The War on Britain's Jews?

[Teddy Bear]

At a time when ANY criticism of Muslim attitudes and behaviour is avoided like the plague, yet criticism and demonization of Israel is fair game, and never mind the spin-off that extends to Jews as a whole, a programme this evening on Channel 4 by Richard Littlejohn is a complete breath of fresh air.

It exposes the extent of anti-Semitism in this country, and its rise over the last years. Those behind it, and the real racism that goes almost unhindered.

The War on Britain's Jews?

Monday, 9 Jul 2007
8:00pm - 9:00pm (1 Hour )

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Channel 4
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Richard Littlejohn investigates the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain, brought to attention by an All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry in 2006. He explores how it has moved beyond the actions of the extreme right wing and people at the fringes of society, gaining a foothold throughout the country. The journalist meets victims of prejudice, visits a desecrated graveyard and joins police on the streets of Manchester to witness the problem first-hand

Honest Reporting has this to say on the programme:

The UK media's treatment of Israel has undoubtedly contributed to an atmosphere conducive to rising anti-Semitism in Britain. Criticism of Israel is, of course, legitimate and not all critics are anti-Semites. However, under the guise of "anti-Zionism", Jew hatred has reared its ugly head and crossed into mainstream discussion.

Media commentator Richard Littlejohn is to be commended for tackling this subject in a Channel 4 documentary, The War On Britain's Jews?, to be aired tonight (Monday 9 July) at 8pm. Previewing the programme in the Daily Mail, Littlejohn writes:

Opposition to the war and loathing of Israel has led the selfstyled 'anti-racist' Left to make common cause with Islamonazis. And 'anti-Zionism' soon tips over into straight- forward anti-Semitism.

When The Observer columnist Nick Cohen - who has always considered himself of the Left and, despite the surname, isn't Jewish either - wrote a piece defending the toppling of Saddam he was deluged with hate mail.

'It was amazing anti-Semitism, you know - you're only saying this because you're a Jew.'

Cohen has also noticed the casual anti-Jewish sentiment around Left-wing dinner tables and in the salons of Islington.


He is appalled by the way in which his old comrades-in-arms have embraced terrorist groups like Hezbollah, one of the most anti-Semitic organisations on Earth.


Check out the way the National Union of Journalists singles out Israel for boycott, even though it has the only free press in the Middle East. Or the academic boycott of Israel by the university lecturers, which as the lawyer Anthony Julius and the law professor Alan Dershowitz argue, goes way beyond legitimate protest. The sheer ferocity and violence of the arguments is nothing more than naked anti-Semitism.


Under the guise of 'anti-Zionism', anti-Semitism is rife on British university campuses. But still the Government refuses to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahir, motto: 'Jews will be killed wherever they can be found.'

Read the full article here and remember to watch The War On Britain's Jews?, 8pm, Monday 9 July on Channel 4.

[Teddy Bear]

Richard Littlejohn's own article in the Daily Mail, as well as the programme itself, is absolutely stupendous. Note the highlighted area (mine) about the BBC.

The new anti-Semitism: How the Left reversed history to bring Judaism under attack
23:07pm 6th July 2007
Comments (21)

On the side of St George's Town Hall in the East End of London, there's a mural commemorating the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when tens of thousands of Jews and local trades unionists fought side by side to halt a march by Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists.

They poured out of the docks, factories and sweat shops to repel the Blackshirts, who were being given an official police escort. Their banners read: They Shall Not Pass.

By the end of the day, the police were forced to withdraw and Mosley's thugs had been routed. It was a crushing defeat, from which the Far Right never really recovered and was pivotal in preventing the cancer of Fascism and anti-Semitism then sweeping Continental Europe from establishing a meaningful foothold in this country.

In my previous incarnation as a young labour and industrial correspondent, I used to drink in the Britannia pub, in Cable Street, with an old friend, Brian Nicholson, former chairman of the transport workers' union, who lived a couple of doors down.

