Ilze Kalve, “Latvijas Avīze”
The number of antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom since the terrorist attack in Israel on 7 October last year has increased by 589% compared to the same period last year, according to statistics compiled by the Community Security Trust. A nearly sevenfold increase. The trend that started last year is continuing this year. Why do conspiracy theories still exist claiming that Jews deserve to be punished because they are Jewish?
While today we should not complain about the possibility of verifying information, the spread of various antisemitic conspiracy theories, not only on social networks but even in the serious media, has resumed with vigour since the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on 7 October last year.
More recently, in the United Kingdom (UK), the BBC was again at the centre of a new scandal when it broadcast a major story on 12 March about Israeli troops torturing people in Gaza hospital. An investigation by independent Daily Mail journalists found that 6 of the 8 Gaza hospital medics who testified about what happened were quite dubious, having previously posted antisemitic posts on social media, even calling for the extermination of all Jews. Despite the fact that the BBC has recently set up a new BBC Verify unit to check the facts, the fact that at least two BBC journalists working in Gaza are also Hamas sympathisers has slipped by.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a non-profit charity whose work includes not only fighting antisemitism through interpretation and education, but also working with the British police and prosecutors when necessary, agreed to comment to Latvijas Avīze on several widely circulated conspiracy theories and myths.
Jews accused of blood lust
One of the conspiracy theories widely circulated in the UK is that the Israeli security services not only knew about the 7 October attack, but even supported it to have a reason to invade Gaza later. Campaign Against Antisemitism explains: The suggestion that Israel orchestrated or deliberately ignored the massacre of around 1200 people enacted by Hamas on 7 October, the worst antisemitic crime since the Holocaust, is unimaginably cruel. The idea that Israel, the only Jewish country in the world, would do something like this as a pretext for war is reminiscent of the blood libel, the middle ages myth of the Jews, accusing them of an innate lust for blood and violence.” It should be noted that conspiracy theories about Jews being accused of kidnapping members of other religious movements, especially children, to obtain their blood go back a very long time and are still around today, despite the fact that the use of blood is actually strictly forbidden in Judaism. It is also forbidden to consume meat with blood, which is why there are kosher butcher shops specifically for Jews, selling only meat with minimal blood content.
The Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on 7 October last year has opened the gates to antisemitism in Europe. The age-old myth that Jews are archetypal evil is coming back. UladzimirZuyeu/Shutterstock
It is also claimed that Israel is the aggressor in the conflict, not Hamas, and that the Gaza Strip is still occupied, when in fact the Israeli army has not been there since 2005. “Why are people who spread conspiracy theories like this so afraid to admit that Hamas carried out this attack?” rhetorically asks the Campaign Against Antisemitism. In their view, this shows the worldview of these people and the role of Hamas in it: “These people find it difficult to accept the simple fact [that Hamas carried out a brutal terror attack]. They try to shift the blame from an antisemitic genocidal terror group directly onto the Jewish community they are trying to destroy. The accusation that Israel is the aggressor in this context is indicative of a conspiracy theory and the assumption that all Jews are murderers, dating back to the middle ages. This is an unfounded idea that dehumanises Jews and has no place in a civilised society.”
A call for the destruction of the Jewish state
Demonstrations in support of Palestine continue in the UK, but unfortunately they are not always as peaceful as planned.
One incident that is still widely discussed is the unauthorised projection of the phrase “From the river to the sea” on Big Ben in central London.
Not only on social networks, but even in the British media, the excuse has been made countless times that “From the river to the sea” is merely a figurative phrase expressing the Palestinian desire for freedom, which many are ready to support. This phrase is chanted in demonstrations and used as a sign of recognition. There seems to be nothing sinister about it, so why do Jews consider it to be blatantly antisemitic? Turns out it is much more complicated than that. Campaign Against Antisemitism explains: “The slogan refers to the Jordan River all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, its meaning is a call to destroy the only Jewish state in the world and replace it with a Palestinian state. It is also a call for the extermination of the Jews living in Israel, who make up half of the world’s Jews. Since the barbaric terrorist attacks by Hamas on 7 October, we have heard this slogan a lot on the streets of Britain during anti-Israel demonstrations, accompanied by all kinds of antisemitism and racism. From the River to the Sea is not a fight for human rights song: it is a denial of the Jewish right to self-determination.”
It should be noted that for quite a long time this phrase could be chanted without restriction at demonstrations, but now the British police have finally realised what it means and the first arrests have been made.
