Anti Semitism is on the INCREASE?! the only person feeling even more Anti-Semitic here in the UK is Me - but mainly as a result of reading this @%##ing shit!!

Jews like you deserve the anti-Semitism you experience (deep in your veins)!

This makes me wanna beat up some random  Eli Valley type until they tell me that Heidegger was the most important philosopher of the 20th Centenary!

Well, I can't say that I endorse young Max's outburst above (although I appreciate hearing some unmitigated spleen from the usually spacey navel-gazer), but Eli, fer chrissake, basing a whole comic on a Melanie Phillips fever dream?

For those unaware of her pedigree, Ms. Phillips is a trafficker in the hoariest effusions of bullshit this side of Bush fils. Besides her pathological anti-Arabism, she frowns on gay marriage, pooh-poohs the evidence for global warming, is not at all comfortable with the theory of evolution and endorses the teaching of creationism in Brit schools, and so on. If someone on Jewcy approvingly cited an imam who was similarly encumbered with such medievalisms, they would be pilloried instantly.

So I am very skeptical of Ms. Phillips uncited references purporting to demonstrate the high incidence of anti-Semitism in England.

More troubling, though, is the sneaky way she segues from the disgusting assault on an innocent kid by a band of thugs to the "obsessive" criticism of Israeli policy, which she locates as merely the latest incarnation of European anti-Semitism. This shameful sleight-of-hand is, of course, designed to render suspicious the remarks of anyone with a strong sympathy for the Palestinians.

My point is this: Eli, I look forward to your comix and your brief, quirky written pieces as well. But for stuff to be funny, it has to be parodying something with at least a nodding acquaintance with reality. Just as paranoid right-wing scribblings about a future America under the thumb of unshaven lesbians and feral Africans makes sense only to those who subscribe to survivalist fictions, so too a comic which takes off from the ravings of a lunatic like Phillips has limited appeal to those in the reality-based community.

Well, OK, maybe the unshaven lesbians are a little scary..... 

I think there is reason to believe reports of a rise in British antisemitism. Ms. Phillips' credentials are irrelevant. The other reporter is a Member of Parliament charged with investigating the phenomenon, and he clearly believes it to be a problem. In any case, Eli isn't basing the comic on these two articles; he's merely offering them as points of reference.

The humor lies in parodying old European attitudes toward Jews, and theorizing as to what a "textbook" for children upholding those views might look like - in much the same way that the Christian right in the US is publishing school books replete with their revisionist history and pseudoscience, in the process of supporting the parallel reality they're attempting to create.

I think it's funny in any case, Eli.

And I'm fine with lesbians being in charge. They certainly couldn't do worse than the current administration.

(I'm an Anglophile too, Eli - however, in my case, it comes from watching too many years of Masterpiece Theater!)

Max and Ismail are joking, aren't they?

This is a hilarious comic, even if it is truly sad. It is representative of the hypocrisy which exists in British culture with respect to its Jewish population and to Israel. It is also representative of the manner in which truth has been turned upside down by propaganda so that somehow the Jews are represented as violent and evil while those who attack them are considered benign and enlightened. 

Good job, Eli! 

I sincerely hope that the Queen of England reads this and... and... AND SHOVES IT UP HER BIG FAT ARSE!!!

There.

I said it.

I feel so much better now.  God bless you, Eli Valley, for speaking truth to power. You are a genuine civil rights leader, in the mold of Martin Luther King and, um, Martin Landau. Wasn't he great in Space 1999?

May the British Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, be allowed a comment?