From the public bar, a few yards across the square from the old Town Hall, I watched with fascination as the mural was being painted. It took 17 years from conception to completion in 1993 and more than once suffered the indignity of being vandalised by moronic Mosley manques in the National Front and the BNP.

A couple of years ago when the BBC approached me to make what they called an 'authored documentary' on any subject about which I felt passionate, I proposed an investigation into modern anti-Semitism to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Cable Street last October.

My thesis was that while the Far Right hasn't gone away, the motive force behind the recent increase in anti-Jewish activity comes from the Fascist Left and the Islamonazis.

It was an idea which vanished into the bowels of the commissioning process, never to return. Eventually the Beeb told me that they weren't making any more 'authored documentaries'.

I couldn't help wondering what might have happened if I'd put forward a programme on 'Islamophobia'. It would probably have become a six-part, primetime series and I'd have been up for a BAFTA by now.

But I persevered and Channel 4 picked up the project. You can see the results on Monday night.
When some people heard I was making the programme, their first reaction was: 'I didn't know you were Jewish.'

I'm not, but what's that got to do with the price of gefilte fish? They simply couldn't comprehend why a non-Jew would be in the slightest bit interested in investigating anti-Semitism.

If I had been making a film about Islamophobia, no one would have asked me if I was Muslim.

The Labour MP John Mann told me that he experienced exactly the same reaction when he instigated a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism.

'As soon as I set it up, the first MP who commented to me said: "Oh, I didn't know you were Jewish, John."' He isn't, either.

But the implication was plainly that the very idea of anti-Semitism is the invention of some vast Jewish conspiracy.

Mann's inquiry reported: 'It is clear that violence, desecration and intimidation directed towards Jews is on the rise. Jews have become more anxious and more vulnerable to attack than at any time for a generation or longer.'

That certainly bears out my own findings. After three months filming across Britain, I reached the conclusion: It's open season on the Jews.

Ever since 9/11 I've detected an increase in anxiety among Jewish friends and neighbours in my part of North London. As I've always argued: just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

When I went to address a ladies' charity lunch at a synagogue in Finchley, I was astonished at the level of security. You don't expect to see bouncers in black bomber jackets on the door at a place of worship.

I soon discovered this wasn't unusual. Nor is it confined to London. The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, Mike Todd, took me out on patrol with his officers and members of the Community Security Trust, which provides protection for the Jewish community.

These patrols are mounted every Friday night following a series of unprovoked attacks on Jews on their way to synagogue. We passed a care home surrounded by barbed wire.

At the King David School, there are high fences, floodlights, CCTV cameras and fulltime guards. It was the kind of security you associate with a prison.

They're even installing bombproof windows in many prominent Jewish institutions and running evacuation drills.

This sounded to me like Cold War panic. Surely it's all a bit over the top? Far from it, said Todd.

'We know that people carry out hostile reconnaissance. You do know that there will be attacks potentially and so what we're trying to do is make it a hostile environment to those people who want to engage in anti-Semitic attacks.'

In the past two years, Manchester police reported a 20 per cent rise in anti-Semitic incidents. I visited a Jewish cemetery in the north of the city which has been repeatedly desecrated - headstones and graves smashed, swastikas daubed on memorials. It was heartbreaking.

That type of cowardly vandalism is almost certainly the handiwork of Far Right skinheads. But the more serious threat comes from Islamist extremists.

Police and the security services say they have uncovered a series of plots by groups linked to Al Qaeda to attack Jewish targets in Britain.

As Channel 4's own Undercover Mosque documentary exposed earlier this year, anti-Jewish sermons are routinely preached in Britain. Anti-Semitic hatred is beamed in on satellite TV channels and over the internet.

On London's Edgware Road, just around the corner from the Blairs' new Connaught Square retirement home, I was able to buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. It was on open sale alongside the evening paper and the Kit-Kats.

