Writing in the Independent, Howard Jacobson offers an honest appraisal of the recent spate of UK protests against Israel – all of which claim nothing more sinister than a criticism of Israeli policy. He describes the sentiment expressed as:
A discriminatory, over-and-above hatred, inexplicable in its
hysteria and virulence whatever justification is adduced for it; an
unreasoning, deranged and as far as I can see irreversible revulsion
that is poisoning everything we are supposed to believe in here – the
free exchange of opinions, the clear-headedness of thinkers and
teachers, the fine tracery of social interdependence we call community
relations, modernity of outlook, tolerance, truth. You can taste the
toxins on your tongue.
this to anti-Semitism. It is, I am assured, “criticism” of Israel, pure
and simple. In the matter of Israel and the Palestinians this country
has been heading towards a dictatorship of the one-minded for a long
time; we seem now to have attained it.
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
