by Juliet Samuel, The Times
Much of Britain’s problem with antisemitism is imported — we should look to Muslim countries for answers to Islamism
The worst part is the way it gets into your head. I say that as someone not visibly Jewish, because if I were, that wouldn’t be the worst part. The great, antisemitic wave crashing over Europe makes the question of where we belong — which modern, secular people dodge with frenetic activity most of the time — painfully unavoidable. Do we, to be blunt, belong in Britain?
It is not a comfortable question to ask openly when you grow up to understand that your first defence is invisibility and that religious affiliation is a gauche topic for a public discussion. But increasingly, moments are arising when it is no longer decent to allow the brunt to be borne only by the visible. And it is impossible to leave certain things unsaid.
The most obvious thing that must be said — and I wonder if the Jewish leadership in Downing Street this week said it — is that our situation is a direct result of the mass migration embraced by successive governments for at least a generation. Specifically, it is a result of Muslim mass migration. Under the pressure of this change, established aspects of the British civic settlement are unravelling.
First, a caveat, and then some facts. Islam is a deep and varied religion, whose two billion followers include every kind of person and believer. Islamic culture and empires are replete with wonder and beauty as well as violence and subjugation. But it is of little relevance here to engage in academic argument about the beauty of Sufi architecture, Arabic translations of Aristotle or the sublime invention of algebra. It is equally pointless to argue that Muslims and liberal democracy cannot thrive together. They must. We must.
What concerns us is the disproportionate number of Muslims in this country who hate Jews and Judaism, and the now-unmanageably large number of those susceptible to the idea that it is good and dutiful to attack, harass and kill us. Polling bears out the theory that there are much, much higher levels of anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslims than others.
Read also: I’ll say it if Starmer won’t. Islam is the cause of Jew hatred by Frank Haviland, TCW