Neviim Tovim, blogs by Gillian Gould Lazarus

I used to wonder how even the medieval mind could be so credulous as to believe that Jews made matzah using the blood of Christian boys they had murdered. But why should they know our laws against murder and against consuming blood, or be acquainted with the bland dryness of unbuttered matzah?

I wondered how the clearly fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion could be deemed by anyone to be a realistic account of conspiratorial Judaism or how, a decade earlier, Captain Dreyfus could be convicted of trumped up charges of treason.

How could the German people believe Hitler when he told them Jews were their misfortune, the cause of all their troubles since and during World War One. Or that the Jews who disappeared from the house next door were not being murdered after being transported to some obscure location in the East?

Such were the conundrums of history along with many others, in every generation: the Inquisition, the expulsions, the pogroms. Why am I English, if not because the Russian and Polish authorities were prevailed upon to believe something mad?

In 1970s London, I read a neonazi pamphlet which had been pushed into the letter box of a friend’s house. Besides the insistence that Harold Wilson was Jewish, as was – they said – Winston Churchill, it was full of the most childish stuff. I wish I had it in front of me, to compare it with the outpourings of today’s militant antisemites.

Today, even the far right dislike the label ‘antisemitism’, as if hatred of Jews is acceptable if they can make a case that we are not a semitic people. They forget that it isn’t a label of our choosing but devised by Wilhelm Marr who believed that Germans and Jews were antagonists in a race war. All three of Marr’s wives had Jewish heritage which makes me think, Wilhelm, how come you’re so interested?

After Bin Laden declared himself responsible for planning 9/11, it was a surprise to me to encounter an urban legend that ‘Jews did it,’ often backed up with nonsensical memes and videos. Later, the theory expanded from urban legend to received opinion of the far right and far left. I saw it propounded quite often when I observed Corbynist social media between 2016 and 2020. In point of fact, a poll conducted in 2005 by the interestingly named Fafo Foundation, a Norwegian research institute, found that 65% of Palestinians polled supported Al Qaeda bombings in the USA and Europe. While nearly all Arab countries expressed sympathy with the USA, Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq issued the statement, ‘The American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity’.

Given the unpopularity in the west of Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and above all, the ferocity of the 9/11 attacks, it is inevitable that an opinion would arise that the Jews were behind it. The expression ‘dancing Israelis’ is offered as conclusive evidence with an original video tweaked by AI in recent years. As I type these words, I anticipate that someone will come back to me arguing that that the destruction of the Twin Towers could not possibly have been caused by two aeroplanes piloted by Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists.

Roger Waters claims that the US government destroyed the World Trade Centre themselves and asks why: ‘These are fundamental questions for the future of the human race and life on earth.’ I switched off his broadcast at this point, feeling that he was moving slowly but inexorably toward fingering Israel. which is his modus operandi.

There was a theory on social media that ISIS was an Israeli force, headed up by a Jewish actor called Simon Elliot from North London. Photos of a bearded man were posted to show Elliot’s resemblance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I’m not sure if any of these photos purport to be Simon Elliot, but I can see that the man on the top left has arguably a Yiddisher punim, although not the man on the right.

Urban legends of the 2000s became widely held beliefs in the 2020s. Everything that happens to Jews, including the 7 October massacre, is said by some to be a false flag. A few days ago, it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Entebbe raid, when Israeli commandos rescued more than a hundred Jewish hostages being held at a Ugandan airport with the complicity of Ugandan President Idi Amin. Someone on X (formerly Twitter), very likely not born at the time, commented that this event was an Israeli false flag. I’m not sure how this would have worked. Could it be that the versatile Simon Elliot was also Idi Amin?

Israel at the present time is accused of horrors by many reputable institutions: the UN, Amnesty, the Green Party, Gary Lineker, Owen Jones – when I say ‘reputable,’ I use the term loosely. Recently a petition with over 100,000 signatures came to Parliament, obliging them to hold a debate on the demand to ‘Call a public inquiry into pro-Israel influence on politics & democracy’. The debate was held and, to my great relief, most of the MPs observed that the petition was in the tradition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and should not have been brought to Parliament at all. Those who supported the petition were the Independents, sometimes called ‘the Gaza MPs’ and Labour MP Kim Johnson who, in a parliamentary debate has referred to Israel’s government as fascist.

This week, the Synod of the Church of England has voted to ‘hear’ a Palestinian document called Kairos II, which speaks of ‘arrogant Jewish supremacism,’ denies the indigeneity of Jews to Israel and designates Zionism as a colonizing venture. I had not expected that the C of E leadership would demonize Jews in my lifetime. Trusting them as I did, I could probably be said myself to believe impossible things before breakfast.