Anti-Semitism Returns to the House of Commons

Palace of Westminster (photo courtesy: Wikipedia)

Palace of Westminster (photo courtesy: Wikipedia)

Less than six months after the Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, David Ward, was accused of anti-Semitism for the equating the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews with “the Jews” treatment of the Palestinians, yet another Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Bob Russell, has equated the victims of the Holocaust with the ‘plight of the Palestinians’ since the birth of the state of Israel.

This happened last week during a debate in the House of Commons on the national school curriculum. Given that English law requires the Holocaust to be taught to all school children as part of the History syllabus, Russell asked the Education Minister, Michael Gove, the following question: “On the assumption that [coverage of] the 20th Century will include the Holocaust, will he give me an assurance that the life of Palestinians since 1948 will be given equal attention?”

Bob Russell’s statement, just as David Ward’s, has caused offence to the UK Jewish community and embarrassment to the Liberal-Democrat Friends of Israel, but as yet there has been no apology from Russell and no indication of any censure by the Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.  There has even been little, if any, media attention given to Russell’s comments. It’s as if the ‘Nazification of Israel’, the idea that ‘the Jews are to the Palestinians what the Nazis were to the Jews’, has become so commonplace that it is no longer news worthy.

Yet the idea that the plight of the Palestinians should be given the same prominence in the school curriculum as the Holocaust is not only extremely offensive, but is also absurd. Russell’s equivalence, just like David Ward’s before him, relies on the re-writing of Jewish history and the misreading of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It represents a misjudgement which, like that of the anti-Dreyfusards whose faith in Dreyfus’s guilt contradicted all evidence to the contrary, can only flow from the willingness to believe the absolute worst about Jews. This is anti-Semitism.

Thus anti-Semitism has returned to the House of Commons in the guise of anti-Nazism and is masquerading as concern for the Palestinians. As Anthony Julius has noted, “it is the peculiar misfortune of Jews that their persecutors have been drawn from the ranks of the sanctimonious, the kind of people who cloak their anti-Semitism in a moral purpose.” Perhaps this is why Bob Russell’s ‘Nazification’ of Israel has, as yet, drawn little opprobrium.

Julius has also expressed the opinion that the posture of anti-Semites towards Jews is determined by malice. I tend to agree with him. Certainly, in the case of David Ward, this seems to be a correct observation. I say this because despite the offence which he knows he caused to the UK Jewish community when he chose Holocaust Memorial Day to ‘Nazify’ Israel and “the Jews,” he has once again caused offence with the following tweet, “Am I wrong or am I right? At long last the Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the apartheid state of Israel last?” And he timed this tweet to come just days after Bob Russell’s remarks….

It is frankly high time that Nick Clegg took decisive action against those members of the Liberal-Democrat Party who insist on offending Anglo-Jewry. It is not only David Ward and Bob Russell who are the culprits:  Chris Davies, Simon Hughes, Baroness Jenny Tonge, and Lord Phillips of Sudbury are among other high-ranking Liberal Democrat MPs who have repeatedly used the Israel-Palestine conflict both to make inflammatory remarks about “the Jews” and to invoke the blood libel, the conspiracy libel, and the economic libel in their demonization of Israel. Not only does Nick Clegg need to take action but he needs to take action now. This is because, as freelance journalist Richard Mather has stated, “There’s nothing Liberal about offending Jews.”