Tonight at 7.55pm on Channel 4 I am in 4ThoughtTV’s slot on whether Jews are still persecuted in Britain today, which is the theme of the week.
There are seven contributions in all. Here is the link to mine and the other six:
1. I spoke about my experiences of harassment at anti-Israel events when I have merely tried to get Israel’s point of view across.
2. Stephen Sizer is an anti-Israel/anti-Zionist Christian Minister. I once went to hear him speak at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event held in a church. He said, inter alia, that churches that side with Israel have “repudiated Jesus, have repudiated the bible and are an abomination”. On my way out of that meeting I was accosted by an audience member who let out some of the most Holocaust denying anti-Jewish vitriol I have ever heard. She told me, inter alia, that Jews died in the Holocaust from having “had their foreskins chopped off.”
In his 4Thought clip Sizer claims it’s important to be able to criticise certain Israeli policies without being accused of anti-Semitism. Let’s be clear: criticising Israel’s policies is legitimate, just like it is legitimate to criticise the policies of any country.
Sizer and his ilk are accused of anti-Semitism because they want the world’s only Jewish state to disappear. This is completely different to criticising Israel’s policies. Instead, they single out the Jewish state, the collective Jew, for destruction. So, Sizer is being highly disingenuous. If he were truthful he would have admitted he wants the Jewish state removed.
3. Another who wants the Jewish state removed is Ahron Cohen, of the extremist religious Jewish sect the Neturei Karta which believes that Jews should only go to the Holy Land once they have received a direct order from God to do so. The Neturei Karta also embraces Iran’s Holocaust denying President Ahmadinejad who repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel. Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei has referred to Israel as “the Zionist cancerous tumour in the heart of the Islamic world”.
In his clip, Cohen blames Palestinian terrorism “on the very existence of the sectarian state known as Israel”.
4. Mike Marcus has also fallen for the myth that “The Zionist lobby uses the label of anti-Semitism to silence their critics”.
5. Jose Martin correctly blames the media for whipping up anti-Semitism due to its unfair reportage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
6. Yisrael Abeles, a Holocaust survivor, also blames the media for driving much of what has, these days, become “institutionalised anti-Semitism” as opposed to street anti-Semitism.
7. The most moving clip is by schoolgirl Eden Simones-Jones who says that she still suffers from depression and anxiety due to anti-Semitic harassment. She finishes:
“If people say there is no problem with anti-Semitism, I think they should wake-up, open their eyes and really look about what’s going out there because they’re obviously sheltered in their own little dreamland where everything’s rosy, because anti-Semitism’s everywhere. You’ve just got to know what to look for.”
Sadly, she’s right. Anti-Semitism is everywhere. In Britain today anti-Zionism, an attack on Israel as the collective Jew, is the modern updated version of anti-Semitism, the attack on Jews as individuals. “Anti-Zionism” is a label that has been adopted by many of Britain’s academics, journalists, politicians, religious leaders and charities to hide their true feelings about Jews. This is the “institutionalised anti-Semitism” referred to by Yisrael Abeles.
RichardMillett's Blog 
thanks Richard for letting me see and hear you in person without one of those to my taste ugliness itself baseball caps.
I think you performed very well – I viewed it a second time putting on my neutral hat (keeping my curiosity out of the game) and decided that what you did should have an effect.
Apparently were even checking for anti-semitic activities at the memorial service for Hannah Braun, Richard.
A police warning came after you were finally ejected for videoing individual attendees and proceedings at close quarters.
I wonder if Channel 4 knows the limits of your activities and the depths you’re prepared to go in your hunt for persecution.
Or perhaps your appearance at the memorial service with a video camera just another example of your “simply standing up” to speak on behalf of Israel.
Don’t believe all that the haters tell you.
‘Haters’ being those who hate being filmed at memorial services?
You’re not the only one with a camera to record events, you do know?
Your slot is really very good ..you make good point’s. I agree entirely with what you say about Sizler. He makes out he’s a victim for merely criticising Israeli politics..As if he’s just criticising settlement building etc. I really don’t no how he squares this in his mind with his position in the church.
Beats me why “anti-Zionism” should be construed as a respectable (two-faced) alternative to anti-Semitism. If a person is genuinely anti-nationalist that’s one thing, but why pick on one particular nationalist movement?
