Thanks for reading. I feel outraged at what's happening to Jews in the UK and elsewhere, although I try to control my fury here. I cannot know what it's like to be at the receiving end of hatred just for being Jewish in your own country, but you have my complete solidarity – and there are many millions of others who feel the same.
This piece will remain free to read forever. I hope, despite the depressing subject matter, it gives a little insight into what's going on, although my Jewish friends here will correct me if I've missed something important.
Comments will remain open to all for a while. Good-faith argument welcome. The other stuff will be swiftly dealt with. I will reply to comments in the coming days.
Update: free (Palestine) comments now closed.
If you're new here, please remember to subscribe and click the article's 'like' button. It helps others find it.
Hope you don’t mind me posting this Frederick. I think it illustrates what Jews are up against- the complete ignorance by the general public and so many in the media, of what they and Israel are up against. Jonathan Sacerdoti deserves a medal.
Thanks, TT. Please always feel free to add links, posts, and anything of the sort. In fact, I encourage it. Yes, watched this. Jonathan Sacerdoti is brilliant, and his patience is extraordinary. I'll mention it in my next post.
Isn’t it extraordinary how in discussing antisemitism people are quite openly being anti something else. Picking sides as if the world were one big football match. Oh, this one’s on about the antisemites, let’s agree with him and be anti something else. How ridiculous to take sides at all. Isn’t that the problem? Conflict? Let’s try and make a space for everyone to get along and stop taking sides. I think the best side to be on is the human one, but even that’s terrifying. Since it doesn’t include all other living things. But for quite a lot of people it might be a bloody good place to start!
Genuine question: would you have posted this on a similar article about anti-Muslim hatred? Also, what 'anti-' are you referring to here, I wonder.
I understand the appeal for some of holding hands in a circle and singing "Imagine", but moral seriousness requires a bit more than what you're offering here, I'm afraid.
I’m very confused by your comment. You think we are taking the side of Jews as if life is one big football match? No. We are on here discussing hatred against Jews because it is vile and we want to find ways it could be stopped. Antisemitism has been around for centuries and it has recently reared its ugly head in the West, partly due to mass immigration of people who hate Jews and partly because of the useful idiots on the left who don’t appear to have any critical thinking ability. Also antisemitism has exploded since Hamas committed atrocities on Oct 7th. You appear to think we should just ignore this and stop ‘picking a side’. How about people stopped killing Jews first, that might help?
You also can't know what it's like to be at the receiving end of hatred just for being female in your own country.
Misogyny is everywhere, and girls and women deal with it all day long every day of our lives. We always have, throughout recorded history. It's so common that no one writes articles like this in utter outrage at the unexpected occurrence of it. Because it's always expected.
Islamists are experts in DARVO- accuse others of what you are doing yourself, they’ve been doing it for a long time. And as ever, the useful idiots swallow all the lies and the propaganda marching happily with people who’ll execute them given half a chance, as they did in Iran in 1979. The stupidity of westerners siding with a totalitarian ideology which wishes to destroy democracy and western culture against people who are generally law abiding, who contribute to society, never ceases to amaze me. I used to have faith in humans to be sensible, fair and moral. This era has made me question that faith many times over.
Thanks Frederick, excellent piece despite the depressing content.
Precisely what I have been thinking and feeling this morning, even prior to reading this article. There has been a lot of bad news lately about the gender ideologues winning in courts, the anti-Israel activists winning everywhere, the socialists taking over America. And the common factors are exactly what you said, the stupidity of the educated classes, the obsession with being viewed as a Good Person, and the authoritarian desire to crush anyone who is perceived as being On the Other Side.
Thanks for your reply. I used to regard myself as being on the left but the abuse that anyone on the right received was one of the things that opened my eyes to the ‘be kind’ brigade. They believe that they are morally superior and this gives them leave to sneer at and abuse others without actually listening to what is being said. Since ‘leaving’ the left things have got so much worse and the hatred on display now is shocking. I honestly can’t see how we turn it around. One thing which urgently needs looking at are universities. The antisemitism and hatred of perfectly reasonable right of centre views there, seem to be rife.
I was a leftist activist from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. What is called the “left” now is mostly unrecognizable to me. The current “left” is indistinguishable from the authoritarian mass movements of the WWII era: Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists. To see this crap flowering again in Germany is enough to crush anyone’s faith in human beings.
