Beyond antisemitism – striving for peace

Early evening, Sunday 7 September. Union Jacks, English flags, and Israeli flags fluttering in the breeze above London’s Parliament Square graced my social media feeds — it was the March Against Antisemitism.

Obviously, I don’t like antisemitism, so why did that sight make me nauseous?

I’ll try to explain. At the march, comedian Josh Howie denied famine in Gaza,  Chief Rabbi Mirvis opposed Palestinian statehood, and Richard Tice, of the anti-immigration Reform party (who also deny climate change) blamed the rise in anti-semitism on Palestine Solidarity marches. These are bare denials of Israel’s wrongdoing, and lashing out with empty accusations of antisemitism — as if Israel’s accusers could have no other motivation. Failing to see that people (among them many Jews) have rationally reached negative conclusions about Israel is blinkered and likely to incite hatred.

In August 2025, the World Health Organisation said there was famine in Gaza. A former IDF commander in Gaza, Herzi Halevi, recently said (unrepentantly) that not once were military operations hindered by legal advice and that there were probably more than 200,000 casualties (approximately 10% of Gaza’s population). Is this surprising, given that in the days after Hamas’s barbaric attack the Israeli Defense Minister promised to eliminate Gaza? And Netanyahu made the biblical comparison to Amalek, the nation God commanded the Hebrews to blot out? The evidence was strong enough by April 2024 to persuade almost 1,000 senior UK-based lawyers, including former Supreme Court Judges, that genocide was being perpetrated.

For people to just say — “obviously Israel isn’t in the wrong”; “obviously it’s antisemitism” — gives the impression they’ve made up their minds; nothing could possibly change their view. I’ve been told not to trust former IDF generals and politicians — they all have an agenda. And not to trust UK judges; they haven’t been to Gaza; Hamas’s figures can’t be trusted — they’re clearly biased, as is the UN. It’s a war — people get killed. What would you do, if attacked like on 7 October? Everyone’s against us; we need to fight our own corner.

Howard Jacobson, a Jewish British novelist, wrote in October 2024 that accusing Israel of killing babies was a blood libel — an antisemitic charge against Jews that arose during the European Middle Ages. Twice recently I’ve been accused of the same, even though I am Jewish. Blood libels were baseless;  current accusations are not. At the time of Jacobson’s article, there had been 40,000 deaths, many of them children. At best, accusing our accusers of blood libel is using antisemitism to silence criticism, which hinders rational discussion and deepens divisions. At worst, it is a license to kill.

And when Jews latch onto the coattails of anti-immigrants, even if their ire is currently against Muslims, it is sectarian, foolish and reckless. Britain’s 1905 Aliens Act was a response to waves of Jews fleeing Eastern European pogroms. Whether intended or not, marching against antisemitism in this way fuels racism. Would it not be more sensible and ethical to be inclusive, as we were once strangers and may well be again?

On Facebook, I questioned how, with Jewish history, Jews could possibly align with anti-immigrants. One person told me not to compare these Islamic invaders with her ancestors. But as much research has shown, early 20th-century antisemitism shows much similarity with current anti-Muslim prejudice. It was therefore shocking but not surprising that, six days later, numerous Israeli flags were seen amongst the blatantly racist thugs of Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march.

Blaming Palestine Solidarity marches for the rise in antisemitism is not borne out by reality. Even if antisemitism on those marches exists, it’s marginal. I’ve never observed it, including when I wore a kippah. I’ve asked other Jewish attendees; no one had experienced antisemitism. The Jewish Bloc receives a very positive reception. I’ve seen no violence at these marches. Their explicit call is for Palestinian freedom, not Jewish persecution.

Israel was created partly because of a longing among Jews to return to the Promised Land, and partly in response to a millennium of European persecution of Jews. It was not created in response to persecution by inhabitants of Palestine. Looking for antisemitism at the heart of Palestine solidarity may undermine the Palestinian cause to an extent. But it’s misdirected: even if it were there, it would not make Israel’s actions right.

Let’s face it: the existence of Palestinians is a problem for the Jewish state. In 1938 Israel’s first Prime Minister, David ben Gurion, said that the Jews were the aggressors at that time — he understood why Arabs living there would contest Jewish possession of the land. It would have been far easier to establish the Jewish state if it really was empty. Hence came the slogan, “a land without a people for a people without a land”; and that’s why the Israeli judge at the ICJ gave a passionate account of tragic Jewish history whilst ignoring Palestinian history. But almost two million people lived in Palestine in 1946: less than a fifth were Jewish.

We could ignore Palestinian existence, and we could condemn their cause as antisemitic. But there is another way. In her 1950 essay Peace or Armistice in the Near East, Hannah Arendt described two separate tendencies within Zionism. The victorious trend, she said, saw antisemitism as eternal and the fully-fledged Jewish state as the only route to Jewish survival. The other trend, founded by Ahad Haam in the 1890s, tried to foster cooperation with Arabs who were living in the area. Followers of this trend saw the continued Arab presence as essential for peace, and saw that focusing on division and antisemitism would lead to an Arab-Jewish war. How depressing that Arendt’s essay reads as if it were written yesterday.

It’s clear what tendency Netanyahu follows. In 2015, he was asked whether Israel would always live by the sword. Yes, he said. The marchers against antisemitism follow the same trend.

So instead of focusing on antisemitism and demonizing Palestinians, how about we empathize with all, try to bring this military action to an end, and strive to live together harmoniously in a just peace.