A good few years ago, when the world was a less febrile place, I was engaged in a lively discussion with my dear friend Howard Jacobson, the celebrated novelist. It’s fair to say that we inhabit different points on the spectrum when it comes to the politics of the Middle East, and I was expressing my opposition to the actions of the Israeli government in relation to Palestinian refugees.
Howard believed that my position – as a Jewish person voicing opposition to Israel’s actions – would only encourage antisemitism. Someone in our group suggested, not entirely seriously, that I might be “a self-hating Jew”. Howard responded in characteristically sardonic tones. “No way,” he said. “He loves himself”.
It was a good joke, and one that was brought to mind with the news that a Jewish protest group has been demonstrating against a Jewish-owned restaurant in west London. It was a relatively small gathering – about 50 or so people – but it was enough to excite the interest of the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch.
In ordinary circumstances, we might not pay any attention to a small-scale action that was essentially parochial in nature, but Badenoch felt it could not be dismissed it as such. This was, she said, “yet another example of harassment and incitement to violence against Jews”. According to the police, a 35-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of “chants that constituted acts intended to stir up religious hatred”, and the protest broke up soon after the arrest. A video on social media presumed to be from the protest shows police officers, in the main, keeping a watching brief.
Badenoch wants more action. “Hatred thrives when authority shows weakness,” she said. This is a contestable point, and in any case this particular situation is more nuanced and complex. The organisers of the demonstration were themselves Jews, representing a group called the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.
According to its website, this is an “international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part”. The group references the involvement of the restaurant’s co-owner, Shahar Segal, in the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a reason behind the protest.
On one level, the protest – which is part of an ongoing campaign against the restaurant – represents a shocking state of affairs, and, in essence, Badenoch is completely right. We cannot allow Jewish-owned spaces to be singled out as legitimate political targets in a way no other minority’s space would be.
More important, however, is the context. A demonstration against a Jewish establishment takes place against the backdrop of a global rise in antisemitism, most tragically illustrated by the attacks on the synagogue in Heaton Park and on Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach.
In the video that mobilised the Tory leader, one protestor exhorted Miznon to “get the hell out of Notting Hill”. Would this be considered a victory? The symbolism is, of course, horrible: driving law-abiding Jews out of a neighbourhood merely for their beliefs has all manner of terrifying echoes, for Jews, for any minority group and for anyone with a knowledge of 20th-century history. Is that what a group which commits itself to “justice and equity” really wants? Because, if it is not, their action is merely dangerous posturing.
The fact that it is Jews who are leading this particular protest may be moot, but it does throw up a very interesting, and relevant, philosophical question: can Jews be antisemitic? Of course they can, just as they can be racist or sexist. We are as capable as any other group of absorbing some of the prejudices of society and turning them sideways.
And so the identity of those who took to the streets in opposition to Miznon – and bear in mind this is a restauirant serving falafels and tahini, not a provisional wing of the IDF – is almost an irrelevance. In seeking to press home their moral certainty, they are putting people at risk, or at least in genuine fear.
We judge words and actions by their resonance, what they seek to normalise and who they put in harm’s way. In that sense, this protest is wrong-headed, inflammatory and indeed facile. Those responsible should wake up and smell the hummus.
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