How the U.K. arrived at the present situation regarding Israel and Middle East issues

Douglas Murray
MERIA Journal
Volume 14, No. 2
June '10
Posted before Shabbat

This article discusses the anti-Israel campaign in the UK and its attempt to delegitimize and "demonize" Israel, pointing to radical Islamist trends in British society and political life as a central factor.

A few days in March 2010 gave a good flavor of the present standing of Israel in the United Kingdom. On March 23, then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced to the House of Commons that the government was expelling an Israeli diplomat. The expulsion, thought to be of the London Mossad chief, came after forged British passports were used to kill a Hamas terrorist in Dubai (an incident which Israel denies any involvement in).

The following Monday, March 29, the Jerusalem String Quartet was due to play at the Wigmore Hall, one of London's most prestigious music venues. The concert, to be broadcast live on the BBC, was repeatedly disrupted by anti-Israel protestors accusing the players of being representatives of the Israeli government. The broadcast was cancelled. On this occasion, the anti string-quartet protestors, from a branch of the "Palestine Solidarity Campaign," were Jewish-led.

These two examples are cited, because they are emblematic. If one nation wanted a range of responses to delegitimize and demonize another state, it would be hard to imagine a better, or wider, range of activities. Not being allowed to have full diplomatic representation in a city that allows the Iranian government and numerous other hostile regimes to do so is one thing. A situation in which even the performance of a Mozart string quartet by nationals of the same country becomes impossible (the Jerusalem quartet have been barracked like this in Britain before) would appear to demonstrate that the exceptional demonizing of Israel in public life is now not occasional but, rather, all-encompassing.

How did the UK arrive at this state of affairs? The number of reasons is too large to list, let alone describe, in this space. They can, however, be broadly categorized under two headings. First, there are those reasons that can be explained by circumstances. Second, and certainly equally significant, there are those reasons that have their basis not in verifiable evidence but rather in conspiracy theory and anti-reason ranging from paranoia to the misguided expression of what will be described here as "the new virtue."

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