You're Wrong: Jews Don't Mind Israel Criticism
Why Owen Jones Could Actually Change The Whole Conversation
Let me shock you: Most Jewish people don't actually mind criticism of Israel.
Many of us welcome the discussion. From my own experience, I can tell you that we sit there at Friday night dinners, asking one another what on earth Netanyahu is looking to achieve—and what can be done.
We mourn for the Palestinians as we mourned for the victims of October 7. Then, we hear the likes of James O'Brien repeating blood libel-like slurs on air that suggest we're inhuman, bloodthirsty animals who value our own lives over that of an Arab at 1,000 to 1. We hear others define Israel - a country we know as possibly the most successful multicultural nation on the planet - as an apartheid.
We dig in, we become defensive. I’ll explain why.
But first: the proof that Jews accept this criticism of Israel lies in their overwhelmingly positive reaction to Thom Yorke's severe criticism. Radiohead frontman Yorke was so over-the-top in his criticism that he equated the democratic, gay-friendly, women's rights haven of Israel with terrorists.
Even so, who took umbrage with Yorke's post?
The anti-Israel Left.
Yorke made the fatal mistake of remembering that Israelis are people, too. Jews, however, accepted Yorke’s attack - embraced it, in fact - because he showed awareness of the difficult position Israel finds itself in, with a complex history involving a neighbour whose founding charter called for their deaths.
It's a strange thing to navigate life knowing there are hundreds of millions of people out there who'd murder you for something you can't change about yourself. Millions of those people - we are talking mostly about radical Islamists - have moved to the UK in recent years.
How does it actually feel?
Well, it makes you nervous and - again - defensive. Most Jews I know have, in recent years, removed public traces of their Judaism from their lives, including sadly taking down their Mezuzot.
In some respects, Diane Abbott was right that anti-Semitic racism is different to anti-black racism in that Jews can - sometimes - hide their Jewishness. Granted, those of us who are already known publicly as Jewish, from Ben Stiller and Scarlett Johansson to David Baddiel and Rachel Riley, cannot do so.
Names, too, are a giveaway. Many Jews in the West experience daily the familiar feeling of having to admit or sign their surname in front of a person that may be hostile - whether from Islamist or hard-Left sources.
That's not to say all newly-migrated Muslims have unfavourable views of Jews. For example, in Pakistan - according to Pew Research - around one per cent of the population "doesn't hold unfavourable views of Jews".
So, every cloud has a one per cent chance of not hating you.
What we mind is a diabolical failure of context and nuance from online rage baiters. When Gary Lineker repeats the mantra that Gaza is the worst thing he's ever seen after ignoring acts that are just as barbaric - or more so - around the world, it feels as though the world’s only Jewish state is singled out.
Infamously, he tweeted about Spurs after the horrific attack on October 7th…and has rarely if ever criticised anything that happens in the 53 Islamic states that surround Israel.
When you think of that, it’s completely insane. Indefensible.
Partly because of rhetoric like his and that of Leftist political commentator Owen Jones, we've now reached a point where non-Zionist, non-Israeli Jews have been banned from the Edinburgh comedy festival. Singers with Jewish heritage are abused during their sets. One woman received a visit from British police for having visited Israel.
50 Jewish kids were thrown off a plane for singing in Hebrew, followed by an unsubstantiated lie that they had sung "Death to Arabs". This one was clearly invented by someone unaware that cultures outside of Islam rarely invoke the "Death to" phrasing.
All of that is just the last few days.
I would ask Diane Abbott, then, if she'd expect the country and its media to react with a timid shrug, were any of this to happen - as it once did - to black people. Most readers won’t have even realised that Jews were banned from the Edinburgh Fringe for nothing other than their ethnicity. Had this happened to black people, people would (rightly) lose their minds.
Even as I write that, I shudder with resentment that she's forced me into an oppression competition. But that has long been the MO of a Left that seeks not equality or empathy but power.
How Owen Jones Could Change This
Because I’m less inclined to tribal or emotional thinking, let me just say that I don't believe that Gary Lineker - or, for that matter - Leftist writer Owen Jones hate Jews. I think that Gary is liable to be swept up into whichever crowd is larger (there are two billion Muslims and just 15 million Jews in the world).
And Owen perhaps thinks Jews are white people (even though most Israeli Jews are not Ashkenazi). Today's Left hates white people because many of its propagandists hate themselves.
Here is my plea to Owen Jones:
Imagine a world where people with followings as vast as his felt able to criticise Israel while remembering to contain context, such as this passage, written today by a Palestinian about the real reason for their hunger.
Think about what a difference he could make to the lives of a minority if he staunchly disavowed the countless people in his replies who have said repugnant, unprintable things to me that I am sure he does not agree with.
Or if Owen were courageous and wise enough to ensure his followers were aware of the many fake images that even the NY Times and many others have (now knowingly) wrongly circulated. As ever, the fake or misleading photos go viral - the retractions do not (the New York Times still hasn't retracted or apologised for the misleading photo that showed a child with a genetic condition).
Owen must be aware of these things. I don't know if he chooses not to address them because his ideological drive runs so deep or because - and I hope this is not the case - he knows it doesn't get clicks or engage his followers.
But let me say this - more as a plea than an attempt to persuade:
Owen, if you pivot; if you start to consider how it might feel to be a Jew (you may have got an inkling from the reactions of Jews when you turned up at the gay, Jewish Buttmitzvah event); or even if you simply pretend to empathise with British Jews - you'll succeed in convincing and agreeing with far more of them.
You may respond that what is happening to Gazans far outstrips the suffering of British Jews. I would staunchly agree.
But with the Left's recent obsession with micro-aggressions and identity politics, shouldn't this be a priority for the likes of Owen, Lineker et al? When comedy festivals, planes and musical festivals start kicking out the Jews, the Punch-A-Nazi brigade falls strangely silent.
All very very well said. I think Owen Jones is incapable of nuanced thought, like most ideologues. He's been indoctrinated by his communist (no exaggeration) parents. He's is also a group thinker - like most communists are as the individual is no longer valid). I simply cannot believe that the very people who shout "racist!" at the drop of a hat have become racists themselves - far more extreme ones than any I've ever heard about. Because chasing Jews down the street or excluding them based on their race/religion is the absolute form of racism. It is pure conscious deliberate discrimination. And it's happening in our country by cultural Brits and Muslims alike. It's truly shocking. For me it's the one-sidedness of it all. I am happy with the outrage at the Israeli government. But there has never ever been outrage about Oct 7 or the hostages by these same people. I find that really odd and it can only be explained by deep indoctrination in far-leftism (apart from Linekar who is just an unintellectual self-absorbed prat).
another brilliant article, I hope Mr Jones reads it