Here, in its entirety, is a commentary by Michael Deacon in London’s Daily Telegraph. It talks about the daily protests against Israel/in favor of Palestinian Arabs (more exactly, hamas-controlled Gaza) being held by leftists in London.
I present it with no commentary of my own…because it doesn’t need any:
If these ‘pro-Palestinian’ marches aren’t anti-Semitic, answer me this
Life is full of little mysteries. For example: why do the words “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing? Why do Americans insist on pronouncing “herbs” as “erbs”? Why does my phone’s autocorrect function appear to have been programmed by someone who can’t spell or punctuate?
Oh, and one more, while we’re at it. If British Leftists care as much as they claim to about the lives of innocent civilians in the Middle East, why didn’t they hold weekly mass marches demanding a ceasefire in Syria?
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, more than 350,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians. Some, as it happens, were Palestinians. An estimated 4,000 of them have been killed in the Syrian war. Meanwhile, around 120,000 Palestinians have fled Syria, and a further 280,000 have been internally displaced.
Despite the deaths, displacement and destitution of all these Palestinians and other innocent people, however, British Leftists have scarcely protested at all. Indeed, of the few British-based protests relating to the Syrian conflict, most were organised to oppose Western intervention in it. According to a BBC news report from August 2013, for instance, “several hundred” people marched on Downing Street, brandishing placards that read “Hands off Syria”.
On reflection, this approach seems curiously inconsistent. When civilians are being killed by one Middle Eastern country, British Leftists appear to take little interest, or argue that the West should keep its nose out and mind its own business.
Yet, when civilian deaths can be attributed to a certain other Middle Eastern country – one which, by sheer coincidence, happens to be the only country in the world with a population that is predominantly Jewish – British Leftists immediately seize the opportunity to condemn it, and march in furious protest against that country every Saturday for months on end, while taking particular relish in likening it to Nazi Germany, and ignoring the point that the country in question is retaliating to the kidnapping, rape and slaughter of its people by a Jew-hating terrorist group that is officially committed to the country’s eradication.
Two strikingly different responses. What on earth could account for such a discrepancy? Truly, my dear Watson, this is a three-pipe problem, and no mistake.
There’s only one thing we know for certain: when these Leftists insist that they aren’t anti-Semitic, it would be terribly hurtful to doubt them.