Richard -you put it simply Well done ! “the ability to express oneself without being bullied” The importance of this cannot be over emphasised. For if people are fearful, they will undoubtedly remain silent against the lies that are intended to make Jews into villains and this has happened before in our history.
They must also be able to feel free to praise the Jewish State’s many achievements and rise above these lies (using sites such as free weekly news at http://www.verygoodnesisraelisrael.blogspot.com ) . . .
Perhaps a boycott of BRITAIN is in order, eh?
“If people say there is no problem with anti-Semitism, I think they should wake-up, open their eyes and really look about what’s going out there because they’re obviously sheltered in their own little dreamland where everything’s rosy, because anti-Semitism’s everywhere. You’ve just got to know what to look for.”
This type of phenomena is what I like to call gentile privilege. Hell, you could even go as far as to call it a manifestation of white privilege, if you’re like me and you don’t consider yourself white.
@Richard Millett – I must say, now that I’ve seen you on film, you aren’t a bit like what I imagined 😉
I watched it online last night, Richard. Hero!
Although I don’t go along with rabid bashing of NK, it stood out for me on Ahron Cohen’s clip that he on some level seems to think eggs thrown at his house are more serious than bombs on school buses in Israel.
I wish the Neturi Kapos would move to Gaza and show the world how “tolerant” Islamists are toward “authentic Jews” like the Neturi Kapos.
How mulit-cult Muslim Brotherhood Hamass is towards the necessary community infrastructure of synagogues, mikvas, kosher food stores that “authentic” Neturui Kapos require.
Great work Richard.. Sizer is an evil anti-s(edited by RM)!
Stephen Sizer is an anti-s(edited by RM). Anyone who does not realise this simply does not know what anti-semitism is – now very much part of the problem.
Churchmen in particular are very keen to classify everything in a linear progression from comments about noses & money through to gas chambers. They also very much like to think they have had a little vaccination & are now completely immune.
I ask what a man who is currently being charged with anti-semitism by the Board of Deputies is doing getting a slot to allow him a smooth talking condemnation of anti-semitic actives? Selective anti-semitic activities I might add. I do not think anyone will have to think too deep on this one.
Sadly, there are many “Christian” churchmen who do not believe what even the Christian scriptures say about Israel, let along the Hebrew scriptures (both of which they are supposed to believe).
Many of those (and the evidence suggests that Sizer is one) obviously don’t even KNOW the God they claim to serve – the true and living God, the God of Israel, the God who promised Abraham the Land of Israel (a greater area than she now holds) and said that through his descendant – the Messiah – all nations would be blessed!
People like Sizer are to Christianity what anti-Israel Jews are to Judaism – fools, traitors or both.
Prejudice is always abhorrent, Richard, – including your own. I and millions of others are not anti-Semitic because we do not support Israel’s imposition of apartheid on Palestinians. There are many Jews in Israel who also do not support the appalling injustices perpetrated by successive governments – are they anti-Semitic too?
Not sure from where you get that I am prejudiced, but feel free to provide any evidence you may have.
Richard
being prejudiced is a wonderful feeling as everybody who is or ever was in love will confirm.
In my book one can be in love with people – platonically or otherwise – but also with books, landscapes, poems, paintings, sculptures, smells or an almost superhuman achievement like a state that was against all odds built from scratch in historically viewed no time whatsoever.
The much bashed Noah Feldman once said something which I consider to be very true i.e. that to build institutions is incredibly difficult – he was amongst those who tried it in Iraq, so maybe he learned it there on the ground how full of pitfalls it is – and of course Israel has done it.
Wanting self-determination for your people is not apartheid, or even racist. Especially when said people have been persecuted continuously since being evicted from their historic homeland. If any group needs a state of their own, it’s definitely the Jewish people.
None of this justifies the occupation of Palestine (i.e. West Bank and Gaza), or the oppression carried out against their people there. But if you think we are somehow less entitled than any other group to independence and security in our own country (which is what most forms of anti-Zionism tacitly express), then yes, that is unquestionably antisemitic.
Dan
None of this justifies the occupation of Palestine (i.e. West Bank and Gaza), or the oppression carried out against their people there.
first Gaza isn’t occupied – second statements like the above always remind me of Rumpelstilzken in which the king says to the miller’s daughter, either spin this straw to gold or I’ll kill you.
There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’, Dan. Learn some history.
Brian Holley, If anyone is racist, it is you. Your unwillingness to hold “palestinians” to civilized standards of behavior that you hold others reflects poorly on yourself.
