The emperor has no clothes

המלך הוא עירום

In Hebrew the translation is ‘The king is naked’, the straight-talking Israelis say it as it is, and this is exactly what Boy George has done during his latest interview with Ireland’s RTE broadcaster.

Boy George stated that he had a lot of abuse online for his support of his Jewish friends (starts on minute 10:50 of the interview). He turns to the audience and asks if anyone knows any Jewish people and he is met with complete silence. His reaction to this silence is ‘look at the quiet – so weird’… ‘it is interesting, the silence, that surprises me a little bit’.

We are in a middle of a storm, which the witty Melanie Phillips calls ‘Britain’s antisemitism tsunami’, but it is relevant for most countries these days. By now millions of words have been written by many brilliant people about this malaise. My focus in on the silence of the audience.

The silence has two reasons; the first one is that many people are not aware that they know any Jews. This means that they are happy to protest and express an opinion without making any effort to study the subject they are talking about. I characterize it as the general folly of humanity and the wish to be in a crowd and follow trends.

The second reason is much more ominous, people are afraid, they are afraid to flag the lies that they are being told. The fear of speaking truth to power, in this case the power exerted by the fascist left leaning media, universities and many politicians. Just like in Nazi Germany, where people were afraid to stand up against a terrorizing regime, people in the West fear losing their jobs, friends and standing in society by supporting the Jews (that account for 0.2% of the global population), not to mention Israel.

The reason Boy George talked about his Jewish friends was due to the questions put to him following the stabbing in Golders Green and connecting it to Gaza. He refused to comply as it is clearly an antisemitic comment by the interviewer.

I would like to explain for the thousandth time why this comment is antisemitic (and Boy George did not say it but referred to it). Connecting between the Jews and the State of Israel and attacking Jews just because Israel is a Jewish state is an antisemitic act. Trying to justify such an act by linking it to a propaganda campaign against Israel, that has no legs to stand on, is antisemitic.

To make it even clearer, it has the moral equivalence of trying to explain a stabbing of a random person from Texas because Texas legally executed a murderer this week. De-legitimizing Israel’s right to exist and protect itself is antisemitic.

Boy George is not a kid; he is brave as he knows very well the paralyzing fear that grips people in his industry in the face of the fascist left. He is able to look evil straight in the face and say, ‘I get a lot of abuse for it, and I do not really care’. I cannot but adore this beautiful man who does it with a smile.

To listen to the whole interview – click on this link www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY96Ewb-GJQ