, worst enemy. In the scheme of things it will make little difference to Israel whether or not Tommy Robinson is invited to visit – Israel has more important things to deal with. But from the perspective of a British Jew, the invitation is, to be blunt, deeply damaging to those of us who care about the future of the diaspora. To be tarred with the Robinson brush feels like a gift to the antisemites who will now have another rhetorical weapon at their disposal.
As the writer Melanie Phillips, who has been one of the most vital, passionate and brave fighters against Islamism and Islamic extremism, has put it: ‘It’s hard to exaggerate these Israeli ministers’ fathomless stupidity and ignorance.’
I will spare you the litany of Robinson’s unsuitability as an ally for Jews concerned with tackling Islamist extremism. Although it should be noted that on the very day of the invitation, Robinson revealed his true colours in his response to criticism of it by the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council, the two leading communal bodies. Robinson posted (then later deleted) an attack on, ‘The elitist Jews, the ones who are not representative of the entire community, the woke liberal elitist Jews…they don’t represent all Jews…The ones who want mass open-border immigration, the ones who have created the hostile environment for most Jews…These so-called voices of the Jewish community, which are betraying the Jewish community with their cosying up to Islam and open-border immigration, they’re the reason all these problems are happening.’
The invitation has, unsurprisingly, prompted a wave of anger from British Jews, much of which is on social media. As Phillips puts it, ‘As if the situation for British Jews isn’t desperate enough, Israeli ministers have now unbelievably pulled the rug from under the feet of Israel’s defenders and handed an unexpected weapon to the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people in Britain.’
But it has also prompted a wave of support. And those of us who are appalled by the invitation have ourselves come under attack as variants of the woke, liberal, elitist theme, to use Robinson’s terminology. This is the poison which Robinson seems to spread, which he brings to anything he touches. It is also, to put it mildly, an odd accusation to make against Melanie Phillips, one of the first to highlight the problem of Islamist extremism in the UK in her 2006 book, Londonistan. As for myself, if the issue wasn’t as existential as the future of diaspora Jewry, I would find it more than a touch amusing to be labelled a woke open-border lefty.
It is easy to understand why some are turning to Robinson. For too long there has indeed been a cosy liberal consensus around Islamism – a consensus which has underplayed the threat. The Jewish community has been battered for two years by the regular hate marches and demos, and have pleaded for action to be taken. That pleading has been ignored, and we saw what that has led to in Manchester on Yom Kippur. So there is an obvious attraction in someone who appears to be not only an ally but an ally unafraid to stand up for Jews. But while in realpolitik your enemy’s enemy can be useful as your friend, that is not always the case. Sometimes your enemy’s enemy can be toxic.
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