In Australia, the shocking wave of antisemitism that broke out across the campuses of our universities was shocking and distressing. But more to the point was the total abrogation by university leadership of what universities are meant to propogate: respectful debate and interrogation of ideas. Why did our Vice Chancellors say 'no' to rabble and intimidation and instead say "bring your views inside and debate them, civilly and we will listen to all sides, all views". No, only one had the courage to call it, the rest of the elite socialist public service stayed silent. Indeed from primary to tertiary level needs an overhaul in what the responsibility of a teacher/educator is... and its not spouting or encouraging their own idealogies and personal views.
It’s exactly the same here and probably across the West. The people in charge who are appeasing hatred and bullies are almost worse than the perpetrators. There are reasons for the shift to extreme left thinking which have been building over decades- the Long March through the Institutions instigated by the Fabian Society here and the Frankfurt School but it’s time that our ‘dear leaders’ got a grip and woke up to the horror that they’ve allowed to fester and grow before it’s too late.
According to "The Political Compass", I'm still well in the lower left quadrant (liberal left). That hasn't changed in many years. However, I have no connection with the current Left (TM), largely because they are so authoritarian.
At one Point, Adorno said the main benefit of antisemitism for antisemites is to have their hatred sanctioned by a moral majority, so they can let it flow unhindered by any rules of civilisation, shame or just decent rules of behaviour.
I used to believe Jew hate was the same as all other bigotries until 10/7 happened, or more specifically 10/8 and the orgy of joy that followed and that was so deeply deranged that it led even to people tearing down Israeli hostage posters—they hate Israelis so much that even being asked to briefly consider their suffering made them go mad with rage. These hostages are demons who deserved it and no other thought or feeling could be entertained.
Jew hate is different from other hatreds because it leads the hater (often sometimes unbeknowst to themselves) into more extreme forms of hatred, almost akin to a drug addiction: first they dislike Jews, then passionately hate them, then blame all the world's problems and evil on them and want to eliminate them, but even that's not enough, they must be dragged in the dirt and humiliated, all their sacred books and symbols dumped in the mud, made to grovel for their lives like in a Czarist pogrom.
Jews are simply the West's eternal Other and scapegoat, the Abel to the Christian Cain, our ambiguous brother who is mostly like us but differs enough to be made into a funhouse mirror where all our fears, sins and anxieties are reflected. And now under the Social Justice dispensation, comes the newest reason to hate them: Jews don't need welfare or bureaucrats or postcollegiate white saviors to be rescued or to thrive. They have their own inherent brilliance and industriousness, their own traditions (religious, moral, social etc) and have no problem succeeding not only sans govt protection but even with govt opposition. Other oppressed peoples (very much including the Palestinians) have a terrible envy of Jewish success and brilliance and want to destroy what they can never create and hobble people they can't compete with.
I think this also explains (partially) the infinite endurance of Jew hate: it is catnip to the world's most miserable losers who use it to rationalize their own failures and low status. They would have much better lives if it weren't for those damned Jews! (Said every bitter failure ever.)
We're living through a very ugly time and people have been caught up in one of history's repeated occurrences of mass social hysteria about Jews and there's no point debating someone in the grip of a violent psychosis: the zealots of the Free Palestine! cult have no clue that they're both enacting one of Christianity's oldest rituals while also regurgitating toxic Soviet propaganda perfectly designed to launder Anti-Semitism into "Anti-Zionism", swapping out phrases and pretexts but maintaining the underlying goal of demonizing and attacking Jews—and they don't want to know.
You nail my sentiments exactly, sir. I have long suspected that envy is the root for the reasons you (so eloquently) elucidate.
I can scarcely believe what the left has turned into or that I used to lean in this direction. I am an old school liberal and I cannot go where this hate is taking them. It is a shameful, soulless place.
Thank you for this Frederick. What is happening in the UK is worse than what is happening here in the US but I, as a Jew, am terrified by what I see happening everywhere. And yes, I grew up reading Anne Frank and wondering how this persecution could have happened in a civilized society—and yet, now I begin to see how. It is as much the silence and dismissiveness of the observers that enables it as it is the perpetrators. Thank you for calling this out for what it is and breaking that silene.
There are people who need to hate. It doesn't matter who they hate. only that they hate. If the culture condones hating blacks, then blacks it is. Or Jews. Or rich people. Or white people. Or rural people. Or Americans. Or Trump.
Just tell them who it's OK to hate, and they'll take care of the rest.