You don't even have to be Jewish to find yourself on the end of anti-Semitic hatred. I met a Jack the Ripper tour guide in East London who was beaten up by a group of Muslim youths, who took one look at his period costume - long black coat and black hat - and assumed he was an Orthodox Jew and therefore deserving of a kicking. They didn't want 'dirty Jews' in 'their' neighbourhood.

During the 2005 General Election, anti-war activists targeted Labour MPs who supported the invasion of Iraq. Fair enough, that's a legitimate enough ambition in a democracy.

But in the case of Lorna Fitzsimons, the member for Rochdale, the campaign to unseat her took a sinister turn.

An outfit calling itself The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) - basically two brothers above a kebab shop - published leaflets 'accusing' her of being Jewish, even though she's not.

'They said I was part of the world neo-Con Zionist conspiracy. I think it's deeply insidious and worrying that they felt there was so much anti-Semitism in the local community that it would galvanise the vote.' In the event, she lost her seat by a few hundred votes and is certain the MPAC smear campaign swung it.

Opposition to the war and loathing of Israel has led the selfstyled 'anti-racist' Left to make common cause with Islamonazis. And 'anti-Zionism' soon tips over into straight- forward anti-Semitism.

When The Observer columnist Nick Cohen - who has always considered himself of the Left and, despite the surname, isn't Jewish either - wrote a piece defending the toppling of Saddam he was deluged with hate mail.

'It was amazing anti-Semitism, you know - you're only saying this because you're a Jew.'

Cohen has also noticed the casual anti-Jewish sentiment around Left-wing dinner tables and in the salons of Islington.

He is appalled by the way in which his old comrades-in-arms have embraced terrorist groups like Hezbollah, one of the most anti-Semitic organisations on Earth.

Check out the way the National Union of Journalists singles out Israel for boycott, even though it has the only free press in the Middle East. Or the academic boycott of Israel by the university lecturers, which as the lawyer Anthony Julius and the law professor Alan Dershowitz argue, goes way beyond legitimate protest. The sheer ferocity and violence of the arguments is nothing more than naked anti-Semitism.

Under the guise of 'anti-Zionism', anti- Semitism is rife on British university campuses. But still the Government refuses to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahir, motto: 'Jews will be killed wherever they can be found.'

Then there is self-proclaimed 'anti-racist' Ken Livingstone, who said to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, who approached him outside County Hall: 'What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?'

When Finegold explained that he was Jewish and was deeply offended by the remark, Livingstone compared him to a 'concentration camp guard'.

Attempting to justify himself, Livingstone put on his best Kenneth Williams 'Stop Messing About' voice and protested that he wasn't being anti-Jewish since he was rude about everyone. That was his Get Out Of Jail Free gambit.

Funny how that excuse didn't work for Bernard Manning.

But under the Macpherson code to which Livingstone subscribes, a racist incident is one which anyone perceives as racist - intended victim or onlooker. It's curious how in multi-cultural, diverse, inclusive, anti-racist Britain, the rules don't seem to extend to the Jews. Livingstone would never have dreamed of being that offensive to a Muslim, or Jamaican, journalist.


Any Tory who made similar remarks would have been hounded from office - and Livingstone would have been leading the lynch mob.


Blaming Israel is the last refuge of the anti-Semite. Livingstone insists he's not anti-Jewish, he just opposes the policies of the Israeli government.

So perhaps he can explain what the hell the conflict in the Middle East has to do with calling a Jewish reporter a German war criminal and a concentration camp guard? Where exactly does the Palestinian cause fit into that equation?


'If you have people like the Mayor of London crossing the line, then making a half-apology, and stumbling through that, then it gives a message out to the rest of the community. That is why anti-Semitism is on the rise again - because it's become acceptable,' says John Mann, whose parliamentary inquiry team was shocked at the scale and nature of what it unearthed.


'Every single member of our committee was stunned at some of the things they found out. It wasn't a Britain that they recognised. It's almost as if it's a throwback. We thought these were things we'd seen in the past, and we hoped had gone.'