REAL apartheid exists in every Arab country in the Middle East.
Gender apartheid. Exclusion of churches in Saudi Arabia. Muslims Only cities in Saudi Arabia. Bombing of churches in Pakistan and Nigeria. Public executions of gays in the Islamist Regime of Iran. 44,000+ dead in Syria.
When will you face up to your own racism?
Brian, I get the impression that you really, sincerely believe the anti-Israel propaganda, just as most of the media seems to (unless of course some reporters regurgitate the Palestinian propaganda because they are afraid for their own lives if they don’t). The only reason for “apartheid” is that the Israeli government and military are trying to protect its citizens – which include Christian Arabs as well as Jews.
The Palestinian authority, on the whole, doesn’t seem to care about its citizens (again there may be deluded leaders even among them who love their people and, like you, sincerely believe their own propaganda).
The more innocent women and children are killed or injured the better the propaganda value, and the more the rest of the world will believe it.
No doubt some individual Israelis are just as vicious and hate-filled as any terrorist on the other side, but Israeli authorites would seek to clamp down on any abuses of authority among police and military. But that is a world away from what the Palestinian authority does – even to their own people.
“Israel’s imposition of apartheid on Palestinians” – brainless statement of the month. Well done!
Israel does not practice apartheid! It is a parliamentary democracy. There are arab Judges, soliders,MK’s. How many Jews do you find in the Iranian cabinet? It is not Israel who mistreats those in Gaza/Judea and Samaria but Hamas and the other terrorist groups.
Know your history.
Well done, Richard – some good points, well made. Eden Simones-Jones was indeed very moving – sad that behaviour (by her attackers) which would be punished as criminal in an adult seems to be indulged in teenagers. However, I think Jose Martin made the best contribution – deep, thoughtful, balanced and ultimately irrefutable.
Hi Richard,
Nice broadcast this evening on channel 4 – very well put.
Hamas thugs fire rockets at Israel from houses, schools & hospitals. Israel fires back to destroy the rocket launcher. Very regrettably innocent people get killed.
As Golda Meir once said, “we can forgive them for killing our children but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill theirs.”
Scott
… and here is Ben Gurion in support of “your” Golda Meir
It is a must read of the kind “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” and as to Israel’s position it is proof of an unwavering and highly laudable commitment.
I (Ben Gurion) said: we’re not going to target their civilians, their women and children, their villages, so we’ll have to take and destroy their fortifications.
http://israelsdocuments.blogspot.de/2012/12/whats-proportional-response.html
This is all part of the disgraceful vendetta against Stephen Sizer right ?
Wrong. Now do one.
Not quite. It is Stephen Sizer who has a “disgraceful vendetta” against Israel!
I think that the question they asked you was badly worded and a clear quantifier or article was missing. They should have either asked, “Are the Jews persecuted in Britain today?” or “Are any Jews persecuted in Britain today?”
In the absence of either I assume the question is asking whether any Jews are persecuted. I also think that the word persecution was inaccurate as it conjures up images of Czarist Russia. The question should have been as to whether there is anti-Semitism in Britain today.
I don’t think that the Neturei Karte creature said anything relevant to any of those questions, but instead attacked Zionism. Was it implying that all anti-Semitism that exists in the UK today is a consequence of Zionism? And if so, when exactly did this transformation take place? Has all British anti-Semitism always been caused by Zionism? Why did it exist prior to the advent of modern political Zionism? Why, for example, were Jews expelled from Britain? Was the Merchant of Venice also about Zionism?
I can understand the well-meaning man of the cloth and the lost atheist – I could conduct dialogue with either. When it came to Cohen I’m truly glad for it that I don’t live in the UK.
In fairness it also claimed that “Everybody who dies in Palestine whether Jewish or non-Jewish, the initial cause is Zionism”. No exception was even made for the 99.999% of us who die of sicknesses, old age, car crashes, etc. Is it claiming that if there was no Zionism nobody would have died since 1880? The mind boggles. If you want proof of the existence of anti-Semitism just read some of the responses he gets, including that of Mrs D Paris who seems to want to have Cohen’s baby.
There were also some interesting points made regarding the line between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews.
Eden Simones-Jones broke my heart. How could she not? I just wanted to shout at her and Richard and all the others, “It’s cold and dangerous out there and, more importantly, there’s nothing left for you to do. In heaven’s name just come home already!”