I see a difference, although you can legitimately disagree. We're talking hate here, not mere disrespect or contentiousness.
I see no one on the 'right' who is gleeful over the thought of anyone being assassinated. I know of no college campus disrupted by unruly Trump supporters. The riots of 2020 in Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis were all by Trump haters, not supporters.
You can find instances of 'right' violence, but you cannot find where republicans, Trump or any conservative condoned or promoted them. Correct me if you see that I am wrong.
Trump promoted and condoned the attempted overthrow of our nation's Capitol and assassination of our elected representatives. And he has since pardoned everyone convicted of it--although our own nation's guards were beaten within an inch of their lives and someone DIED.
That is inarguably condoning and promoting violence, not to mention assassination.
Calling people "libtards" or "Demoncrats" is done in hatred. I have been subjected to it for over forty years. Those people were not simply disrespecting me. They were calling on others to HATE me.
If you want the hatred to stop, start with your own side.
Your entire first paragraph is wrong. You are perhaps believing the Nancy Pelosi lie. Trump pardoned many, but not all J 6ers. He pardoned the ones who had done nothing wrong except happen to be there while wearing a MAGA hat. Their constitutional due process was stomped into the dust. Everything that Trump said and did was legal, constitutional, and had precedent. Nancy forgot to tell you that.
I'm not sure what guards you're talking about, but the only people who died that day were Trump supporters, one of whom was shot by a cop. Another died while lying on the ground unconscious, being beaten by another cop.
It's interesting that you have nothing to say about people who celebrated Kirk's death and keep hoping for Trump's death. You OK with that? And you say nothing about the horrible violence and over twenty deaths in the 'mostly peaceful protests' that I mentioned.
Here's what I wrote about how what Trump did was entirely legal and constitutional:
The words 'never again' said in the aftermath of the Holocaust have faded to nothingness as we see the march of Islamism across the West. Is it because history, real history, is no longer taught at school? Ask a person under 40 if they've ever heard of Adolf Hitler, Heinreich Himmler and the rest of the gang. Have they heard of Kristallnacht? OK, I must be ancient, yep, in my 60s, so anything I have to say must be irrelevant. That must mean that the murder of 15 people on Bondi Beach last December is irrelevant. Er, no, no it isn't. Nor are these latest two attempted murders in Golders Green or any other attack on Jews wherever they live or walk or work, irrelevant. They are real, horrific and relevant to civil societies, if they are to exist going forward. In Australia, we are currently undergoing a 'Royal Commission' into the Bondi Massacre. It was forced on our pro-Palestinian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who rejected any such investigation, only finally caving because prominent Australians from business, sport, media/celebrity, etc., made public call-outs which became internationally embarrassing to our highly socialist Labor government. The PM responded by hobbling the commission he was forced into by narrowing its terms of reference and giving it a ridiculously short time-frame. The preliminary report has just been released and surprise, surprise... it's pretty ordinary. It talks about "how to protect Jewish Australians" going forward. It does not ask and answer the real question of "Why should Jewish Australians need any protection, living in Australia, in 2026, a country with a reputation for freedom, safety and a successful immigrant population". Indeed, the question is why should any Jewish person, anywhere, be living in fear today? Why should they need guards at their synagogues and schools, why should they fear walking down the street to their local shops? Islam is very different to any other religion I know of (I am not a religious scholar, so maybe I'm wrong) in that it is not JUST a religion, it is also the LAW that all Muslims live under and must adhere to, therefore the embodiment of that most potent combination of both Church and State. To Westerners, the separation of these two powerful frameworks has been important and upheld for the very reasons we are seeing play out across the world today: combine both and you have fanaticism on steroids, state-sanctioned. The dangerous times we live in have been, it must be said, our own fault. Islamism is not compatible with the West - not its religions, its laws, its culture, its history, nor, quite obviously, its future.
You’re right about Islam, it is an authoritarian ideology with a religious component. More people need to understand how it threatens the West and that it is incompatible with democracy and human rights. But every time we try and talk about it, we are shut down with ‘Islamophobia’ and other abuse. Unless a problem can be named and confronted it will never be solved.
A large part of the blame for this now normalised antisemitism lies with governments in Britain, Australia, Canada, and the US who allowed open displays of Jew hatred, every weekend for over two years, in their capitals.