 21 September 2003: Is Britain an anti-Semitic country? No and no again. http://www.chiefrabbi.org/speeches/bod.html 

1 January 2006: "Jews in Britain have found this country one of the most tolerant places on the face of the earth."

http://tinyurl.com/2le4u4

Yuoo're-a un untee-semeetic peeece-a ooff
tresh vhu lufes Ereb terrureests vhu moorder Jooeesh cheeldree. Yuoo
hete-a Mrs. Um gesh dee bork, bork!Pheelips becesooe-a she-a vreetes
zee troot und becoose-a shes' a vumun. Yuoo regoolerly beet up yuoor
veeffe-a und dooghter becoose-a thet's vhet Moosleems du. Yuoo hete-a
Joos und vumun su ooff cuoorse-a yuoo're-a gueeng tu hete-a Mrs. Um
gesh dee bork, bork!Pheelips. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

[Dialectized; please see our comments policy.] 

Presumably it will include some info about the 1904 Limerick pogrom, a
throwaway joke about Angela's Ashes, and finish up with some commentary
on the sad irony that the only people who resemble hairy leprechauns
more than the Jews are Arabs.

Always a guilty pleasure, Eli. Keep up the good work.

-FY

"You hate Jews and woman so of course you're going to hate Mrs.Philips"

Melanie Phillips is a woman? Had I known, I wouldn't have bothered constructing an actual argument against taking her seriously. I would have simply beaten her and performed a mutilating circumcision upon her.

Hey, it's what we do.

bunch of freaks!

Maybe if Ismaiw wowked mowe on whatevew he
does to make a wiving, his annoyed wife wouwd actuawwy fuck him and
he'd wose the pent up angew and mispwaced aggwession he's usewesswy
pouwed into Awab wovin'. He's twansfewed this unfuwfiwwed sexuaw enewgy
into wwiting tiwades on a heaviwy Jewish website, wasting houws of what
wouwd nowmawwy be wowk time. You see, we Jews know how to bwing home
the money and keep getting waid.... Seems wike Ismaiw does neithew vewy
weww

[Dialectized. Please see our comments policy.] 

Let's all take it easy, before you say something you'll regret. Calling Ismail antisemitic is okay. Saying his annoyed wife does not fuck him is not. Because his marital problems are not our business.

It's like when your mom used to say "use your words, not your fists." On Jewcy, you need to use your "arguments," not your "stupid name-calling that makes you sound like you're retarded."

I think Mr/Ms Anonymous is confused by my well-crafted comments. Although they must seem to him to have required hours of diligent labor to compose, they each represent only  few moments at the keyboard. Just a gift, I guess.

Craig, thanks (I think) for trying to restore some measure of civility here, but I have to disagree. Calling me anti-Semitic is not OK. Anti-Semitism is a false belief practiced by the unimaginative and those ignorant of history. I fall into neither category. I am, on the other hand, proudly anti-Zionist, which, despite the foolishness one often hears, is an entirely different thing.

 Finally, I'm tall, easy on the eyes, smart as a whip and quite fond of puppies and long walks on the beach. On top of all that-and I know this must really pain mr. or ms. anonymous up there- my wife and I are really quite a happy pair.

So hate me for my blessings, if you must, but don't confuse your envy with insight.

By the way, Craig, I'm aware that you, Izzy, Joey et al have from time to time warned the inmates here to stick with substantive comments and to lay off the name-calling. Wanting to conform to Jewcy's standards, I ask your advice; would it be unnaceptable to refer to mr/ms anonymous as a "cum-soaked cockholster", or could this be construed as a simple statement of fact? 

Awaiting your decision, I remain, etc., etc. 

That comic wasn't funny and wasn't making any kind of real point.

 Satire works if it has a nodding relationship with reality,    that comic doesn't.    A pathetic attempt to pretend that you are a victim so you can somehow feel morally superior or something.    

Or perhaps you're simply an anti British bigot?     That would be a sad irony. 

Ismail, you are an anti-Semite. Anyone who agrees with the principle that Jews do not belong on their homeland, living independent of the whims of foreigners is an anti-Semite.