As someone living in Israel for 9 years, the push for me was defintely the New Statesman’s cover with the star of David piercing the Union Flag and the words “kosher conspiracy”
That was in 2002. It became clear to me that a very antisemitic flavour had entered the British middle class midset.
Even at university, when I was faced with pure antisemitism -with not a hint of the word Israel – this was dismissed. One example:The words “My family have had trouble with Jewish people before” would have been far more incendary to the wellmeaning non racists if they had been “My family have had trouble with Asian/ Black people” Take your pick. That was even in 1997 when there was still a peace process.
I’m afraid Britian is no longer great for the Jews.
“… the myth that “The Zionist lobby uses the label of anti-Semitism to silence their critics”. I’ve met it, repeatedly and with vehemence. It wasn’t a myth at all on those occasions, and from my perspective all I was doing was “criticising Israel’s policies” which you regard as legitimate. There are the intemperate and the prejudiced on *all* sides here, as well as calmer more rational voices. Pretending the loose cannons on one’s own side don’t exist doesn’t work very well. More’s the pity.
Did you also criticize Islamism and palestinianism?
The Islamism that produced the
– 7/7/05 bombing of London Transport?
– 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103?
– 9/11
– Calls for Sharia Law in the UK
– “compassionate” release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am 103
– open calls for 9/11 scale atrocities on the UK
– $100 per barrel OPEC oil
– 44,000+ dead in Syria by Islamists
– 8 year Iraq/Iran war
– open calls for genocide by the Islamist Regime of Iran
– stoning of girls to death over slights to “family honor”
– bombing of churches in Pakistan and Nigeria
Are you against all occupations?
– Gibraltar
– Falkland Islands
– Caribbean
The Falklands are not ‘occupied’. Their people want to be British.
Perhaps you are a fan of the fascist Argentinians.
Leah, I am neither a fan of the fascist Argentinians or the fascist Brits.
Nonsense, Chris. It’s obvious you were focusing on one tiny country fighting for survival. Now, one could wonder why that was …
I visit the UK once a year. Years ago I was told by friends and relative not to wear a star of David, do not refer to Israel or anything Jewish. Most of my Jewish relatives’s friends do not know they are Jewish! SO sad,
at least I can be openly Jewish in Canada.
G-D Bless Canada and Stephen Harper!
Myth? I think you make Mike Marcus’s point very well Richard – that “The Zionist lobby uses the label of anti-Semitism to silence their critics”.
Not a myth, maybe, but certainly a lie.
Your name isn’t Baruch but Stephen (or maybe Ben), and I claim my 5 quid.
The very essence of Richards TV appearance was to raise charges of the so-called anti-Semitism he experiences whilst lobbying for Israel’s Zionist policies. Hardly a myth or a lie. It’s there for all to watch, but only for those who choose to see I guess.
Barack, Is that like the Islamist Al Qada/Hamass/Hezbullah/CAIR lobby using the label of “Islamophobia” to silence their critics?
@TGIAI, until you have the basic decency to not twist my name then you’ll get no further response from me. It seems to be a perpetual habit of yours – replying with a twist on other peoples names – as if that’s somehow clever or derogatory. It’s a habit that you seem to take joy from, whilst all the time hiding behind an acronym. Bit sad that you get your energy that way.
How many Jews live in Arab countries? Very few! Why? Because they were expelled when Israel was formed in 1948.
How many Arabs live in Israel? Over 1 million, 20% of the population & they have full democratic rights, they can vote, serve in the army if they wish, etc
In 1967 before the 6 day war, when East Jerusalem was held by Palestinians, Jews were not allowed to pray at the Western Wall. Now that East Jerusalem is held by Israel, Palestinians are able to pray at the Temple Mount.
Who’s racist & who is not?
You can make your own minds up…
Next points:
1) Gaza has received $billions in aid. How much has been spent on educating their people, healthcare, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and how much has been spent on rockets?
2) Israel, in its early days, also received $billions in aid. It is now one of the most advanced economies in the world in terms of technology, agriculture, healthcare and engineering.
3) there is only 1 country which Jews can call their home in the world, Israel. How many Arab countries are there? Incidentally, the homeland for Palestinians was actually meant to be Jordan.
How many people making negative comments above have been to Israel? I have many times. It is an awe inspiring country. Incidentally, most computers, iPads, iPhones and servers have parts in them made in Israel.
When the rockets stop, Israel will make peace, like it has with Egypt and Jordan.