Anti Semitism isn't the world's oldest hatred. Hatred of foreigners - all foreigners, not just those of the wrong skin color - is far older. Arguably elites hating poor people is also older. So is hatred (or at least intense disrespect) of women.
Sadly, such incidents are becoming more and more common. The most recent incidents in my own life went like this:
Two weeks ago, I was in a local college bar in a city of ~60,000, a college age person came up to me, attracted by my Blue Lives Matter hat. The student began ranting about how Trump had betrayed America by dragging the US into war against Iran on behalf of Israel. He was angry at his generation being dragged in and asked to fight yet another war for other people. A longer conversation evolved in which I tried to educate this young man about the history of the conflict between Iran and the US...that it was started by the Iranians...that their hatred of Israel arises in part from the religious doctrine of Islam but also from the fact that taking out the "Little Satan" is a strategic step in their primary goal of removing the "Great Satan"...i.e. the US. I pointed out that as a child of an Iranian, I knew a bit more about the situation than most. The student was having none of it. Not being able to win the argument on the merits...the student started to blame the Jews more generally. I shrugged and walked away. The young man came up to me an hour later and spouted venomously..."It's all the Jews!" and walked away.
Tuesday I was in the same bar. It was near the end of the night and I was waiting to say goodbye to several people before heading home. Another college age person I did not know and had never seen came up to me and said, "You have a big nose. Are you Jewish?" I truthfully replied "No". The person then insulted me in a different way and walked away.
Wednesday, I had a good discussion with a group of college students in the same environment. They had some wrong headed ideas about the nature of the Iran conflict...but were willing to listen and were open to changing their mind based on new information. My success with this last group was based in part by knowing some people in common which gave me some credibility with the rest of the group.
As painful as it is...more such conversations need to occur. Some people will never be convinced. Others...with time...may begin to reconsider what they have heard. I again encountered the person from 2 weeks ago this week. His position was much more tempered with no denunciation of the Jews even though he remains unhappy about the war. Sometimes contrary ideas that provoke a strong (defensive) response...actually do get through upon reflection.
There is a wider problem however...the Permission to Hate is being given widely by progressives to all those with whom they disagree. The young people in this small college town have grown up in this environment where they themselves have been on the receiving end of this hate because they are NOT progressive and some dare to even publicly support Republicans. They remember how Republicans were subjected to a specific attack in 2019 when the president came to speak in Minneapolis. The mayor of Minneapolis incited a progressive riot against the rally attendees saying such people are NOT welcome in his city for not sharing "Minneapolis" values. Not only did the mayor remove all the portable lavatories and garbage cans to inconvenience the people waiting to attend the rally, he incited riots that literally forced the police to keep the 35,000 attendees trapped in the Target Center as police battled the violent rioters outside. Elected Democrat party officials were participants in the riot. The police had to do this because people leaving early were attacked by the mob! This mayor was twice re-elected by the people of Minneapolis despite this conduct. Mayor Jacob Frey is Jewish.
As important as combatting antisemitism is, it does not occur in isolation. Permission to hate must be called out whenever it occurs and no matter who it is directed against. That is the only way to win over the young in face of the antisemitic mantra of the Tucker Carlson's of the world.
This is horrific - the incident in Vietnam, not your article. I used to be proud of the fact that so many Jews found sanctuary here in the UK from the Nazis. I thought we were a moderate nation.
We need people to keep having conversations, to keep pushing back. Thank you for your work: I'm sorry it's necessary though.
A brilliant essay! Thank you as well for turning me on to David Nirenberg - yet another instance of a history I wish I could have written! The tragedy of this persistent toxic hatred is that it infects even Jews (although that is understandable, since no one on earth can withstand being the bully’s exclusive playground target for long).
Thanks for reading. I feel outraged at what's happening to Jews in the UK and elsewhere, although I try to control my fury here. I cannot know what it's like to be at the receiving end of hatred just for being Jewish in your own country, but you have my complete solidarity – and there are many millions of others who feel the same.
This piece will remain free to read forever. I hope, despite the depressing subject matter, it gives a little insight into what's going on, although my Jewish friends here will correct me if I've missed something important.
Comments will remain open to all for a while. Good-faith argument welcome. The other stuff will be swiftly dealt with. I will reply to comments in the coming days.
Update: free (Palestine) comments now closed.
