Israelophobia: The newest version of the oldest hatred and what to do about it, by Jake Wallis Simon

Author: Jake Wallis Simon. Review by Ol Rappaport

Friends may remember an article I wrote just a year ago: ‘Is the Religious Society of Friends antisemitic?’ (30 September 2022). It was based on an analysis of letters and articles in the Friend. It provoked a wide range of responses, not all critical. I haven’t been able to pursue the matter with the energy it deserves, so it was with delight that I read this book, which makes many points I would like to have had the knowledge, understanding and opportunity to make.

Jake Wallis Simons was Middle East security correspondent for – and is now editor of – the Jewish Chronicle, so his credentials for writing this book are peerless; he knows whereof he writes. He argues, convincingly, that the latest manifestation of antisemitism is different enough from historical manifestations that it deserves its own name, hence ‘Israelophobia’.

At the core of the book are three pivotal chapters: ‘Demonisation’, ‘Weaponisation’ and ‘Falsification’. Demonisation is self-explanatory. The author details the way that Israel is singled out for exceptional treatment, and compares that with the treatment of all other nations. Wallis Simons does not defend Israel – he openly acknowledges its failings – but he does point out how, in so many ways, it is treated differently, discriminatorily, not just a little more harshly but hugely so.

The chapter on falsification is perhaps the most revealing, detailing how the Nazis courted the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who in turn spread their form of antisemitism throughout the Middle East. Nazis found a welcome and a refuge in the region following their defeat in 1945. The torch was taken up by the USSR in a bid to undermine the democratic west’s influence in the region. This antisemitism, cloaked as antizionism, took root in the west’s ‘progressive’ institutions, including sections of the Labour Party and the universities, both places where it has thrived. Most of the accusations thrown at Israel today date from the Nazi and Soviet era. 

(The book is scrupulously referenced but it does lack an index, which for me is a serious omission.)

Friends became involved in the Middle East in the wake of world war two, as the state of Israel was forming. Initially they attempted ‘religious diplomacy’ and failed. This was probably because interference by the Nazis, some of whom had taken refuge in the region, ensured that Arabs were in no mood to compromise. Friends were then asked to carry out relief work among Palestinians, a role they have carried out ever since, and which has perhaps shaped many Friends’ perceptions of Palestine/Israel.

One thing I have learnt in the last year is how few Friends have sought to study antisemitism. This is a good start. I commend the book to Friends not for your comfort but rather for your discomfort, much as Advices & queries is. In pursuit of justice, Friends may have chosen a cause that was selected by players with sinister intentions, and whose ambitions were not justice for Palestinians but fulfilment of the oldest hatred of all.

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Comments

Thank you for this review. 

I too have been concerned about ‘sub-conscious’ anti-semitism amongst BYM. The history of Israel and its place in the Middle East is complicated.  My concern (as a full time mediator) is that it rarely helps to take sides in such challenging struggles. The side you back has its sense of rightness reinforced. Rather than help facilitate peace, the partisan supporter encourages resistance and conflict. The side you oppose does not hear your protest as neutral commentary. Rather its sense of being the oppressed (as opposed to the oppressor) is augmented.

Nothing is as simple as it seems.

The Hamas controlled government in Gaza still uses the death penalty and since coming to power in 2008 have given the death penalty 170 times. Israel does not.  The Occupation has many echoes of the situation in Northern Ireland.

I heartily recommend the excellent novel Apeirogon by Colum McCann.  From the Guardian:

“Colum McCann has written something he calls a “hybrid novel,” in which the form’s mutability, its stance on both sides and neither, is used to address the entrenched positions of the Middle East. The title is taken from the mathematical term for an object of an “observably infinite number of sides”, a shape that serves as a model for a new way of thinking about a conflict that is too often reduced to simple, opposed positions.

It’s a strange time for a novel as full-hearted as Apeirogon. It feels as if the situation in the Middle East is always a reflection of its age. In the optimistic 90s we had the Oslo Accords and a real sense that some solution to the conflict could be found through diplomatic channels. Now each side has retreated into belligerent isolation, with Donald Trump gleefully fanning the flames of discord. But perhaps that’s the point – the desperation of the situation has brought forth a work of art whose beauty, intelligence and compassion may go some way to changing things. Is it absurd to suggest that a novel might succeed where generations of politicians have failed? Perhaps, but then Apeirogon is the kind of book that comes along only once in a generation.”

By quaker@outlook.com on 28th September 2023 - 16:02

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If ever I have been dismayed to be proved right, now is that time.

Please BYM, speak out for the people of Israel. Let’s make no more apologies for the racism of the Gaza aggressor government. It can never be okay.

By quaker@outlook.com on 9th October 2023 - 10:27

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My view is that much innocent life has been lost on both sides of the Arab/Israeli divide and that atrocities have been committed by Hamas and Israel

By Richard Pashley on 10th October 2023 - 20:08

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