Holocaust inverted

Who are the victims of the Holocaust, and who are the perpetuators?

The victims

For some years now, this question has been yet another front in the battle over antisemitism and Jewish identity – and who gets to define them.

Holocaust Memorial Day last week featured another series of skirmishes on this terrain.

Last week, we observed how Good Morning Britain ‘forgot’ to mention that the principal victims of the Holocaust were Jews.

Our post online went viral and the story was covered across national papers, including the Mail, Sun, Metro, Express and Telegraph, as well as GB News and numerous local and international news outlets, and the attention forced ITV to issue an apology, albeit a weak one.

GMB was not the only party to this obfuscation.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, also omitted a certain one-syllable word in her Holocaust commemoration, writing online: “Tonight, I’m lighting a candle to remember all those who were murdered just for being who they were, and to stand against prejudice and hatred today. Never again.”

The irony of this sort of ‘forgetfulness’ on a day of remembrance is not lost on us. Holocaust Memorial Day is first and foremost a day to memorialise the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by gas, bullet and other means by the Nazis and their collaborators. Its principal lesson is the need to bravely combat antisemitism whenever it arises, including in our own time. That is the real meaning of Never Again.

Given that Britain is currently experiencing the worst antisemitism in living memory, that lesson is more important than ever. Why, then, does our society keep failing to learn it?

The perpetrators

This ‘de-Judification’ of Holocaust remembrance is the first step on the road to Holocaust inversion.

The destination is the accusation that Jews are committing a Holocaust of their own.

We have of course seen and heard such accusations on the streets of London and other cities in Britain and around the world for over a year now. As a society, we have sadly become accustomed to naked antisemitism in our urban centres and the utter indifference of the authorities – the same institutions, civil servants and politicians who rush to organise and attend Holocaust Memorial Day events.

But this year we have also seen the highjacking of Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies.

In Leicester, for example, an event funded in part by the county and city councils was addressed by a speaker who compared the war against Hamas to the genocide of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis, reportedly provoking Jewish audience-members to walk out.

Meanwhile, in Lowestoft, representatives of the Jewish community were reportedly sidelined at the larger HMD event, where a local councillor mentioned the war in Gaza in his remarks, leaving local Jewish people in disgust.

Worse yet, over in Ireland a Jewish woman was manhandled as she was thrown out of an HMD event, joining other Jews protesting the references to Gaza made by President Michael Higgins, whose very presence at the event had been opposed by the Jewish community. In contrast to the Irish President’s abominable abuse of a commemorative event, King Charles visited Auschwitz for the 80th anniversary of the liberation, capping a long career of support for Holocaust survivors and education.

Meanwhile, in the European Parliament, a far-right Polish politician, Grzegorz Braun, disrupted a moment of silence in memory of Holocaust victims by shouting: “Let’s pray for the victims of the genocide in Gaza!” He had previously courted controversy in the Polish Parliament in 2023 when he extinguished candles on a menorah.

But sometimes this inversion is more subtle.

When, on News Hour with Mark Austin on Sky News, the rolling coverage of Holocaust Memorial Day and the ceremony at Auschwitz was immediately followed by reporting on Gaza, at least twice, was that just a coincidence, or was it the sort of disgraceful editorialising that we have come to expect from Sky?

After all, a mere 6% of British Jews feel that Sky’s coverage in relation to matters of Jewish interest is favourable, and 61% consider it unfavourable. Is it any wonder why?

What about when a Holocaust exhibition is deemed “too political” for Westminster Hall in Parliament, while a stall by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) – one of the organisers behind London’s anti-Israel marches – is apparently fine for the same venue. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has opened an investigation into how permission was refused for the Holocaust exhibition.

It is this trend that the International Definition of Antisemitism has in mind when it observes that comparing Israel to Nazis is antisemitic.

When appropriate, we are calling these incidents out, and we are producing materials to challenge this insidious narrative. Otherwise Britain will forget the true lessons of the Holocaust.

Trainee pharmacist sentenced after action by CAA

A trainee pharmacist was recently sentenced in court for a message that he sent on social media to UCL’s Israel student society, after Campaign Against Antisemitism worked with the society to report the incident to the police and ensure that action was taken.

Mohammad Al Accad, 24, also known as Suhail, pleaded guilty to sending a grossly offensive communication at Manchester Magistrates’ Court. The charge related to a message that he sent to the UCL Israel Society which read: “F*** you and your people, hope we kill hundreds more in the coming days.”

The message was sent on 7th October 2023 in response to a statement published by the Society condemning Hamas’ barbaric attacks in Israel on the same day. During the attacks, terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages.

We reported the contents of the message to the police after speaking with the victim. The police offered to facilitate an apology from Mr Al Accad to the victim in lieu of a prosecution, which was rejected. We also reported Mr Al Accad to the General Pharmaceutical Council, which regulates pharmacists.

Mr Al Accad was identified by Campaign Against Antisemitism and arrested following a police investigation. During his police interview, he admitted to sending the message, saying that he had done so in reaction to recent events.

Despite his admission, the defendant initially claimed that his message was not grossly offensive.

Mr Al Accad was ordered to pay a fine of £675, which was uplifted from a Band B fine to a Band C fine due to the racially/religiously aggravated nature of the offence. He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £270 and £85 towards prosecution costs.

Mohammad Al Accad’s sentencing marks a victory against those who feel that they can target Jewish students with antisemitic hatred. When antisemitism crosses the criminal threshold, we will do whatever it takes to secure justice. Let this verdict send a clear message to those who target Jews. Ruinous consequences await them.

If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on confidence on 0330 822 0321 or e-mail [email protected].

Do British people care about Jewish fears?

Last week, we published ground-breaking polling of the Jewish community highlighting the concerns of British Jews about their future, the criminal justice system, figure like Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, the media, universities and more.

