On Monday I reported on the vote by Britain’s National Union of Journalists to boycott Israel. It was picked up elsewhere too. The same day Caroline Glick cited it as one of a set of examples in her Jerusalem Post column about Britain entitled ‘The weakest link’ which sets out why Israel should ‘cease viewing [Britain] as an ally.’
Glick writes:
‘The sad truth is that British journalists are far from the worst Israel-bashers in Britain. Anti-Semitism has increasingly become the defining characteristic of British society.
‘First there are the non-governmental organizations. Last week, Oxfam, one of Britain's largest charities, chastised Blair, claiming that both his decision to participate in the US-led campaign in Iraq and his refusal to side with Hizbullah against Israel in last summer's war have damaged Britain's international clout. Oxfam is calling for the UK and the EU to resume their transfer payments to the Hamas-controlled PA.’
The conclusion Glick reaches is that:
‘As with France, it is possible for Israel to cooperate with Britain on certain levels, but impossible to trust British support on any level. Although they share the same enemies and interests as Israel, the British, blinded by their bigotry, are incapable of understanding this basic reality. Until they do, Israel must keep its distance and watch its back when the British come a-calling.’
I can’t entirely agree that this is the case, but it says a lot for the message Britain is currently giving out to the world that such a column can be written. And is it any wonder people are thinking like this?
Giving a speech in Budapest this morning, the first question an audience member asked me when it got to the Q and A session was about the story in British newspapers a fortnight ago that teachers in the UK are increasingly reluctant to teach about the Holocaust in their schools for fear of ‘upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial’. The Department of Education – backed study reported especial fears that ‘Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.’
In a city which lost half of its Jewish population - more than 100,000 Jews - during the second world war, and where the Jews who survived only did so because of individual acts of astonishing bravery, the report that British teachers won’t even tell the story of the Holocaust is deeply shaming.
A union’s vote here, a government report there – do people in Britain ever stop to consider what message we are giving out? Our service personnel have been humiliated before our allies, and every day brings a drip-drip of stories of pettiness, viciousness and surrender. Is it any wonder our allies are thinking as they are?