 The government of Israel is responsible for the safety of the Jewish State and and Jews in general. Consideration for Arabs by the Jewish State is secondary, just as was the case for Jews when they lived in Muslim or Christian countries. The fact that you place more importance in Arabs who live in Jewish countries then in Jews living in their own, that you might well not care how Arabs and other Muslims treat non-Muslims who visit Muslim countries and that you cannot see the truth in Philips' editorials are all indicative of anti-Semitism.

Your anti-Semitism is not important. We don't need your love nor your neutrality. We simply need to be strong enough to keep your agenda from bearing fruit.

 May your tongue wither, may your words turn to dust. May your mind dither and just piss off.

And the comic was dull.

The comic is heavy handed and a little over the top but the basic premise is correct. You've got academics who can't seem to let go of their boycott fantasy; the editor of a British paper (can't remember which one) who says he automatically ignores the opinion letters of people with Jewish names; the Oxford student union mounts a debate on the "right" of Israel to exist, and stocks both sides with noted anti-Zionists; the BBC hasn't quite come out and said "We hate Israel!", but only not quite; and I don't think the term "Londonistan" came out of nowhere. It's like folks in Mississippi who get pissed off when you mention they still have a problem with black people. I mean, come on.

And the old "I'm not an anti-semite, I'm just an anti-Zionist" is bullshit. Like here in America (and I'm in the South, so I know what I'm talking about) when someone starts a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..." you can be fairly sure he's a racist. The Brits have never been down with the Jews. Following the Holocaust, most Brits could work up quite a bit of sympathy for the survivors, but after 50 years of a Jewish state, the sympathy is gone. It's not Jews per se the Brits don't like, I guess - it's the Jews with guns. The Jews who fight.

"And the old "I'm not an anti-semite, I'm just an anti-Zionist" is bullshit. Like here in America (and I'm in the South, so I know what I'm talking about) when someone starts a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..." you can be fairly sure he's a racist."

 This is exactly the sort of yahoo nonsense that makes intelligent discussion of the middle east so difficult. Look, this is really not so hard...."Jew" and "Zionist" are not co-extensive terms; there are Jews who are not Zionists, there are Zionists who are not Jews. This is not a matter of opinion; it's a brute fact. Efforts to conflate the two terms exist only to marginalize a perfectly legitimate political opinion, namely, that Zionism is a massively troublesome response  to the problem of anti-Semitism, both bad for the Jews and a disaster for the Palestinians.

Insisting that people of good will may not be of different minds about this question, and that diversion from the Zionist perspective is perforce evidence of racism will ultimately lead to the outright derangement of our friend Pidyon Ami up there.   

Now grow the fuck up and deal with this as a political issue and stop pulling this cowardly, bullshit ploy of crying anti-Semitism when your interlocutor challenges you. 

Ismail, I guess you're right that it's not okay for him to call you an anti-semite .. But I only say that because it's not okay with you. I think, especially on a site like Jewcy, calling someone an anti-semite should be a right all users have, if it's a legitimate concern for them (and not just a name).

Regarding your marital issues, yes, perhaps I wasn't clear on that. Ismail holds legendary stature as Jewcy's most renowned Adonis. In fact, that's why he doesn't have a picture. He used to display one, but his visage was so impressive that users (and staff!) were unable to tear their eyes from his avatar. Office productivity plummeted, the weekly comment ratio dropped to a new low, and Izzy had to get new eyeballs installed, because her old ones fried. In fact, the only industry that benefited from the phenomenon was a (then little-known) venture called "Jack's Cockholsters" who reported record sales on new cockholsters due to the sheer number of people who "soaked through" their old ones.

Whether it's okay to call anon a "cum-soaked cockholster" I am having difficulty saying. I'd need to see more evidence for each side. I mean, he certainly seems like one, though.