As A Labour MP he's appalled at the way many on the Left have become almost casually and routinely anti-Semitic. 'We wouldn't have seen this ten or 15 years ago. This idea that in some way there's a conspiracy of Jews running the world goes back to the Elders of the Protocols of Zion (a long since discredited book, though still popular in the Muslim world) in the last century. We've seen this before, and now it's resurgent.'


Seventy years after Cable Street, we've gone full circle. The Left who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jews against the Blackshirts are now in the vanguard of the new anti-Semitism.


The Britannia has long since closed and the Jewish community has moved on, but the mural remains. The synagogues have been replaced by mosques.


Where the East End was once a hotbed of Far Right extremism, these days it's the stomping ground of George Galloway's Respect Party, a grubby alliance of Islamic extremists and the old Socialist Workers Party - at the heart of the new 'We Are All Hezbollah Now' activism.


While we were shooting the final sequence of next Monday's film in front of the mural, a scruffy-looking bloke wandered out of what used to be the Britannia and now seems to have been turned into some kind of glorified squat.


He recognised me, identified himself as a member of Respect, objected to what I was saying to camera and tried to disrupt us.


Outnumbered, he shuffled away again, shouting. He did not pass.


The Second Battle of Cable Street, it wasn't.


• The War On Britain's Jews? is on Channel 4 on Monday at 8pm.

[ascendinglark]

I can absolutely confirm that the left is now the greatest source of anti-semitism. There's a group of leftists who protest Israel every weekend at Union Square in Manhattan, I've stood and listened to them on a number of occasions. When speaking to a crowd, they are careful not to cross the line from Israel bashing to Jew bashing, but when you listen to them engage people in the crowd one on one afterwards, then their attitudes border on outright Nazism. And to hear the assorted lefty hipsters and other "right on" people agreeing with them and nodding their heads - it's really scary to witness.

There was one time a little old Jewish lady approached the leader of the group to put him straight about a few things regarding Israel. He went berserk and started screaming in her face "I don't want to hear such bullshit, you're a f*cking Jew, all of you Israel apologists are f*cking Jews.

You will also find much anti-semitism from the left when it comes to Capitalism, the "horrors" of which they often associate with Jews. On a related note, if you go check out some of the anti-semitism on the Naziesque "Stormfront" site, many of them are rabidly anti Capitalism, which they see as the frontline of "Jewish greed".

If you imagine the political spectrum from right to left as a circle, it's only a short hop from far-left to far-right.

I think anti-Americanism is now taking on much of the same characteristics of anti-Semitism - irrational, misguided, based on lies and conjecture, ultimately based on rabid hatred. I have a friend in London who told me that at a recent festival she went to, the entire crowd started booing when a DJ got up to start his set and talked to the crowd in an American accent. They started throwing bottles at him. These attitudes will go unchecked, because the leftist establishment which PURPORTS to be "anti-bigotry" is actually highly bigoted itself.

[steevo]

Under the guise of 'anti-Zionism', anti- Semitism is rife on British university campuses. But still the Government refuses to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahir, motto: 'Jews will be killed wherever they can be found.'

Again, tolerance of the intolerant when they are in bed with the Left.

But under the Macpherson code to which Livingstone subscribes, a racist incident is one which anyone perceives as racist - intended victim or onlooker. It's curious how in multi-cultural, diverse, inclusive, anti-racist Britain, the rules don't seem to extend to the Jews. Livingstone would never have dreamed of being that offensive to a Muslim, or Jamaican, journalist.

Christians in our country have to tolerate that double standard. Frankly any minority who happens to be a conservative whether Jew, black, Hispanic... anyone, who the Left normally champion can be discriminated against with racist and bigoted sentiment. In time I've watched it become more accepted. On the net just as an example you can read much of this at the Daily Kos, the most prominent American left-wing activist blog site.

Seventy years after Cable Street, we've gone full circle. The Left who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jews against the Blackshirts are now in the vanguard of the new anti-Semitism.

It says it all... how true. The Left are fascist.


Al... you have said a lot and again not very pleasant.

