antisemitism Archives | MelaniePhillips.com

Support for Black Lives Matter repeats a lethal error of history

August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Black Lives Matter, Democratic party, Stalinism

In the 20th century, thousands of progressively minded people supported Soviet communism. Believing this ideology was the key to a better world, they refused to acknowledge the horrific abuses under Stalin when millions were brainwashed, murdered or starved to death. Today’s progressives are behaving in similar fashion in response to another onslaught on civilized values, perpetrated in the name of an ideology with the same roots as Soviet communism. And just as in the last century, a dismaying number of its cheerleaders are Jews. In both America and Britain, Jewish…

Culture wars Jewish people

The progressive world: an antechamber to evil

July 31, 2020July 31, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Democratic party, western values, Wiley

After days of antisemitic rants on social media, the “Grime” rapper Wiley has finally been barred from Twitter and Facebook following outrage by Jews and others that he was allowed to use these platforms for his vicious incitement. This episode was particularly chilling. It involved a sustained onslaught of anti-Jewish invective by a prominent public figure who described Jews as “cowards and snakes,” likened them to the Ku Klux Klan and suggested they should be shot. He could do this with impunity because no one saw fit to stop him…

Britain Jewish people

Betraying Jewish history by watering down the Holocaust

July 24, 2020July 24, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Holocaust memorial, Uighurs

In my JNS column below, I refer to a talk given by Baroness Deech. Her text is reproduced below my own article. The British baroness Ruth Deech, whose family were Jewish refugees from Nazism, recently delivered an impassioned address to the Oxford Jewish community about the way the Holocaust is being evacuated of meaning by memorials and museums in its name. Her concern was prompted by the controversial plan to build a Holocaust memorial and learning center in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens, a small park near the Houses of Parliament.…

Britain Israel

Why Starmer cannot succeed over antisemitism

July 19, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Keir Starmer, Labour party

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has now sent its report on Labour antisemitism to the party leadership so it can register its response before publication. The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has said getting rid of the party’s Jew-hatred is his first priority. The big question, though, is whether he can do so even if he accepts all the commission’s conclusions. He drew many plaudits for sacking from his front bench Rebecca Long-Bailey, after she tweeted a link to an interview voicing a Jewish conspiracy theory. But other actions…

Britain Culture wars Videos

Conversation: the eclipse of liberalism and the failure of conservatism

July 9, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Conservatism, liberalism

I was pleased to have a long video conversation (in two parts) with John O’Sullivan, former senior policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher and now president of the Danube Institute, a think-tank based in Hungary. Our conversation started by talking about my early years at The Guardian newspaper and my experiences while working there which led me to break with the left. We discussed my play, Traitors (yes, I did write one and it was actually performed at a fringe theatre in London in 1986), my experience of antisemitism which led…

Culture wars Israel Jewish people

Jews’ lives matter

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Labour party, Maxine Peake, Rebecca Long-Bailey

The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has sacked the party’s shadow education secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, for tweeting a link to an interview in which actress Maxine Peake gave vent to an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Peake repeated the baseless claim that has been bouncing round the internet that the tactics used by American police on George Floyd, who died under the knee of a police officer pinning him down, were “learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”. This is a malevolent falsehood. As the Israeli police have said: “There is…

Culture wars Jewish people

How racist “victim culture” tears up Jewish moral norms

June 5, 2020 MelanieAmerican Jews, antisemitism, George Floyd, riots

The appalling rioting that followed the shocking death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer has left a trail of devastation across America. Once again, however, Jews have found themselves singled out for particular attack. In Los Angeles, Jewish-owned stores and synagogues in Beverly Hills and the heavily orthodox Fairfax district were looted and defaced with anti-Jewish graffiti. How could this Jew-hatred have occurred in what was repeatedly described as “protests” against racism? And why were so few Jewish voices raised against either this or the general…

Britain Israel USA Videos

The leftward movement of diaspora Jews

May 13, 2020May 14, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, diaspora, EMET, jews

Is there a leftward movement of diaspora Jews? I took part in a webinar organised by EMET, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, which does sterling work defending Israel against the calumnies that distressingly pass for received wisdom in so much of the west. At this webinar, which was attended by more than 430 people, Caroline Glick and I were talking about the state of the Jewish community in the US and Britain. We discussed the scourge of antisemitism, the contribution to this of left-wing politics and whether or not…

Jewish people

UK Jews too eager to embrace Starmer’s still dubious Labour party

May 1, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, Board of Deputies, Keir Starmer, Labour party

In both Britain and America, the Jewish community is increasingly badly served by leaders who seem less and less able to distinguish between the friends and the enemies of the Jewish people. In America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has been convulsed by controversy over appointing Dianne Lob as its new chairman. Lob is the former president of HIAS, an organization originally established to assist Jewish refugees but which has morphed into a body closely associated with anti-Israel and Islamist groups. In Britain, this week a…

Jewish people USA

Mining for hate in “The Plot Against America”

March 20, 2020 Melanieantisemitism, conspiracy theories, Donald Trump, Philip Roth

The coronavirus pandemic has produced an intensification of anti-Jewish paranoia. One guest on Turkish television said “Jews, Zionists have organized and engineered the novel coronavirus as a biological weapon just like bird flu” to “design the world, seize countries and neuter the world’s population.” Similar vile theories are circulating in the West. False claims are being spread that Israel hasn’t helped the Palestinians in this crisis. In fact, Israel, has distributed testing kits to the Arabs in Gaza and the disputed territories, while its health ministry has provided Arab Israelis…