Posts Tagged ‘gaza’
The Dawn of the Actor-Activists
Posted on: June 6, 2025
Like most people in this country, the United Kingdom, I watch television and I watch films. I marvel at the ability of actors to convey, with a blink of the eye or a single word, an entire narrative of inner life. I used to think such skills must run on a motor of wisdom and intelligence, but then I heard Vanessa Redgrave ranting at the 1978 Academy Awards about ‘Zionist hoodlums’ and thought she had performed better speeches when they were penned by more profound authors than herself.
Now that it is almost mandatory for actors to express themselves forcibly against Zionists, there are further disappointments, most notably seeing the sublime Ralph Fiennes and Benedict Cumberbatch add their names to a letter signed by many of their colleagues, expressing their opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. I can hardly blame them. They have watched and heard BBC and Sky News, informing them that Israel lures Gazan innocents with promises of food and safety to gather them together and fire on them. The broadcasters know this, or think they know it, or decide to say it, because Hamas – the Gazan Health Authority, as they like to be called – has told them so.
National treasures and less cherished public personalities find their voices against Israel, in the case of Piers Morgan to shout ‘Bullshit’ at a lawyer, Natasha Hausdorff whom he had invited on to his show, ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored.’ So many times did he stop her answering questions by bellowing ‘Bullshit’ that it seemed to be he who was doing the censoring. When viewers expressed surprise at his adamantine refusal to let his guest finish a sentence, he replied that Israel had gone too far, see above, and threw in a few more ‘bullshits’ on his X account.
Today, I find that Dawn French – unlike Piers Morgan, an actual National Treasure – has made a hideously hurtful video in which she mocks those who refer to 7 October 2023 as the reason Israel went to war. Grimacing and deploying a whiny infantile voice, she says ‘Yes but they did a bad thing to us,’ and then, by way of counterpoint, utters a deep and resonant ‘No!’ Again putting on the baby voice, she says something about history, which I suppose is meant to be us Jews talking about persecutions in our history and again, the emphatic ‘No!’ I think I understand what she wants to say. The predicament of the Gazans is so catastrophic that no rationale of the war or of the longer conflict can justify what is happening now. That is how Dawn, presumably, wants us to interpret her comic video. The faces and the silly voices she puts on to represent Israeli and Jewish perspectives – they are badly judged. Or are they? Will she find, like the band Kneecap, that the more seriously you oppose Israel, the better the audience likes it?
Yesterday, a neighbour joined me for coffee. She is a nice lady even older than me but equally as vigorous. She spoke about a nasty landlord who owned her first marital home: ‘A Jewish man,’ she said, ‘a big fat Jewish man so of course he…’ I went temporarily deaf at that point so didn’t hear her account of his machinations. We were in my flat with mezuzot on all the doorposts, a menorah on the cabinet and a Star of David visible round my neck. How could she not know? Is it possible that she did know but still thought her words would be acceptable, that it was common knowledge that Jews did this or that and I could hardly be offended? Within seconds I realized I would not say ‘Do you know that I’m Jewish?’ It would be too awkward, too much like bad manners. Our conversation continued smoothly and amicably. I thought of Kim Philby, always having to guard his reactions, and of the spy I most admire, Eli Cohen who posed as Kamel Amin Thabet among the upper echelons of the Syrian Ba’ath Party.
A spy is like an actor. The raised eyebrows, the eye rolls, the half smile can only appear in character. My neighbour’s remark was the kind of relatively mild, commonplace antisemitism which one heard occasionally before ‘anti Zionism’ became de rigueur for aspirational entertainers, academics and Members of Parliament. Now one expects to be called ‘baby killer’ every day, not by our neighbours I hope but by the online activists who have sight of our posts against antisemitism.
Why do I say ‘one’ and ‘our’ instead of ‘I’ and ‘mine’? It is because I have seen it happens to all of us. On Wednesday, Lord Ian Austin was abused and jostled by pro Palestinian demonstrators outside Parliament because he said, ‘Free the hostages.’ I can imagine Dawn French repeating ‘Free the hostages’ in the mocking, baby voice she used in her video.
Really, it is a miracle that anyone, public figure, online activist, teacher, doctor, journalist, clergy or politician dares to speak out against the Zionist-exclusionary mania for the Palestinian cause.
But we have always relied on miracles.
Foreword
Last night, a woman in the BBC Question Time audience in Cheltenham held forth, reproaching the Labour MP on the panel for what she called ‘friendship with Israel’. Gaining confidence as she heard the gathering applause, she spoke of Israel ‘targeting babies, children, hospitals and schools’. ‘Enough of this rhetoric about antisemitism,’ she proceeded, to a perceptible rise in audience sympathy, ‘if you support Palestinian babies.’
Her warning against ‘the rhetoric about being antisemitic for supporting Palestinian babies’ clearly struck a chord with the audience and I reflected that perhaps some of them had been called antisemitic or knew people who were called antisemitic and thought it was unfair and untrue. It could be said that it takes a Jew to know what is antisemitic, but then we are likely to disagree among ourselves and, mercifully I have encountered many non-Jews who understand very clearly the difference between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. If they see it so clearly, I wonder, why are others so myopic?
Dear Friends
I get the impression that people of good will are often perplexed by the term antisemitism. They don’t want it fired at them like a poison dart but are not sure if we are unreasonable, aiming it at persons you think are merely making points, about war and peace, wealth and poverty, vengeance and forgiveness. You have watched the news on BBC and Sky; read the Guardian and the Independent, heard the Pope and Gary Lineker, and you want to take up a position against Israel’s wars, but you don’t want to give offence to your Jewish friends, colleagues and, possibly, relations. You’ve been told that comments about Israel are distinct from statements about Jews but noticed that diaspora Jews seem to believe we have a horse in Israel’s race. You’ve seen that some Jews call some other Jews antisemites and thought that hardly seems reasonable. And perhaps someone told you that Jews look down on non-Jews, calling them goyim which sounds like a bad name.
