Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Why Jews don’t count to the ‘anti-racists’

(Photo: Getty)

Suppose you explain to someone spouting racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory ideas that they are prejudiced. You may begin by giving them the benefit of the doubt. You tell them you are sure they do not realise how badly they are behaving. You assume they are decent people at heart who have merely made a mistake they will be more than happy to rectify once you set it out.

Then you attempt to enlighten them. You tell them why they are prejudiced and why their prejudices lead to hatred and death. You tell them repeatedly, again and again, until your arguments become so familiar you can mouth them in your sleep and you are sick of the sound of your own voice. And they don’t change. They carry on as before. Or, for this happens too often, they turn on you and declaim that you are only pretending that they are prejudiced to trick them into furthering your grubby interests.

Would you still think them decent?

These are arguments that women have with men, blacks with whites, and you know which side you must join. In the good corner are progressives ‘on the right side of history’ and in the bad are the bigots and reactionaries who block their ears so they never have to give up their unearned privileges. Except when it comes to Jews, the roles flip. A portion of progressive opinion has decided the best way to show it is on the right side of history is to repeat anti-Semitic ideas and accuse anyone who tries to reason with them of being engaged in a plot to further Israel’s interests or divert attention from the real suffering of less privileged ethnic minorities.

David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count is out this week; a piercing 28,000-word essay that throws you back to the age of pamphlet wars.

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