And to hear the assorted lefty hipsters and other "right on" people agreeing with them and nodding their heads - it's really scary to witness.

I see these types every day. It is scary. Mindless hate. Geese remember the flower children?


I am surprised they're gonna show this Teddy. I just have to wonder if the Beeb are concerned about increasing talk, and not about Jews.

[sirocco]

I didn't see the documentary last night... wish I had though. But just reading through this post and it's links, I can see a familiar pattern: sensationalism by the Police (again)... please let me explain first.

I have lived in Agecroft for about 22 years and the graveyard that was allegedly vandalised is about 2 minutes walk from my house. Cheetham Hill - where King David's School resides - is about 10 minutes drive too. Being local then, you get to see what is really going on and not what the Police/Media want people to hear.

Cheetham Hill/Prestwich/Sedgley Park has a massive population of the Jewish community... probably the biggest in Manchester. The hatred is a reality but they admirably stick together and become stronger all the time. I've seen first hand the abuse that they take from Asians, Black people, White people... just about everyone. Cheetham Hill has a very large population of the Asian community too. To be precise, the number of different cultures is quite impressive. The Police have all too easily just labelled this as racial hatred towards Jews without even being bothered to explain what is going on.


There are two main issues causing problems:

1) Housing is one. The Jewish community is rapidly growing in the above three areas. You hardly see For Sale signs in these areas as the will for the two main ethnic cultures (Jews/Asians) to move into the safety of a community they know is strong. This does cause friction as people feel 'invaded' (not just Asians) by the Jewish community.

2) Local businesses (specifically Cheetham Hill) is a problem too. Vandalism occurs on both Jewish AND Asian shops quite regularly (and let's not forget King David's School too). Nobody really gets to know who has done it. The Police label it how they see fit without investigating what has really happened. Understandibly, there is anger between everyone and people are quick to blame whoever they see fit. The Police are put under pressure to get a result and so cut corners. It really is who shouts the loudest sometimes.

Moving onto the disgraceful vandalism of the graveyard in Agecroft, I think a few points need to be mentioned first. Agecroft is quite a deprived area. There is a very large council estate on Rainsough Brew and the cemetary is more or less opposite. Vandalsim is rife in the area and a lot of youths in the area use Agecroft country park to hang around in (which is right next to the cemetary).

I'm not saying Nazi thugs didn't vandalise the graveyard, because not even the Police know - they NEVER caught anybody. However, there is another (non-jewish) cemetry 5 minutes walk away and that IS vandalised regulary but the Police never mention anything about that. The kids around here are always throwing bricks at windows; joyriding is common leaving burnt out cars for everyone to see the next day; and ethnic minorities whether they be Jewish, Black, Asian, etc. always get abused on the street.

Finally, I know full well that I am only speaking with knowledge of the area that area I live in. The rest of the country will be a mixture of the same or completely different. My gripe is with the Police who don't have the guts to admit that they have monumentally f^&^& up on a number of issues in Manchester in general. Their incompentence is unparalleled and they are unfit to service the community. Sadly, these days, It is all too easy for them to show the little good that they DO do on the various TV programmes that are aired across the various TV channels and everyone thinks they are wonderful.

[indikit]

As an interesting personal experience of my own, I have recently been accused of being racist because of my anti-Islam views by someone I can only describe as an extreme left wing fanatic. He hates the police, thinks EVERY black person who is arrested is innocent, and is so anti-American it's embarrasing. His argument is that Islamophobia is purely for racists.

The saddest thing of all is that this guy is actually Jewish himself.

There is no hope - utterly no hope whatsoever for anyone on the extreme left. They are tantamount to a dangerous religion.

[steevo]

For anyone who has not seen it, its on YouTube in 6 installments here.

