Whatever happened to British philo-Semitism?

An Indian living in the West writes:

Was in central London today and saw placards for the protest against the Israeli bombing campaign. It is astonishing how blind these people are. Astonishing. They don’t seem to notice a single rocket that Hezbollah fire at Israel but they notice every casualty the Israelis inflict.

The British have become a very sick society. Sick. There is no other word for it.

Kevin O. writes from England:

On the subject of generalisations, and at risk of sounding sickeningly PC, I would like to add that, if “The British” are sick (“Whatever happened to British philo-Semitism?”, August 4), speaking as one of them I can say that the only political rally I have ever attended in London was one in Trafalgar Square two or three years ago in support of Israel and protesting the relentless suicide bombing of her citizens.

The original commenter replies:

I wasn’t suggesting that every native British individual down to a man has become sick. There are undoubtedly people still left in this country who have good sense and healthy instincts. But they are a small minority. I would remind Kevin that a few years ago, a survey was carried out in Europe about which countries have the most negative opinion of Israel. Britain came out on top with 65 percent of those polled believing that Israel and the US were the greatest threat to world peace.

Let’s just think about that for a minute. The Chinese who supplied nukes to North Korea and Pakistan, the Iranians led by their mullahs and developing nuclear weapons, Saddam (he was in power at the time) or Pakistan now with nukes and sitting on a ticking time bomb of Islamic revolution do not constitute the greatest threat to world peace. The greatest threat is America (one could defend this on the ground that it is the world’s only superpower) and Israel(!!!??).

The British are sick. There is no doubt about it. However, it is a mistake to see this as driven by a departure from their traditional philo-Semitism. This is liberalism at its most decadent. Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with it (except in the case of Britain’s Muslim population which is mostly anti-Semitic).

LA comments:

I agree. By my choice of title, I did not mean that a departure from its traditional philo-Semitism was the cause of Britain’s current state, but that it is certainly an effect of it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 05, 2006 01:23 PM | Send