Why are Jewish people ‘wandering’ again?
by Douglas Murray, UnHerd:
Sometimes in the middle of grand political events – including grand political cock-ups – the story of one individual stands out and speaks for more than itself. Such a moment occurred last week with decision of one British man and his partner to leave the UK.
Mark Lewis (54) is not a household name. Although as one of Britain’s leading experts in media and libel law, plenty of the events of his life and career have intersected with moments of public interest.
[…] Lewis’s decision to leave the UK, then, is the sort of act that demands some attention.
As well as being a leading lawyer, Lewis is also Jewish. As is his partner, Mandy Blumenthal. In recent years, Lewis has watched events in Britain and across Europe with increasing concern. He has watched the attacks on Jews across the continent, and has seen anti-Semitism become acceptable again in Britain – this time on the political Left. And he has seen the equanimity with which British society, and the British state, has come to view anti-Jewish extremism.
For example, every year in London a march occurs called ‘The Al-Quds day march.’ It goes through the centre of London, passing the great institutions of the state, including the BBC. The day it commemorates was instituted by the late Ayatollah Khomeini and it is a day which Khomeini hoped would unite Muslims around the world. The specific purpose of the march is to call for the destruction of the state of Israel (“Al-Quds” being the Arabic for Jerusalem).
Each year, the march includes the most overt support for terrorism – including flying the flags of the terrorist group Hezbollah. The speeches follow suit. In 2017, one speaker at the Al-Quds day event (himself from a Khomeinist organisation misleadingly named the Islamic Human Rights Commission) did not merely call for the destruction of the Jewish state, but blamed “Zionists” for – among other things – the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
No charges were brought against him for this speech. It seems likely that if somebody stood up in public and made such unfounded and inciteful comments against any minority group other than Jews (even while hiding behind some thin, veneer smokescreen such as “Zionists”) that the authorities would have taken action.
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