In all seriousness, "anti-semite" is an inaccurate (or at least ridiculously unfair) term Ismail, because it implies that your vision of Judaism is correct. Personally, I don't care who's correct, really, but I will say that any vision of Judaism that willingly bestows such a weighty term as "anti-semite" onto someone who doesn't support all the actions Israel sounds stupid and fucked up, to me. But the point is: there is no point. Specifically: there is no point in you saying "you are an anti-semite because you don't support Israel" because Ismail can just as easily say, "You are an anti-semite because Israel is making poor choices that are not benefiting Judaism in the long-run, and you are supporting them as they do that."

In my fraternity, one very important lesson I learned was that, sometimes, the best thing you can do for your brother is tell him he's wrong. What that means for anybody who's tittering away at his keyboard, and itching to knock me for being in a Greek-letter organization is, when you frat brother, Bluto goes, "COME ON, PINTO, WE'RE GONNA SET FIRE TO THE DEAN'S HOUSE," you have the social insight to say, "Bluto, that is a stupid idea, and, even though everyone thinks it's great and fun now, this is not gonna go well in the long run." To Ismail, he's Pinto and Israel is Bluto.

Feel free to say, "You won't get it, LOL, because you're not a real Jew!" but that's the same thing everybody's saying on both sides of the argument, and you only end up fooling yourself.

Lastly, Cavanaugh sent me a Private Message saying (s)he was disappointed that I chose to say the Anon sounded like a retard. I currently stand by my belief that the Anon sounded like a retard, but I'm a little more aware, at least, that it may be a painfully ignorant thing for some people to hear, even as a joke. So.. I apologize for that, and I hope it will not dissuade Anon from posting a thoughtful response, if he so desires.

Thanks for your comments, Craig.

I'm currently working on a Photoshop filter which will soften the magnificence of my image. When perfected, I will submit a photo. All may then gaze upon me with complete safety. Please extend my apologies to Izzy, although I do think the color of her new eyeballs is much more flattering.

Oh dudes, you're so sensitive. I am a scientist and travelled in Britain and it is not exactly funny to be an Israeli. These days the way to show you're cool there is to sport Arafat scarves and hate Israel. I met these types personally. The only effeient way to deal with them was to state clearly that I am a Zionist and a proud Israeli citizen. As soon as you are apologetic to the bastards, you're gone.

 I also refused t talk to one scientist whom I knew signed anti-Israel boycotts. I told him I hadn't seen his signature on any anti-Palestinian terror boycott, or ANY OTHER BOYCOTT. Get it? He wanted boycott - just for Jews. And he's an Oxford full professor. 

"I also refused t talk to one scientist whom I knew signed anti-Israel boycotts."

In other words, you boycotted a guy whose politics you found odious. But you find it reprehensible for someone else to do the same thing.

Here's some news: no one needs to pass some test of "consistency" in order to legitimately act on a strong belief. It's physically and psychologically impossible to give equal emphasis to every injustice in the world. We all pick and choose the struggles that move us or connect with us, for whatever reason, and devote our energies accordingly. And those of us who choose to focus on Israel's crimes are sick and tired of thin-skinned and defensive efforts to make our activism appear motivated by something sinister rather than simply addressing our arguments.

Funny, I don't recall ever hearing an pro-choice activist taken to task for ignoring the world's other, arguably more acute, issues. No one tells labor union organizers that their pursuit of getting American workers more money in the face of greater poverty elsewhere is proof of their bad faith.

It's a bullshit argument that is hauled out only when there's a critic of Israel to be silenced. Enough.  

Ismail,

You're right that anti-Zionism is too often dismissed as anti-Semitism by those unable to countenance legitimate criticism of Israel. But if you deny that there is ever an overlap, or that many of those who oppose the existence of a Jewish state might on some level oppose the existence of living, breathing Jews, then you're as doctrinaire and willfully myopic as those you criticize. In some cases -- not all, but some -- the fanatic obsession with the Jewish state takes forms that historically have everything in common with anti-Semitism. I think that's the case with the anti-Israel hysteria found in certain quarters of British society, and that's why I drew this comic. And I am not by any means a right-wing lunatic or a bedfellow of Abe Foxman.  If you want to read more about the overlap of the two "anti" phenomena by a another progressive fed up with the overt hypocrisy of many self-proclaimed leftists, click here.