If you're new here, please remember to subscribe and click the article's 'like' button. It helps others find it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PZFCrFJN3WI&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D
Hope you don’t mind me posting this Frederick. I think it illustrates what Jews are up against- the complete ignorance by the general public and so many in the media, of what they and Israel are up against. Jonathan Sacerdoti deserves a medal.
Thanks, TT. Please always feel free to add links, posts, and anything of the sort. In fact, I encourage it. Yes, watched this. Jonathan Sacerdoti is brilliant, and his patience is extraordinary. I'll mention it in my next post.
Isn’t it extraordinary how in discussing antisemitism people are quite openly being anti something else. Picking sides as if the world were one big football match. Oh, this one’s on about the antisemites, let’s agree with him and be anti something else. How ridiculous to take sides at all. Isn’t that the problem? Conflict? Let’s try and make a space for everyone to get along and stop taking sides. I think the best side to be on is the human one, but even that’s terrifying. Since it doesn’t include all other living things. But for quite a lot of people it might be a bloody good place to start!
Genuine question: would you have posted this on a similar article about anti-Muslim hatred? Also, what 'anti-' are you referring to here, I wonder.
I understand the appeal for some of holding hands in a circle and singing "Imagine", but moral seriousness requires a bit more than what you're offering here, I'm afraid.
I’m very confused by your comment. You think we are taking the side of Jews as if life is one big football match? No. We are on here discussing hatred against Jews because it is vile and we want to find ways it could be stopped. Antisemitism has been around for centuries and it has recently reared its ugly head in the West, partly due to mass immigration of people who hate Jews and partly because of the useful idiots on the left who don’t appear to have any critical thinking ability. Also antisemitism has exploded since Hamas committed atrocities on Oct 7th. You appear to think we should just ignore this and stop ‘picking a side’. How about people stopped killing Jews first, that might help?
You also can't know what it's like to be at the receiving end of hatred just for being female in your own country.
Misogyny is everywhere, and girls and women deal with it all day long every day of our lives. We always have, throughout recorded history. It's so common that no one writes articles like this in utter outrage at the unexpected occurrence of it. Because it's always expected.
This is a piece about antisemitism. You could always write your own piece about misogyny.
I just looked at her page. She seems like a thespian carbuncle of bile.
You looked at my page and came away with the idea that I'm a thespian??
🤣
This is a piece about oppression. You could always write your own piece about thespian carbuncles of bile.
Thanks, handmaiden.
The truth is the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.
hah, good one
Islamists are experts in DARVO- accuse others of what you are doing yourself, they’ve been doing it for a long time. And as ever, the useful idiots swallow all the lies and the propaganda marching happily with people who’ll execute them given half a chance, as they did in Iran in 1979. The stupidity of westerners siding with a totalitarian ideology which wishes to destroy democracy and western culture against people who are generally law abiding, who contribute to society, never ceases to amaze me. I used to have faith in humans to be sensible, fair and moral. This era has made me question that faith many times over.
Thanks Frederick, excellent piece despite the depressing content.
Precisely what I have been thinking and feeling this morning, even prior to reading this article. There has been a lot of bad news lately about the gender ideologues winning in courts, the anti-Israel activists winning everywhere, the socialists taking over America. And the common factors are exactly what you said, the stupidity of the educated classes, the obsession with being viewed as a Good Person, and the authoritarian desire to crush anyone who is perceived as being On the Other Side.
Thanks for your reply. I used to regard myself as being on the left but the abuse that anyone on the right received was one of the things that opened my eyes to the ‘be kind’ brigade. They believe that they are morally superior and this gives them leave to sneer at and abuse others without actually listening to what is being said. Since ‘leaving’ the left things have got so much worse and the hatred on display now is shocking. I honestly can’t see how we turn it around. One thing which urgently needs looking at are universities. The antisemitism and hatred of perfectly reasonable right of centre views there, seem to be rife.
I was a leftist activist from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. What is called the “left” now is mostly unrecognizable to me. The current “left” is indistinguishable from the authoritarian mass movements of the WWII era: Nazis, Stalinists, Maoists. To see this crap flowering again in Germany is enough to crush anyone’s faith in human beings.
Same. And you’re right, they are authoritarians.
In Australia, the shocking wave of antisemitism that broke out across the campuses of our universities was shocking and distressing. But more to the point was the total abrogation by university leadership of what universities are meant to propogate: respectful debate and interrogation of ideas. Why did our Vice Chancellors say 'no' to rabble and intimidation and instead say "bring your views inside and debate them, civilly and we will listen to all sides, all views". No, only one had the courage to call it, the rest of the elite socialist public service stayed silent. Indeed from primary to tertiary level needs an overhaul in what the responsibility of a teacher/educator is... and its not spouting or encouraging their own idealogies and personal views.
