There are moments when a cultural movement reveals itself in all its infamy and hatefulness. For the modern anti-Israel movement, one such moment came at the weekend when the Glastonbury festival, an event which prides itself on peace, tolerance and goodwill, was turned into a ghastly carnival of antisemitic hate.
When the rapper Pascal Robinson-Foster chanted ‘Death, death to the IDF’, amplified appallingly by the thousands present, he made the festival seem like a far-right rally, with its demand for the annihilation of millions of Israelis who serve and have served in the country’s army. The irony of opposing a purported genocide while calling for the same in Israel will doubtless be lost on the army of imbeciles who parade as the rapper’s most ardent devotees.
Worse, the BBC’s refusal to cut the live feed of his performance, allowing such demonisation to be spread to millions around the country, was both inexcusable and vile, heaping further shame upon our already compromised national broadcaster.
By doing so, the BBC made itself complicit in an antisemitic obscenity.
But what has been overlooked in some of the commentary are the monologues the rapper delivered after this chant. After mouthing the obligatory chant of “Free, free Palestine”, though with an ‘inshallah’ thrown in for good measure, the rapper shared an anecdote about the former boss of a record label he worked for “who would speak very strongly about his support for Israel”. He then railed against “working for f****ing Zionists”, reinforcing tropes about corrupt Jews in the music business and blasting the vast majority of Jews who happen to be Zionist.
The rapper Bobby Vylan had launched into an incendiary rant at one stage about “Zionists”
If we join the dots, we observe the obvious: that the ‘free Palestine’ movement, with all its talk of liberation, resistance and justice, is a form of barely disguised political antisemitism. It is a movement which seeks to hollow out the Jewish state and defame its Jewish supporters, wherever they are.
In the past, the anti-Zionist demand for a free Palestine was rationalised as a form of anti-colonialism. Apartheid had to end, Palestinians had to exercise their ‘right of return’, and Israel had to be a state of all its citizens. The claims were noxious, but the language used was that of human rights and international law. This was supposedly about the cry of the oppressed and the restoration of indigeneity to a benighted land.
But this rap is emblematic of the grand lie at the heart of that movement: that nothing short of Israel’s violent dissolution will be satisfactory. The IDF must not be brought to justice so much as eliminated. The Jews of Israel must not be stripped of land so much as left defenceless when their enemies invade.
But it does not end there. For these activists, Israel’s supporters, those ‘f***ing’ Zionists, are just as worthy of opprobrium. They are deemed complicit in the ‘obscenity’ of the modern Zionist state. That is why Jews in the UK and elsewhere have been attacked by ‘pro-Palestinian’ mobs, why they are baited on rallies and marches, why they are racially abused at universities, why they are hounded at trade union rallies and why they face isolation in the world of art and culture.
Dr. Jeremy Havardi
Jews are subjected to a perverse loyalty test that is rarely adopted for other minorities and which is itself antisemitic. They are told they must either dissociate themselves from Israel and Zionism or face societal death.
If they do not declare fealty to the new religion of the left, which has allied so monstrously with the jihadi movement (the red-green alliance), they face being cast outside the community of the good. Effectively abandoning their cultural loyalty to fellow Jews is the price for avoiding pariahdom. By not declaring that Israel is a criminal, genocidal state worthy of elimination, they are tarnished as ‘f***ing Zionists’.
This is where the ‘Free Palestine’ movement leads us to: a belief that Israel, demonised as a Satanic state and delegitimised as the embodiment of all evil, has corrupt enablers whose vile nature has to be exposed.
Attacking these Jews (Zionists) while maintaining a posture of self-righteousness is the ultimate delight. For as CS Lewis observed, behaving badly and calling your behaviour ‘righteous indignation’ is the ‘height of psychological luxury’ and ‘the most delicious of moral treats’.
In many ways, none of this is new. Antisemites have long enjoyed the moral treat of attacking Jews and pretending that they were simply doing God’s work or protecting society from racial defilement or upholding international law by attacking colonialism.
Antisemites rarely admit to attacking Jews just because they are Jews.
The same is true of anti-Israel zealots. They only attack Jews because, as Zionists, they are the barrier to a world free of colonialism and genocide. Anti-Zionist Jews, at least for now, escape their calumnies.
Perhaps the real inflection point is that the narratives of today’s barbarians are increasingly normalised throughout society – in boardrooms and hospitals, in classrooms and lecture halls, at concerts and festivals. Most people are indifferent to the venom of antisemitism, but it has gained traction, especially among the young, who believe they are the vanguard of a new morality.
These people prefer the dogmas of modern identity politics, where cartoonish representations of the world provide us with an instant gallery of heroes and villains. The Zionists, backed by the West, have their allotted role next to Satan, while Palestinian and Islamist rebels have a soft, alluring quality. It is the same racist fantasy of the old-fashioned colonialists who purported to understand ‘desert tribes’ through a Western perspective.
Bob Vylan performing on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury Festival, shortly before being dropped by his agent and management.
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote so brilliantly this week, the only antidote is to continually expose the lies at the heart of the ‘Free Palestine’ agenda and to show how it segues into a war against the Jews, as well as the West.
It is a different movement to the one that shows genuine care for ordinary Palestinians and which wishes them a better, more prosperous future, preferably alongside Israelis. That vision is both legitimate and just and, at some point in the future, quite possibly achievable. But it is ultimately Israelis and Palestinians who will rebuild their world, not this army of deluded radicals.
- Dr. Jeremy Havardi is a freelance journalist and author