Ismail, it takes but nothing to get your thong in a wad.  Eli stated it best, there is a distinct overlap in anti's, and the irrational obsession your particular fervor exhibits displays itself few other places... even amongst union organizers... imagine that. 

I welcome Eli Valley's more considered judgement in his comments
above, but on the question of his cartoon, it is on the level of the kind of crude
depiction of the United States
one sometimes gets over here in the UK as a
hotbed of evangelistic right-wing extremists. I would also caution against
taking any specific statement as necessarily a definitive representation of the
situation in the UK.
For instance, though it is important to take account of what it says, the
widely quoted 2006 Parliamentary Report was from an unofficial, self-selected
Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism, and in its preamble takes the dubious
position that an act is considered racist if the victim believes it to be
racist. Note also that the panel's report said that much of the rise in anti-Semitic
incidents in recent times is related to the situation
in the Middle East, in other words, they were
frequently perpetrated by unrepresentative excitable Muslim youths worked up by
their perceptions of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. For example: http://tinyurl.com/2wsoh4

As the Jewish Council for
Racial Equality reported: "The Israeli-Palestinian situation has led to
considerable tensions between Muslims and Jews"

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/165/165ii.pdf

On the issue the attempted
boycott of Israeli academics on the part of the University teachers unions, it
will not be appreciated in the States the extent that the policies of such
unions are high-jacked by far-left activists, who have a highly
disproportionate influence in determining these policies. It is also important
to appreciate that such policies are not instigated by anti-Semitic sentiment
so much as by a left-wing reflex that selectively focuses on the "imperialist"
United States, and what they
regard as its Middle-East proxy, Israel. That's not to say there is
no anti-semitism at all involved, but that, in the words of the Chief Rabbi,
Jonathan Sacks:

"Criticism of Israel
is not antisemitism. Even denial of Israel's right to exist - obscene
though that is - is anti-Zionism, not antisemitism, despite the fact that the
route from the one to the other is slippery and steep. We do not serve the
fight against prejudice by blurring these distinctions." http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1863808,00.html

Eli-

You are of course correct that some anti-Zionists are anti-Semites, but this commonplace observation has little punch. After all, I'm pretty sure that some pro-lifers nurse an abiding hatred/fear of women which animates their politics, just as there are some (most, I'd say) who arrive at their beliefs for coherent reasons. Similarly, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the ranks of those who oppose affirmative action include some out-and-out racists. 

So what? To reflexively take the time to point out this entirely commonplace observation (i.e., that political opinions sometimes mask simple hatred) whenever a robust criticism of Israel is articulated serves only to deflect attention from the substance of the criticism.

Michael Weiss had approvingly cited that Mitchell Cohen piece from Dissent some time ago. I reread it at your suggestion and it hasn't gotten any better than it was then.  

This thread is hilariously base.

I LOVED this. It's hysterical. Genius!

.

All this so-called differentiation between anti-Zionist and anti-Jewishness is a linguistic game which avoids the central issue: Do Jews have rights as a collectivity, as a people?  Or in other words - do they have the right to self-determination?

 Because Zionism is simply the right to self-determination for the Jewish people.

All these people who are against Zionists do not recognize Israel as a people - only as individuals or as a "faith".  But because we Jews see ourselves as a people (just as the fact that Palestinians see themselves as a people makes them such) - if you refuse to recognize - or even support - Zionism, the Jewish movement for self-determination - then you  are anti-semetic.  Maybe not subjectively  but in fact.

