Most Jews and Palestinians want peace. Extremists, narcissists ​and other 'allies' only block the way

[LauraInLA]

Beware the friend who is only trying to help. Not, perhaps, as a rule for life but certainly when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the clashes that battle provokes around the world. So often those who think they’re doing their bit serve only to make an already impossible situation even worse.

The week began with an instructive example, when Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, released a video clip of himself being steered away from one of London’s weekly Gaza demonstrations by a police officer on the grounds that: “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march.” Falter argued that he had flushed out proof that the Metropolitan police regard the marches as an unsafe environment for visibly Jewish people, even though the Met allows them to go ahead week after week.

Was Britain’s Jewish community grateful for this contribution from Falter? Some were, but others were troubled by his insistence that he had merely been out and about on a Saturday, minding his own business, when he happened to stumble across the Gaza demo, rather than admitting that he had deliberately set out to make a (perhaps legitimate) point. That lack of honesty was damaging because it played directly into the hands of antisemites who say Jews cannot be trusted to tell the truth about antisemitism. Falter would say he was only trying to help, but there were plenty – including those who work full-time to protect Jewish life in Britain – for whom the whole episode was a headache they didn’t need.

All this was relatively small beer compared with the pro-Palestinian demonstrations now spreading across US campuses, where mass protests and permanent solidarity camps have been broken up by sometimes brutal police action. There, too, debate rages over whether these demos pose a threat to Jews, with organisers pointing – as they do in the UK – to the presence of a vocal Jewish contingent as evidence that they are completely safe. After all, how could a movement possibly be hostile to Jews if Jewish supporters are so warmly embraced?


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/26/jews-palestinians-peace-gaza-narcissist-allies

[Lunabell]

1. These protesters are making me sick.

You can be pro-Palestinian people (as I am)without being a hateful antisemitic piece of shit. It's very sad and disappointing to me that young people can be so full of hate for people. It's netenyahu and his government, not the Jewish people.
It makes me really sad.