Jews have been under seige and attack in the Swedish city of Malmö for years as leftist policitians turned a blind eye or cooperated in anti-Israeli agitation by Islamists and other pro-Palestinian groups. See my prior post, Malmö Syndrome. It is a phenomenon spreading across Europe, Not Just Malmö and The Irish anti-Israel sickness isn’t limited to Ireland.Indeed, it’s also prevalent on U.S. campuses, particularly in California, although the attacks are less violent here.Melanie Phillips, via Israel Matzav, writes about the situation at British universities, Jewish students running gauntlet of hate: welcome to 21st century Britain:
The delegitimisation campaign against Israel, comprising the obsessional lies and blood libels promulgated by the media and intelligentsia week in, week out, has produced this result: Jewish students in Britain are being forced to abandon their university courses out of fear….So this is what it has come to. In the 21st century, British Jews are being forced to hide their Jewish identity out of fear for their personal safety — because they support the state of Israel in its struggle to defend itself against genocidal attack.This disgusting and surreal state of affairs has arisen from what can only be described as the madness that has all but consumed the British intelligentsia and media, which portray Israel – the target and victim of Jew-hating extermination – in the deranged propaganda terms set out by its Arab and Muslim attackers. The result is rampant Israel-hatred, Judeophobia and Jew-baiting which is either tolerated or actively promulgated by a so-called educated class – including broadcasters and many mainstream politicians — which on this issue is in fact totally impervious to evidence or reason.
She highlights the situation at the University of Edinburgh:
A case in point was one of the incidents described above, when Ishmael Khaldi was forced to abandon his invited address at Edinburgh University. He was called a Nazi and accused of representing an ‘apartheid state’ by a baying mob who unfurled Palestinian flags and screamed that the university’s Jewish society was a ‘religious club that supports violence and unjust behaviour’ before security officials hustled him away. The JC reported:
‘At one stage the mic was ripped from his lectern and a demonstrator shouted: “We don’t discuss with the Ku Klux Klan, why should we discuss with this thug?”’
But Ishmael Khaldi is an Israeli Arab, a Bedouin from the Galilee who is an advisor to Israel’s Foreign Minister. He is thus living proof that Israel cannot possibly be an ‘apartheid state’. His treatment at the hands of the screaming Edinburgh University mob was therefore not merely an unconscionable outbreak of thuggery but defied reason itself. As does the whole way in which Israel is presented in British public debate.
Sounds all too familiar.
It could, and does, happen at Universities everywhere. Not just in Malmö.
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