Last point first: the Hebrew word goy means nation, and goyim is the plural. If you look at a biblical concordance, you’ll see that it occurs many times; 560 times, according to Google’s counting and, every time, it refers to a nation or nations, including the Israelite nation. In post biblical times, the word has been used to ‘other’ non-Jews, rather as the word ‘foreigner’ has an othering stratum, separate from its essential meaning. The far right, in our own time, refer to ‘the goyim’ intending always to say it is what we Jews call non Jews whom, they claim, we exploit and enslave. The far right are almost the only people who admit to being antisemitic, and even then, not always.
You may want to know how it happens that a Jewish person might be called an antisemite, either fairly or unfairly. Every nation has its traitors and, in this, we are no different. I would say that a Jewish antisemite is someone who not only separates themself from the community but intends harm towards the community – or identifies with people who intend to do us harm. When I was young, there was animosity between proponents of traditional, orthodox Judaism and Progressive Judaism, where women were ordained as well as men and certain laws, such as driving on Shabbat, were relaxed. Now a graver animosity is between those who care for Israel and others who suppose that they must dissociate and condemn it. Undoubtedly, this makes for very bitter hostility and draws into the argument non Jews who have strong opinions for or against Israel, an extension of the argument which probably helps to perpetuate it some of the time. This is not to deny that I’m infinitely grateful to Israel’s friends and the non-Jewish warriors against antisemitism who instinctively recognize it when they see it.
The present government of Israel has critics within the country, so numerous that demonstrations of many thousands filled the streets every week, fearing that the authority of the Supreme Court would be eroded by policies of the Netanyahu administration. Now there are demonstrations by those who think more could be done to bring the hostages home. Others believe that the government should make long term security a priority above all other issues and that the Iranian proxies can be given no quarter.
I don’t expect you to have the answers to geopolitics and wars. I understand that your hearts are moved by the suffering of children, continually depicted on our news stations as the reporters devote themselves to showing the human cost of war. In my opinion, they understate the human cost for Israelis who have suffered bombardment from Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen. Israel has invested in effective defences and shelters so the numbers of the dead are not as great as those in the countries which attacked it.
You may have heard that antisemitism does not, contrary to dictionary definitions, mean hatred of Jews but persecution of people who speak languages cognate with Hebrew, predominantly Arabic. There are some who say they are not remotely antisemitic as, although they dislike Jews, they have nothing but love and compassion for Arabs, particularly Palestinians. There is even a fad, around Christmas time, for claiming that Jesus was Palestinian as he was born in Bethlehem, now in the West Bank. This might have worked when the name ‘Palestinians’ signified Jews resident in the British Mandate of Palestine, but the implication that Jesus was an Arab is a curious rewriting of the New Testament and you may be sure that, when Easter comes around, the same people will not be arguing that Judas and Caiaphas were Palestinians.
I can see how complicated are all these matters to people who were not born knowing the word ‘antisemitism’ and I have one message in this letter which I want to convey.
After the Holocaust in the Second World War, certain terms were coined to apply to the murder of the six million, not on the battlefield, but by the intentional use of bullets, gas, starvation and scientific experimentation: such terms as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, planned by the Nazi leadership and carried out by civil servants, army personnel and grunt level workers. It has become a popular device to adapt the terminology, making us Jews the perpetrators of genocide, calling us Nazis, telling us ‘You have become what you hated’ and posting cartoons on social media showing German stormtroopers morphing into IDF soldiers or Jewish children in the deathcamps redrawn as Gazan infants.
My message to you is – don’t do this. Why would anyone want to depict us as our most bestial persecutors? It is like the delight some people take in speaking of the existence of slavery in Africa before millions were captured and shipped away in the transatlantic slave trade. If it was done to you, your enemies will want to say you do it to another.
Most days on X, someone will anathematize me as a ‘genocidal maniac’. It is simply a thing to say to a Jewish person who is deeply – or even shallowly – connected with Israel, to cause maximum pain, to give greater offence than any F word or C word can communicate – although they generally give these words a whirl alongside the rest of it.
If you really don’t want to give offence, don’t use the inaccurate shorthand of hatred but use moderate, considered language.
To those who already do so, many thanks, and to those who stand with us without being asked, a blessing on your heads.
Post script: There’s something I forgot to mention but was reminded of when I saw it in progress today.
Antagonist: Israelis all come from Poland and like killing babies and stealing land; plus they are sexual perverts.
Our guy: That’s an antisemitic generalization.
Antagonist: Antisemitism is being against Jews. I’m just against Zionists and you’re an antisemite for conflating Israel with Jews.
The fact is, most of the antagonists who post ludicrous errors about Israel do appear to be motivated by an animus which preceded Israel’s present wars. They do not understand the connection between diaspora Jews and Israel. It is an empirical connection, which they might understand better if they visited Israel or talked to more Jews. Such conversations on social media usually lead to the DARVO * moment when the antagonist calls our guy an antisemite. When the antagonist follows the template of centuries old anti Jewish discourse, but substituting ‘Zionists’ or ‘Israelis’ for ‘Jews’, the chances are that they will harm us if they can, even if we live in Stamford Hill, Salford, Golders Green or Barnet, rather than Haifa, Tel Aviv, Sderot or Jerusalem.
And it is already happening.
*DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender
Neviim Tovim, blogs by Gillian Gould Lazarus 