Why are Jewish people facing persecution in the UK?

[Villanousvillans]

I don’t understand why Jewish people are being persecuted in this country. What is wrong with people?

I imagine there are lots of things you dont speak about. Are you tacitly supporting everything in the world you dont agree with? Does it occur to you that the IDF and others dont particularly care whether you approve? Or is Israel the onl moral purity test that matters?

Do you think Israel were justified in attempting to militarily attack Hamas and attempt to free hostages after oct 7th but have gone about it the wrong way, or do you think they had no justification for a military response?

This. ^^
British have been attacked too. Lee Rigby, London Bridge, South Port, Arianna Grandi concert....

People complain about Israel existing, then terrorise the Jews in their own countries and then bitch and moan when Jews finally think “fuck this, I’m moving to Israel”. It’s darkly comic. I don’t get it either, I have zero weird feelings about jews.

People I’ve met who I would say are anti-semitic are often prone to believing conspiracy theories, it’s religiously motivated or steeped in leftwing dogma.

Jews in Britain are also British. The Jewish community has been here for 350 years.

I don’t think people necessarily do. But it is certainly the conflict which is on our screens daily, and which is spoken about in English on the news. Israel is also the state that people of my parent’s generation (I am very old) thought of as a beacon of hope in the world-I was brought up to think of it as a new and better way of doing things-so seeing undoubted atrocities being committed by the IDF is particularly heart breaking.

There is never a real answer to this question.

It's equivalent to witch hunting - if she floats, she's a witch, if she drowns, she's innocent.

Israel's options are either to passively accept its destruction, or fight back and be demonised. There is no alternative to people like this. They will deny this, and say 'they should defend themselves without causing casualties,' but don't actually offer a real solution as that's not actually possible, especially when their enemy aims to cause maximum casualties of their own people, and hold Israel to a different standard than any other country.

I don’t have social media. FFS if you think I’m racist go ahead and think that, you don’t know me. Sorry for trying. There’s a fucking genocide occurring in Palestine and the world does nothing, it’s abhorrent.

It is difficult to get a handle on the basis of anti semitism in the UK.

I want to caveat this with I'm coming from a place of very large gaps in understanding. It seems to be in several parts;

Existing casual antisemitism in the Christian (or lapsed Christian) British population. Stereotypes and tropes that appear in conversation.

The debate around whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic, which I understand (and I may be wrong about this) to be the basis of accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

The danger to the Jewish community from physical violence and terrorism and the basis of that.

Security and protection of Jewish communities, which is currently disproportionately organised and funded by the Jewish communities themselves.

Lack of visible condemnation and protest of attacks on the Jewish community from the long standing historically Christian British population.

We also like to tell ourselves a heroic narrative in our country's role in relation to the Holocaust, which does not fully reflect the reality. Combined with a visceral horror of the Holocaust and a wish to distance ourselves from the perpetrators of that.

We learn about the Holocaust and historical European pogroms, but there is no connection with the present day.

A majority of the population having no antisemitic thoughts and inclinations, or experience of others who are antisemitic, which leads to confusion and a lack of understanding.

Tensions between Muslim and Jewish communities, which the Christian population are distanced from and have little understanding of.

Connected to the above recent Islamophobia and a wish to avoid Islamophobic behaviour.

There is a disconnect between current violence and threats to the Jewish population and the wider historically Christian population. There needs to be a national connecting of the dots and an honest understanding of how we have got here and what we can do about it.

People criticise israel constantly here, the idea that people aren’t allowed to criticise israel is just ridiculous. There are literally marches 100% oriented to criticising Israel. The are threads full of criticism of Israel.

What on earth are you on about. People are attacking Jews in Britian because they are anti-semitic, thats it.

Yes, British Jewish people.
My point was that obviously Jewish people have been attacked recently which is horrific, and it is part of a long line of attacks in the UK on British people, most of whom are not Jewish.... All made by the same section of society.

No, I was born in the late 70s.

Its on our screens because there is demand for it. Basically noone cares about black Africans or people in other parts of the world so their persecution and wars are barely covered except intermittently. No story has been built up. Every media outlet has permanent correspondents based in Israel (partly because its a great place to live, not a bad gig) but may have a correspondent for the whole of Africa.
This argument that Israel is so great, so 'like us' therefore we must expect it to be the best, held to the highest standards despite the fact that it is a nation born out of deep trauma and is surrounded by people who actively want to destroy it is the epitome of holding Israel to different standards.

I'm sure many of the Pro Palestinian marches were peaceful but I had the misfortune to be in Birmingham city centre when one of the marches took place. There were clear anti Semitic placards and many of the protesters were clearly shouting abusive slogans. I did complain to West Midlands police as I was concerned about the death chants. Apparently they were monitoring but didn't find any criminal activity. It was absolutely disgusting and should not be allowed on British high streets. Peaceful protest - fine, but this was not that. If I was Jewish I would have been scared for my safety.