It’s exactly the same here and probably across the West. The people in charge who are appeasing hatred and bullies are almost worse than the perpetrators. There are reasons for the shift to extreme left thinking which have been building over decades- the Long March through the Institutions instigated by the Fabian Society here and the Frankfurt School but it’s time that our ‘dear leaders’ got a grip and woke up to the horror that they’ve allowed to fester and grow before it’s too late.
Yes. What happened to the adults in the room? Moral cowards, all.
According to "The Political Compass", I'm still well in the lower left quadrant (liberal left). That hasn't changed in many years. However, I have no connection with the current Left (TM), largely because they are so authoritarian.
Same.
^^This.
Well written!
At one Point, Adorno said the main benefit of antisemitism for antisemites is to have their hatred sanctioned by a moral majority, so they can let it flow unhindered by any rules of civilisation, shame or just decent rules of behaviour.
I used to believe Jew hate was the same as all other bigotries until 10/7 happened, or more specifically 10/8 and the orgy of joy that followed and that was so deeply deranged that it led even to people tearing down Israeli hostage posters—they hate Israelis so much that even being asked to briefly consider their suffering made them go mad with rage. These hostages are demons who deserved it and no other thought or feeling could be entertained.
Jew hate is different from other hatreds because it leads the hater (often sometimes unbeknowst to themselves) into more extreme forms of hatred, almost akin to a drug addiction: first they dislike Jews, then passionately hate them, then blame all the world's problems and evil on them and want to eliminate them, but even that's not enough, they must be dragged in the dirt and humiliated, all their sacred books and symbols dumped in the mud, made to grovel for their lives like in a Czarist pogrom.
Jews are simply the West's eternal Other and scapegoat, the Abel to the Christian Cain, our ambiguous brother who is mostly like us but differs enough to be made into a funhouse mirror where all our fears, sins and anxieties are reflected. And now under the Social Justice dispensation, comes the newest reason to hate them: Jews don't need welfare or bureaucrats or postcollegiate white saviors to be rescued or to thrive. They have their own inherent brilliance and industriousness, their own traditions (religious, moral, social etc) and have no problem succeeding not only sans govt protection but even with govt opposition. Other oppressed peoples (very much including the Palestinians) have a terrible envy of Jewish success and brilliance and want to destroy what they can never create and hobble people they can't compete with.
I think this also explains (partially) the infinite endurance of Jew hate: it is catnip to the world's most miserable losers who use it to rationalize their own failures and low status. They would have much better lives if it weren't for those damned Jews! (Said every bitter failure ever.)
We're living through a very ugly time and people have been caught up in one of history's repeated occurrences of mass social hysteria about Jews and there's no point debating someone in the grip of a violent psychosis: the zealots of the Free Palestine! cult have no clue that they're both enacting one of Christianity's oldest rituals while also regurgitating toxic Soviet propaganda perfectly designed to launder Anti-Semitism into "Anti-Zionism", swapping out phrases and pretexts but maintaining the underlying goal of demonizing and attacking Jews—and they don't want to know.
They want blood and will accept nothing else.
beautifully said
Thanks, Mitch!
You nail my sentiments exactly, sir. I have long suspected that envy is the root for the reasons you (so eloquently) elucidate.
I can scarcely believe what the left has turned into or that I used to lean in this direction. I am an old school liberal and I cannot go where this hate is taking them. It is a shameful, soulless place.
Thank you for this Frederick. What is happening in the UK is worse than what is happening here in the US but I, as a Jew, am terrified by what I see happening everywhere. And yes, I grew up reading Anne Frank and wondering how this persecution could have happened in a civilized society—and yet, now I begin to see how. It is as much the silence and dismissiveness of the observers that enables it as it is the perpetrators. Thank you for calling this out for what it is and breaking that silene.
I support you, and so do many others. You're not alone 🙏
Thanks, Kim. Very glad you found this one valuable – means a lot.
To make the two minutes hate more realistic, George Orwell called the target 'Emmanuel Goldstein'
Excellent article
There are people who need to hate. It doesn't matter who they hate. only that they hate. If the culture condones hating blacks, then blacks it is. Or Jews. Or rich people. Or white people. Or rural people. Or Americans. Or Trump.
