Post #73
November 1, 2023
Claire Bodanis
Claire reflects on the outbreak of violence in the Middle East and how it highlights the responsibility we all share to promote the truth in public discourse.
Last week I signed the October Declaration, a statement written by prominent figures in UK public life from many backgrounds, which condemns the terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October, and the subsequent outbreak of antisemitic behaviour across the country.
This may come as no surprise to many of you reading this who know that, while I’m a card-carrying Anglican, my author husband David is a Jew. Like many Jews all over the world, David has family and friends in Israel. And sadly, like many Jews all over the world, David lost a very old friend on 7 October, murdered with her husband by Hamas in their home in southern Israel. Like her great-grandmother before her, in one of the East European pogroms of the early 20th century, when Jewish families were murdered in their homes, David’s friend died shielding her teenage child – who, mercifully, survived.
But that’s not why I signed the October Declaration; or at least not why I’m writing about it in this blog. I believe – hope – that I would have signed it anyway, but it’s important I declare my personal interest, so that you have the background, the facts about my situation. Which brings me to why I did sign it, and therefore why I believe it’s relevant to write about it in this forum.
Facts. Evidence. Truth.
As regular blog readers will know, I’m passionate about the truth. And my passion only grows the more I see misinformation proliferating in the public domain: lies masquerading as facts; scurrilous, spurious sources of information cited as authoritative by people who should know better. None of us can be immune today to the dangers of misinformation and how it whips up discontent, discord and division, to the benefit only of those who seek power for their own ends and care little for humanity as a whole. The FT last weekend commented on this in the context of Elon Musk taking over Twitter: ‘The social media company, now renamed X, shapes opinion on events from Ukraine to Israel – often by platforming falsehoods.’
With the terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October and its aftermath, we are seeing the consequences of those dangers playing out both in the Middle East and in many parts of the world that are seeing a massive spike in antisemitic behaviour. It is, sadly, unique to the Jews, that when they suffer a terrorist attack, the overwhelming response is that they deserved it. It has been the same throughout history, and, I would argue, has always been caused by misinformation and lies.
What particularly brought this home to me was the shocking double standards at play in last weekend’s pro-Palestinian marches in central London and across the UK. I know many good people who are pro-Palestinian. I am pro-Palestinian myself, in the sense of supporting the human rights of the Palestinians; I am also pro-Jew, in the sense of supporting the human rights of the Jews. And I am pro a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine, Jews and Palestinians, live peacefully side by side in the Holy Land.
But in London last weekend ‘pro-Palestinian’ became elided with ‘antisemitic’, which went unchecked by the police, who allowed the pro-Palestinian marches to go ahead, knowing, I would argue, that there would be antisemitic, pro-Hamas sentiment at play, which duly transpired. Why do I believe they knew this ahead of time? Because on the same day, the police dissuaded a Christian group from holding a prayer vigil in support of the Jews in Golders Green, a Jewish area in North London, far away from the marches going on in the centre. Not because the police believed these Christians had violent intent, but because they might find themselves the target of antisemitic violence, since the vigil had attracted unsavoury attention online. The police felt it would not be safe for a Christian group to march in prayer for the Jews in a predominantly Jewish area of our capital city; and yet did nothing to protect these peaceful citizens, while allowing the very group that threatened their safety to demonstrate unhindered within the wider march going on that day.
To me, this is all too reminiscent of 1936, when, despite a petition signed by over 100,000 Londoners, the then Home Secretary allowed Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists to march in a Jewish area of East London, supported by the police. Luckily for the Jews in the 1930s, the city itself protected them, with hundreds of thousands of ordinary Londoners of all backgrounds barring the Fascists from marching through the East End in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street.
In today’s world, where diversity, equity and inclusion have become watchwords for businesses as well as for Western societies, there is no excuse for such double standards; nor for the ignorance and misinformation about the Jews, and the history of Israel and Palestine, which lie behind them. All of us who leap to conclusions without questioning our sources of information, without acquainting ourselves with the facts, without learning the history, are complicit.
I must admit I’m not always immune to this myself. In today’s age of instant media, who hasn’t read a shocking headline and assumed it was true, without taking the time to pause and reflect? The problem we nice middle-class, well-educated, well-meaning people have is that we find it very hard to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that there are people who deliberately lie and don’t care if their lies are exposed. That there isn’t always good faith on both sides of an argument. That many people are simply not interested in listening respectfully and taking on board other points of view. And so, unthinkingly, we allow falsehood to prevail, to the detriment of everyone.
Now, I’m no fan of Netanyahu’s far right, populist government in Israel – indeed, if there is any good to come of the current situation, I hope that it is a return to moderate, liberal politics in Israel. Nonetheless, I think it is important to redress the balance of the relentlessly anti-Israel, anti-Jew narrative that is prevailing in much of the world today. As well as making the perhaps obvious point that there can only be a two-state solution if both parties agree that the other has a right to a state, I’d like to offer just a few facts about the history of Israel and the two-state solution that are being passed over in many accounts of the situation today, and which many people seem unaware of:
November 1947: UN Resolution 181, which created the state of Israel through a vote by the UN General Assembly, envisaged two states: one for the Jews (Israel) and one for the Arabs (Palestine). The Jews agreed; the Arabs did not.
December 2000: the then US President Bill Clinton brokered a two-state solution whereby the Palestinians would receive the whole of Gaza and 95% of the West Bank. The Israeli cabinet voted to accept it; the then leader of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat, did not.
August 2005: Israel withdrew from Gaza, leaving it to the Palestinians, and dismantled all its settlements there, evicting all Israelis who refused to vacate voluntarily.
2017: the most recent Hamas charter rejects recognition of the state of Israel, while the original charter of 1988 required the annihilation of the Jews.
The UK’s late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, once said: ‘In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were hated for their race. Today, Jews are hated for their nation state.’ I like to think we can do better than that. In fact I know we can – and we do it every time we stand up for the truth, whatever the context, whoever the audience.
I don’t usually find myself quoting myself, but as I say to my reporting clients, if the message is the same, and you’ve said it clearly, why change it? And my message has not changed from my August blog, Fighting for truth across the political divide, which reflected on ESG in the context of US politics. The message was, in fact, inspired in part by some of the writings of the late Chief Rabbi: ‘Serious times call for serious people prepared to work together for the common good. And that can only be achieved by fighting for public discourse in which facts are facts, expertise is respected, and differences of opinion are discussed respectfully, with the humility to realise that we might even learn something from those with whom we disagree.’
May all those who’ve died in this conflict rest in peace.
Thank you for reading.