Reviewing: “Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred and What to Do About It” by Jake Wallis Simons. Constable. 2023. ISBN: 9781408719275.
As British Jews face an increase of antisemitic incidents, “many Jews are shocked by how little they are shocked,” declares Jake Wallis Simons, award-winning British journalist, novelist, foreign correspondent and now editor of The Jewish Chronicle, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper. “Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers,” he said, “are forced to live with a level of security that is required of no other minority.” According to the British Home Office, responsible for immigration, security, and law and order, British Jews comprise 0.5% of the British population, yet encounter almost a quarter of all hate crimes, and are five times more prone to be singled out than any other religious group.
The campus has become a prime battleground in the war against the Jewish State, where being anti-Israel has assumed “the most desirable of causes, unmoved by the facts or sense of proportion.” A “dislike for Israel has become a core part of a suite of views held by the progressives who set the tenor of much of our culture.” At universities in the U.K., the U.S., and elsewhere, Jewish students are regularly harassed, intimidated and terrorized. Discriminating against conservatives in hiring, promoting and publications has been well documented.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, expressed the failure of the academy to impart basic ethical values to their students when he said: “Those of us who are university leaders and faculty are at fault. We may graduate our students, confer degrees that certify their qualifications as the best and brightest. But we have clearly failed to educate them. We have failed to give them the ethical foundation and moral compass to recognize the basics of humanity.”
Wallis Simons uses the term “Israelophobia” to describe the hatred that “fixates” on the Jewish State, which he claims is the “main expression of antisemitism today.” Israelophobia “is like a familiar language in a new accent … the latest face of a many-headed monster.” There are three general features that characterize Israelophobia, although not all may be present: Demonization, “smearing Israel as evil and a threat to the world”; Weaponization, exploiting social justice movements “as a Trojan horse for hatred of Jews and their national home”; and Falsification, echoing the lies and canards of the Nazi or Soviet propaganda.
The author provides extensive historical and current background on each of these forms of antisemitism, which has become the primary expression of this hatred today. He debunks the myths and conspiracy theories employed by Israel’s enemies to undermine the historic, legal and moral rights to the land of Israel.
The extent of the “indefensible assumptions” against Israel has become part of the mainstream, which is the essence of the problem. “The result,” Wallis Simons says, “is a sort of herd immunity to common sense.” According to a study by the European Union for Fundamental Rights on of attitudes of the public toward Jews between 2012 and 2018, they found the “simply being Jewish increases people’s likelihood of being faced with a sustained stream of abuse expressed in different forms, wherever they go, whatever they read and with whomever they engage.” Antisemitism has intensified to the point where 85% of those who responded to the survey consider it a “serious problem.” No country, Wallis Simons states, “is loathed as deeply or by so many around the world as Israel.”
He quotes sociologist David Hirsh, who explains that it is challenging to identify antisemitism today because “it does not come dressed in a Nazi uniform and it does not openly proclaim hatred or fear of Jews.” It proclaims that it represents “the anti-racist tradition. It is antisemitism that which positions Jews themselves as ‘oppressors,’ and it positions those who develop hostile narratives about Jews as ‘oppressed.’”
Once Israelophobia has been identified, Wallis Simons suggests eight issues that will aid in exposing it and provides five questions to assist in beginning a dialogue. Wallis wrote this book as a “plea for tolerance, liberalism, factual analysis and proportional judgment.” He is asking “people to be reasonable.”
There will always be those who will never be persuaded by any argument, no matter how convincing. They are the true believers who cannot be swayed by logic. Yet, there are those who can be reached by the information in this important work, which is why “Israelophobia” is a vital resource.
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He has an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