Of course there are lots of things I don’t talk about and of course the IDF don’t care what I think. But yes, I do think that not speaking about something I find abhorrent is tacitly supporting it.

People were antisemitic before the conflict but the conflict gives the ideal excuse to voice it. They will be antisemitic after it, it seems to be in their bones. I don’t get it, Jewish people in the uk are a tiny minority, most antisemites in the uk have probably never even met a Jewish person. I don’t understand why a lot of people seem to need to irrationally hate another group.

If you think you can’t criticise Israel without being called antisemitic then I’m afraid it is probably because you are being antisemitic in your criticism. Perhaps you think all Jews are rich and powerful and connected and therefore Israelis are controlling other world governments? Perhaps you constantly equate what happens in Gaza with the holocaust? Perhaps you hold Israeli Jewish people to a different standard of behaviour and conduct than you do everyone else?

First of all, I would question the whataboutery. I think it’s perfectly ok to be upset by any instance of a child being blown up, caring about that shouldn’t require a complex justification.

I’m not a left wing Palestine activist myself but I have mixed with them a lot in my work & personal life. This is what I think:

• many of them have genuinely been touched by the Palestinian cause. As a result of the Nakba and subsequent persecution, there is a big Palestinian diaspora which has been effective in communicating the plight of their people.
• a substantial number of Palestine activists are left wing Jewish people who are opposed to imperialism and nationalism in principle and take a special interest in Israel as a result of their common heritage.
• some see Israel as part and parcel of the American world order and they oppose it for that reason, because they see it as an aspect of US imperialism.
• some consider Israel to be part of Europe and so hold them to a higher standard of conduct than they would, say, democratic republic of Congo or Sudan. It’s a form of quiet racism but not anti-semitism.
• a lot of them (in Britain at least) are Boomers and remember the postwar epoch in which Israel was seen as something fresh, new and hopeful (Kibbutz, socialism etc). They are genuinely upset and appalled to see the rise of the far right in Israel, the racism and militarism.
• for others it is simply a trend, a bandwagon to jump on and a chance to get virtue signalling points on social media.
• a tiny, tiny minority (none of whom I have personal experience of) may be anti-Semitic. I honestly don’t think this is a big factor - the vast, vast majority of these people are committed anti-racists.

That’s a brilliant description. I’ve just been shot down by trying to understand and educate myself why there’s so much hatred, and basically called racist. I don’t have social media, I was trying to be impartial, I don’t know anything really about Judaism, I live in a community of mainly churches and mosques, there are no synagogues, so I have no experiences 🤷‍♀️

Jewish people don’t have prejudice against Muslims. We want Muslims to be our allies. We only
have prejudice against terrorists some of whom are Muslim yes but non-Jews like to think that Jews and Muslims are against each other. They’re not.

Are you also tacitly accepting Hamas's persecution of its own people? terror attacks on Israelis from Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other terrorists in the region or are you only tacitly accepting the behaviour of the IDF. I just wonder how you navigate all the things you tacitly accept by not speaking about them. Noone can talk about everything. What level of protest constitutes not tacitly accepting something?
And I just wonder why you cant figure out how to not be antisemitic?

Definitely justified, Oct 7th was awful in its brutality and needed a very harsh response.

However, they have continued in this response to an extent where i and many others think its now about revenge and the removal of the Palestinians or at least their submission into a purely Israeli controlled population.

The targeting of Medics, Journalists etc cannot be justified, neither can wiping out whole families because "We suspect there was a Hamas terrorist somewhere in the building, yet never any evidence produced.

The IDF completely failed to get back hostages due to their military actions too, i think their shooting of the hostages that escaped shows that the IDF or parts of it, operate a shoot to kill policy.

The problem is that being a journalist or a medic doesn't mean they are not part of Hamas - Hamas operates from hospitals, their HQ was under the UNRWA building, hostages were kept in the homes of Palestinian doctors and lawyers.

Besides that, Hamas will often report that militants are actually medics and journalists when they are not, for PR purposes.

But your points are based on false assumptions.they are only interested in Israeli so called imperialism and nationalism. The Muslim Middle East is a product of imperialism - how do you think Islam spread? Israel is not an imperialism project because Jews are indigenous to Israel. Where do people think Jews come from? Israel is Central to Judaism. It is a Middle Eastern Country and most people in Israel are directly from ME countries (not their long ancestral history).

Your whole post epitomises the other central problem. The obsession with Israel. Why are people here more obsessed with internal Iaraeli politics than the internal politics of other countries. Israel is objectively a success in the ME context but the insistence that it has to always be better is relentless and frankly bizarre.
And why does any of this mean people are screaming baby killer at Jews in the diaspora. If it was a tiny minority of anti semites then every Jewish child would not be walking past security guards to go to school this morning, and have terrorist drills in their schools. Something that has been the norm for years.

What has it to do with British Jews anyway? Why should people here be targeted with antisemitism.

Ik you agree, but generally not seeing why the connection is on this thread.

But surely you are tarring them with the same brush quoting what just one girl supposedly said?