The Spectator’s Notes | 6 August 2011

In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’.

In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’. I wonder if police would have tolerated it if it had replaced the word ‘Jew’ with ‘black’, ‘gay’ or ‘Muslim’. But it would not surprise me if a large number of people have been persuaded that Jewish power somehow armed Anders Breivik and induced him to murder scores of Norwegian teenagers. True, there is nothing as old-fashioned as actual evidence of this, but so what? Just as Breivik seems to have picked up dreadful ideas from the internet, so anti-Semites find endless material to feed their obsession. The difference, perhaps, is that Breivik’s views are not state-subsidised. I have recently been studying reports, one by the TaxPayers’ Alliance and one by Impact-SE, on the teaching materials used by the Palestinian Authority in its schools. Whatever the subject — environment, geography, history, language, religion, even mathematics — the lesson is the same. The Jews, children are taught, have stolen, starved, killed, pillaged. Maps of the region erase the existence of Israel. A picture of a Mandate-era stamp removes the Hebrew on it. ‘Miserliness and avarice are among the Jews’ prominent traits’, says a religious textbook. All this is assisted by money from the British Department for International Development. Last month, it announced its plans for further funding of the Authority, including primary education for over 35,000 children. The relevant minister, Alan Duncan, posted a video of himself visiting the security wall. He denies that the wall is for security and describes it as part of ‘a land grab’ by Israel.