Just tell them who it's OK to hate, and they'll take care of the rest.
Or libtards. Or Demoncrats.
That's worked well to fan hatred against others for decades.
I see a difference, although you can legitimately disagree. We're talking hate here, not mere disrespect or contentiousness.
I see no one on the 'right' who is gleeful over the thought of anyone being assassinated. I know of no college campus disrupted by unruly Trump supporters. The riots of 2020 in Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis were all by Trump haters, not supporters.
You can find instances of 'right' violence, but you cannot find where republicans, Trump or any conservative condoned or promoted them. Correct me if you see that I am wrong.
Trump promoted and condoned the attempted overthrow of our nation's Capitol and assassination of our elected representatives. And he has since pardoned everyone convicted of it--although our own nation's guards were beaten within an inch of their lives and someone DIED.
That is inarguably condoning and promoting violence, not to mention assassination.
Calling people "libtards" or "Demoncrats" is done in hatred. I have been subjected to it for over forty years. Those people were not simply disrespecting me. They were calling on others to HATE me.
If you want the hatred to stop, start with your own side.
Your entire first paragraph is wrong. You are perhaps believing the Nancy Pelosi lie. Trump pardoned many, but not all J 6ers. He pardoned the ones who had done nothing wrong except happen to be there while wearing a MAGA hat. Their constitutional due process was stomped into the dust. Everything that Trump said and did was legal, constitutional, and had precedent. Nancy forgot to tell you that.
I'm not sure what guards you're talking about, but the only people who died that day were Trump supporters, one of whom was shot by a cop. Another died while lying on the ground unconscious, being beaten by another cop.
It's interesting that you have nothing to say about people who celebrated Kirk's death and keep hoping for Trump's death. You OK with that? And you say nothing about the horrible violence and over twenty deaths in the 'mostly peaceful protests' that I mentioned.
Here's what I wrote about how what Trump did was entirely legal and constitutional:
https://individualistsunite.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-honest-elections-9d0?r=z324w
you really are the definition of a libtard.
You really are the definition of mindless hatred.
It’s terrible this is happening again and it’s in the uk as well
The words 'never again' said in the aftermath of the Holocaust have faded to nothingness as we see the march of Islamism across the West. Is it because history, real history, is no longer taught at school? Ask a person under 40 if they've ever heard of Adolf Hitler, Heinreich Himmler and the rest of the gang. Have they heard of Kristallnacht? OK, I must be ancient, yep, in my 60s, so anything I have to say must be irrelevant. That must mean that the murder of 15 people on Bondi Beach last December is irrelevant. Er, no, no it isn't. Nor are these latest two attempted murders in Golders Green or any other attack on Jews wherever they live or walk or work, irrelevant. They are real, horrific and relevant to civil societies, if they are to exist going forward. In Australia, we are currently undergoing a 'Royal Commission' into the Bondi Massacre. It was forced on our pro-Palestinian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who rejected any such investigation, only finally caving because prominent Australians from business, sport, media/celebrity, etc., made public call-outs which became internationally embarrassing to our highly socialist Labor government. The PM responded by hobbling the commission he was forced into by narrowing its terms of reference and giving it a ridiculously short time-frame. The preliminary report has just been released and surprise, surprise... it's pretty ordinary. It talks about "how to protect Jewish Australians" going forward. It does not ask and answer the real question of "Why should Jewish Australians need any protection, living in Australia, in 2026, a country with a reputation for freedom, safety and a successful immigrant population". Indeed, the question is why should any Jewish person, anywhere, be living in fear today? Why should they need guards at their synagogues and schools, why should they fear walking down the street to their local shops? Islam is very different to any other religion I know of (I am not a religious scholar, so maybe I'm wrong) in that it is not JUST a religion, it is also the LAW that all Muslims live under and must adhere to, therefore the embodiment of that most potent combination of both Church and State. To Westerners, the separation of these two powerful frameworks has been important and upheld for the very reasons we are seeing play out across the world today: combine both and you have fanaticism on steroids, state-sanctioned. The dangerous times we live in have been, it must be said, our own fault. Islamism is not compatible with the West - not its religions, its laws, its culture, its history, nor, quite obviously, its future.
