The British Jewish leadersheep

FRIDAY, 26TH NOVEMBER 2010

by Melanie Phillips

Another distressing thing about George Osborne ‘s speech to the Board of Deputies, which I previously commented upon here, was that virtually no-one at the dinner thought there was anything amiss with it; by all accounts it was greeted with acclaim, and the rot at its core simply passed them by. In similar vein, althoughopinion is divided among British Jews about the recent eye-opening attack on Israel by Mick Davis, chairman of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, who claimed that it was making his life difficult as a British Jew for not advancing the ‘peace process’(a disgusting and stupid argument rightly shredded by Isi Leibler, Lord Kalms and Emanuele Ottolenghi) those who consider themselves to be politically liberal or left-wing—in other words, most of the national leadership of the British Jewish community – appear to support him. (I have made an attempt to explain this phenomenon in my article for this week’s Jewish Chronicle; for some reason not yet on line but available on my own website here.)

Worse still, I hear that one or two Jewish community leadership figures have even been going round bad-mouthing certain non-Jews who defend Israel in public. Behind the scenes these leadership figures are viciously attacking people such as Douglas Murray or Robin Shepherd as ‘extremist’, ‘Islamophobic’, ‘right-wing’ and so forth, and urging other community figures not to support them.

This is utterly astonishing. Heaven knows these courageous, decent and principled people are rare enough in these terrible times; if only there were more of them. They are putting themselves on the line to support Israel and fight for the defence of the west in the teeth of mass hysteria, thus courting the threat of professional and social ostracism. Jews owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. Yet incredibly, these British Jewish community leaders, driven by a combination of ideological spite, empire-building and egomania, are blackening their names and thus trying to squeeze them into silence.

I have said before that the ingrained servility of British Jewish leaders, who believe in working behind the scenes in trying to influence the great and the good rather than putting their heads above the parapet and making their case in public, explains why they have so conspicuously failed to stand up in public against the madness over Israel that has engulfed Britain and the west. But the reality is far, far worse than that. By endorsing the positions of those who are demonising and delegitimising Israel through echoing their distortions, decontextualisations and grotesquely inverted morality, it has now become clear that Britain’s most senior Jewish community leadersheep are simply, and tragically, on the wrong side.

Such people are wont to claim sanctimoniously that the conduct of Israel now presents a crisis for the Jewish people. Wrong. That there is a major crisis is not in doubt. But they are it.