Mick Hartley

Dave Rich on The Sound of Silence. As antisemitism surges, where are the left anti-racists now?

In past decades, when minorities were targeted for sustained campaigns of racist violence and abuse, the activist left came up with big movements like the Anti-Nazi League or Rock Against Racism to call people to action. Last month a similar movement was launched, the Together Alliance, to campaign against the far right, with lots of celebrities and musicians putting their names to the effort.

But when Kanye West, the music world’s best-known supporter of Hitler and Nazism, was named as headliner at the Wireless Festival, those same famous musicians had nothing to say, just as they showed no support when Jewish bands had their gigs cancelled by venues.

The last time the Jewish community in Britain was targeted by a sustained arson campaign was in the 1960s, and it was Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement that was behind it (that’s what led to the formation of the 62 Group, Searchlight magazine, and ultimately to CST). Everyone who thinks of themself as an anti-racist can get behind a campaign against Nazis. But today, when these latest arsons are all being claimed by an Islamist extremist group with links to Iran, there’s little or no comparable interest or support.….

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, at an organisational level, Jews have simply been abandoned by the big beasts of progressive, liberal, anti-racist opinion and activism. There are pockets of support that remain, thankfully. But in general, looking at the sector as a whole, most of the trade unions, human rights NGOs, public sector bodies campaigning organisations, student groups and the rest who make up the anti-racist establishment have closed their eyes and their hearts to the Jewish community.

Because, in the identity politics game, Jews are no longer victims but oppressors. Not just any old oppressors either, but, in Israel, the very definition of settler colonialists. It’s a perfect storm of hatred.

Meanwhile those on the hard left have joined hands with the Islamists:

Claim that the UK is under “Zionist control” and nobody bats an eyelid. Solidarity statements flood in for people who rant about “Jewish supremacy”, rather than for the Jews they are inciting hatred against. And all driven by an obsessive, violent hatred for Israel, and a purifying desire to denounce and destroy anyone and anything touched by the sin of “Zionism”.

Of course this generates antisemitism. How could it not? And of course, the people pushing this hatred, marching alongside it, or saying nothing when the people on the same platform as them express these views, cannot mount a campaign against antisemitism even when synagogues are being fire-bombed. How could they?