[steevo]

A letter from a beleaguered Brit:

Unsolicited from a reader in the UK:

I am just heartily sick of the sensation that I am being ethnically, culturally and demographically cleansed out of existence. Maybe that's an overreaction. But my home town of Rochdale in the UK looks like a suburb of Islamabad. And forget Muslims feeling cowed after 9/11 - no way it was only after 9/11 that the burqas and beards became popular and it was from then on that my grandmother felt real hostility wearing her (jewish) father's Star of David on a chain around her neck. In 2001 the North of England was subjected to nights of rioting caused by Pakistani men; I expect we'll see much worse in the years to come, particularly since the response to those riots was for masses of academics and liberal commentators to see the obvious and instead blame the host community. And nobody wants to mention the increasing harassment of the North's Jewish communities in areas such as Prestwich.

[Teddy Bear]

Welcome Sirocco.

You make a valid point that not all attacks on Jews or Jewish sites qualify as anti-Semitism. Some are just victims of chance. All the citizens of this country, regardless of colour or religion, accept that crime happens, and most is 'blind'. However, if this attack is coupled with a derogatory term or sign, indicating that the attacker purposefully targetted this victim or group, then it is indeed racist.

In the footage that Littlejohn showed of the cemetery, many of the graves were painted with swastikas, and other offensive writing. This was not 'idle' vandalism. but an intention to create fear and mistrust against the Jews.

Those with evil intent against Jews have an agenda by which they are even trying to make making it difficult for Jews to voice their fears and incidents, by proclaiming anything that happens to a Jew, is termed anti-Semitism, thereby 'reducing' the significance.

[Teddy Bear]

Thanks for posting that link Steevo

[Teddy Bear]

Indi, I have heard of similar accounts of 'self-hating' Jews. There's probably some psychologist who earned his doctorate with a thesis on the subject.

[sirocco]

Teddy Bear, thanks for welcoming me... and I fully respect your point of view and don't wish offend anyone on this forum.

However, I've digested your comments and decided to take the dog for a walk and go on a 'sight seeing' tour to get some fresh air. The swastikas have long gone... but I knew that already because I live round here. Then I walked past the local corner shop owned by the two Muslims I know very well... they've still got "F$%$ O$% You P$%i B£$$%Ds" painted on their wall which they refuse to remove, because one day the Police might do something (fat chance). Then a few minutes away we have a Christian church... and for some stange reason we have strange symbols on the wall... ahh yes... they are Islamic symbols... and from the many sources I have spoke to they basically mean "Infidel" "Go to hell" "Antichrist". Then we have the Jewish graveyard in question... 20ft fences, regular Police patrols, 24 hour security with Alsation dogs...

Right lets get to the point... 2 women have been raped in the last 2 months... there has been one murder... umpteen muggins... and half of Manchester's Police force is camped outside a graveyard doing nothing but scratching their crotches. Please... get a train, get a bus, whatever... and see for yourself before defending something your have now proven you know nothing about.

I am not Orthodox and my surname isn't Cohen but I AM Jewish and don't need a Channel 4 documentary to show what is already obviously there.

We just want to be left alone with no publicity. We already KNOW the BBC are racist. We DON'T need Police help as they just make the situation even worse.

Like I said, thanks for your comments... Shalom.

[Teddy Bear]

Sirocco, I'm not entirely sure the point you're trying to make. My understanding is that you are saying that there is also anti-Christian acts going on, and not only anti-Semitic, besides mindless vandalism and muggings.

I would anyway believe that militant Islamists are targetting all other religions and beliefs, and would welcom an exposee on this too. What was heartening about Littlejohn's programme was it did show Islamists were responsible for inciting violence against Jews as well as the BNP. We know too well how the media tends to become very 'PC' when it comes to denouncing 'Islam' for anything.

As far as the police are concerned in tackling the problem, my feeling is it is not that they are unable to do anything about it, but more the government restrictions which basically 'ties their hands'. So long as the left leaning government feels they can appease these militants, and avoid direct confrontation, then other religious victims will increase.

I do appreciate your taking the time to research this matter, I hope also you will watch the programme, the links for which Steevo posted above, to understand the point being made by it. Also I welcome future contributions on this and any other topic that takes your fancy.