You’re right about Islam, it is an authoritarian ideology with a religious component. More people need to understand how it threatens the West and that it is incompatible with democracy and human rights. But every time we try and talk about it, we are shut down with ‘Islamophobia’ and other abuse. Unless a problem can be named and confronted it will never be solved.
A large part of the blame for this now normalised antisemitism lies with governments in Britain, Australia, Canada, and the US who allowed open displays of Jew hatred, every weekend for over two years, in their capitals.
Anti Semitism isn't the world's oldest hatred. Hatred of foreigners - all foreigners, not just those of the wrong skin color - is far older. Arguably elites hating poor people is also older. So is hatred (or at least intense disrespect) of women.
Hatred of girls and women is the world's oldest hatred.
No other hatred comes even close.
I'm beginning to think that "anti-colonialism" gained so much traction because it gave people a(nother) stick to beat Jews with.
Sadly, such incidents are becoming more and more common. The most recent incidents in my own life went like this:
Two weeks ago, I was in a local college bar in a city of ~60,000, a college age person came up to me, attracted by my Blue Lives Matter hat. The student began ranting about how Trump had betrayed America by dragging the US into war against Iran on behalf of Israel. He was angry at his generation being dragged in and asked to fight yet another war for other people. A longer conversation evolved in which I tried to educate this young man about the history of the conflict between Iran and the US...that it was started by the Iranians...that their hatred of Israel arises in part from the religious doctrine of Islam but also from the fact that taking out the "Little Satan" is a strategic step in their primary goal of removing the "Great Satan"...i.e. the US. I pointed out that as a child of an Iranian, I knew a bit more about the situation than most. The student was having none of it. Not being able to win the argument on the merits...the student started to blame the Jews more generally. I shrugged and walked away. The young man came up to me an hour later and spouted venomously..."It's all the Jews!" and walked away.
Tuesday I was in the same bar. It was near the end of the night and I was waiting to say goodbye to several people before heading home. Another college age person I did not know and had never seen came up to me and said, "You have a big nose. Are you Jewish?" I truthfully replied "No". The person then insulted me in a different way and walked away.
Wednesday, I had a good discussion with a group of college students in the same environment. They had some wrong headed ideas about the nature of the Iran conflict...but were willing to listen and were open to changing their mind based on new information. My success with this last group was based in part by knowing some people in common which gave me some credibility with the rest of the group.
As painful as it is...more such conversations need to occur. Some people will never be convinced. Others...with time...may begin to reconsider what they have heard. I again encountered the person from 2 weeks ago this week. His position was much more tempered with no denunciation of the Jews even though he remains unhappy about the war. Sometimes contrary ideas that provoke a strong (defensive) response...actually do get through upon reflection.
There is a wider problem however...the Permission to Hate is being given widely by progressives to all those with whom they disagree. The young people in this small college town have grown up in this environment where they themselves have been on the receiving end of this hate because they are NOT progressive and some dare to even publicly support Republicans. They remember how Republicans were subjected to a specific attack in 2019 when the president came to speak in Minneapolis. The mayor of Minneapolis incited a progressive riot against the rally attendees saying such people are NOT welcome in his city for not sharing "Minneapolis" values. Not only did the mayor remove all the portable lavatories and garbage cans to inconvenience the people waiting to attend the rally, he incited riots that literally forced the police to keep the 35,000 attendees trapped in the Target Center as police battled the violent rioters outside. Elected Democrat party officials were participants in the riot. The police had to do this because people leaving early were attacked by the mob! This mayor was twice re-elected by the people of Minneapolis despite this conduct. Mayor Jacob Frey is Jewish.
As important as combatting antisemitism is, it does not occur in isolation. Permission to hate must be called out whenever it occurs and no matter who it is directed against. That is the only way to win over the young in face of the antisemitic mantra of the Tucker Carlson's of the world.
This is horrific - the incident in Vietnam, not your article. I used to be proud of the fact that so many Jews found sanctuary here in the UK from the Nazis. I thought we were a moderate nation.
We need people to keep having conversations, to keep pushing back. Thank you for your work: I'm sorry it's necessary though.
A brilliant essay! Thank you as well for turning me on to David Nirenberg - yet another instance of a history I wish I could have written! The tragedy of this persistent toxic hatred is that it infects even Jews (although that is understandable, since no one on earth can withstand being the bully’s exclusive playground target for long).
EDIT: I wrote on that in a note a few weeks ago:
https://substack.com/@boulis1/note/c-245011400?r=4pbde0&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action