Some of the findings include:

• Less than half of British Jews (43%) feel welcome in the UK.
• An alarming eight in ten British Jews think that the police do not do enough to protect them; and only 16% of British Jews are confident that if they reported an antisemitic crime, it would be prosecuted if there was strong enough evidence.
• British Jews consider Islamists to be the most serious threat (95%), but more than nine in ten British Jews do not believe that the authorities do enough to protect the Jewish community from them.
• Nearly seven in ten British Jews – 69% – consider coverage by The Guardian of matters of Jewish interest to be unfavourable.
• Nine in ten British Jews said that if anybody in their family were choosing a university, antisemitism would be a factor in their choice.
• A minuscule 2% of British Jews consider the fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect to be representative of their views on Israel.

The full results can be read here.

Subsequently, we decided to ask ordinary British people what they thought about some of our findings.

Channel 4’s “European Jews are lying scumbags” participant

If you turn on Channel 4 this evening, you will see Go Back To Where You Came From, a new reality television programme that features four people with anti-immigration views and two people who are pro-immigration, travelling migrant routes from Somalia and Syria to the UK.

Among the participants is Bushra Shaikh, an ‘anti-racism’ activist (naturally) and former contestant on The Apprentice, who is on the pro-immigration side on the show.

A glimpse at her social media activity, however, reveals that Ms Shaikh does not mince words when it comes it Jews:

• “European Jews changed their names to hide their origins in order to claim supremacy over Palestinian Arab lands. These people are the biggest charlatans on this planet. Bunch of lying scumbags.”
• “One state solution. Palestine. And send this European problem back to f***ing Europe.”
• “You can be super anti Muslim, you can talk about Muslims but as soon as you talk about Jews, you get cancelled. Why are they so protected?”
• “Doesn’t the Talmud teach you ‘only the Jew is human and the rest of us are Goyims.’ So I believe Jews are taught to hate everyone. Nice try though.”
• “I said Jews, now ‘they’re’ after me. But thank you to everyone, including the pro-Palestine, anti Netanyahu Jewish community that have reached out with support. Humanity will win [sic].”
• “I’m sorry but why are people losing jobs and more for even mentioning Israel and Zionism. We can talk about Christians, Hindus and Muslims but the moment Jew is mentioned-prepare to have your career ruined.”
• “I’m sorry but there are not enough Jewish people/Israelis speaking up against the massacre in Gaza. And that’s telling the world they are supporters of genocide. See how that works.”
• “Axel Rudakubana allegedly downloaded Al Qaeda documents. Al Qaeda funds have known links to Israel. Israel helped kill British kids in Southport. Israel kills kids in Palestine. Israel kills kids in Lebanon. Israel kills kids in Syria. Now the UK.”

When we brought this social media activity to Channel 4’s attention, they told us: “Bushra is a contributor on Go Back to Where You Came From, and is one of the six opinionated individuals who, throughout the series, discuss immigration and have their differing viewpoints challenged. The series will be compliant with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code. Channel 4 are not responsible for contributors’ personal social media accounts.”

Channel 4’s agenda here is pretty clear: pit anti-immigration xenophobes against virtuous pro-immigration activists. But if Channel 4 wants to show the unvarnished views of one side, why not do the same for the other? Channel 4 is sanitising Bushra Shaikh to make her more sympathetic, instead of revealing her as the hypocrite that she is, speaking in favour of immigration while insulting “European Jews”.

Channel 4’s insistence that Ms Shaikh remains in the programme while hiding her real opinions from viewers is telling. Portraying those with antisemitic views as virtuous while hiding their antisemitism is the exact opposite of what we should be doing: exposing and ostracising.

We have called for a boycott of the show.

Wiki-poison

When we want to know something, we turn to Wikipedia.

It is the first port of call for information on any topic, especially in the English language but in many other languages besides.

Anyone can become an editor on Wikipedia, although some topics are restricted to those with a record of neutral and responsible editing across the online encyclopaedia.

But as a collaborative and largely non-hierarchical endeavour, one sometimes wonders who is policing what gets written on Wikipedia, and can you really be sure that it is accurate?

When it comes to the Jewish state and matters relating to the Jewish community, many of us will know that what we read is not always rooted in fact; and while one of the ‘five pillars’ of Wikipedia — its guiding principles — states that “Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view,” that is too often not the case.

We have long been calling out Wikipedia for failing to implement their own rules against obsessive anti-Israel editors who hijack entries relating to matters of Jewish concern.

It was therefore very welcome news when it was recently announced that bad-faith contributors are finally facing disciplinary action by the Wikipedia arbitration board, including topic bans that would prevent them from editing articles relating to the Jewish state.

The problem is not just on English Wikipedia. There has also been reporting in France about Wikipedia editors trying to cooperative in an effort to manipulate content on the website for the worse.

At Campaign Against Antisemitism, Wikipedia is an issue that we take very seriously, given how many people across the world rely on it for what they believe is authoritative information. We will continue to do whatever we can to ensure that Wikipedia lives up to its promise of accuracy and neutrality.

People sometimes ask us, in their more despairing moments, whether what we do makes a difference. After all, we all know that antisemitism is not going to disappear, and battling this hatred can sometimes feel Sisyphean, especially over the past sixteen months.

But when one of our biggest television channels is forced to issue an on-air apology for forgetting that Jews were the victims of the Holocaust, because of a story read by multitudes in newspapers and online, it makes a difference.

And when a trainee pharmacist and his family, friends and community learn that there are severe consequences to trolling Jews, and Jewish students know that someone is there to help them, it makes a difference.

We may not win every battle, but we will not surrender the field; and those battles that we do win help us advance, however gradually, to a better future for British Jews.