There will probably be a lot of enraged reactions to this.  They all ignore my - and our - rights to collectivity, to a State.  And all of you should not forget:   The Jewish people did not emerge from Europe.  We are a native Middle Eastern people, just like Kurds Turks Armernians Christians and other non-Arab native Middle Eastern peoples.  That's why most of those non-Arab peoples - only not the desecendents of the Arab conquest - support our right to a State.  Think about that.

Oh, that was hilarious! Great job!

Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semetism. The Jewish heritage is based on the Land of Israel. It is why we circumcise our sons. It is the land promised to the Jewish People and which binds us together. A great percentage of our laws, given in the Torah, must be fulfilled in Israel. Living on the land kept us bound as a nation and when the land was stolen from us the wish to return to it sustained our national identity.

Anyone who wishes to to cut the Jew from his homeland is wishing to negate that nation's nationhood. What else could you call such a person but an anti-Semite? When you add to the equation that this person justifies this negatory attitude with a will to give the Jewish Homeland to a people with plenty of land (Arabs if you missed the point) and whose homeland is a large peninsula a few miles east of Israel, then you have anti-Zionist icing on an anti-Semitic cake.

This b.s. is typical of the Arab media cartoons - it is spot on Elie!

well, given the time and effort that the brits invested in helping the nazis and muslims to rid the world of the joooos, it's understandable that they are so irritated by the sight of those pesky jews defending themselves. it were the brits who appointed the great mufti, later wanted nazi war criminal, to lead the war against the jews in the mandate.

loved your work, eli. questions for those that are upset: how is this different from the caricature of sharon devouring palestinian children - that actually got rewarded by the british journalists as caricature of the year?

Pidyon Ami,

Your argument involves what seems to most of the world to be a millennia-old superstitious delusion. Granted, some portion of the Jewish community (and a few raving Christians) may still be in the grip of mass hysteria regarding this "promise", but don't expect anyone else to take it seriously.

In particular, don't jump up and down complaining that you are a victim of injustice if somebody rejects your premise that Israel was promised to the Jews by G*d. 

Anonymous Tel Aviv,

I have more sympathy for your argument. But I think it's totally possible to reasonably disagree and be anti-Zionist without being a racist.

You say:

Zionism is simply the right to self-determination for the Jewish people.

...which is absolutely correct. But not everyone believes in the notion of racial self-determination. The alternative is to believe in the right to local self-determination, i.e. the right to self-determination of all human beings living in a particular geographical area.

Under that concept, the people like you living in the state of Israel have the right to local self-determination. It is irrelevant whether you are "a people" or not. Jews living in America or Syria have rights to local determination as Americans or Syrians.

I understand that there is some scope for reasonable disagreement about which model is the right one. But bear in mind that your racial model could easily be used to justify, say, expelling black Britons from the UK on the basis of self-determination for the whites. To many people that seems fundamentally unjust.

 Hey! Hey! Load's of Brits support Israel and have done in the past. Disraeli, Balfour, Churchill, anyone? Though Dizzy was a Anglian, kind-of. Plus Consersative Friends of Israel have been trying their hardest to educate my fellow Brits on the FACTS of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The problem is the Palestinians have great P.R here. When I bought "Suzie Gold" at my local video store, the Arab clerk stared at my nose and then to the FREE PALESTINE posters he had laid out on the desk! The media especially the BBC drive me nuts, history being my true love, even my school buys in to a load of crap. Arab girl in my class lectured me on the Freemason/Zionist plot that my granddad is part of (what parts he plays I don't know as he is a retired lorry driver who delievered juice, maybe he's gonna poison wells or something) when Masonry was brought up in an English lesson about Robert Burns. Most Arabs/Muslims/Etc in my class think that 7/7 and 9/11 were Zionist plots. Unbearable, totally.

I object to this cartoon on the grounds that it displays British anti-Semites in a bad light. Viz's "Cockney Wanker" character is a better alternative.

" I don't think the term "Londonistan" came out of nowhere."

Do you think this has more to Judaism than to London's large Pakistani population?