Israel, Palestine and the troubling silence of Britain’s anti-racists

There’s no room for racism in Britain, we’re told. EDI (equality, diversion and inclusion) initiatives and anti-racism strategies are everywhere. We’re all familiar with the ‘horror’ of micro-aggressions and unconscious bias. We are forever on alert for dangerous racial ‘dog whistles’. And yet the last few weeks has exposed a troubling blind spot when it comes to tackling racism: it’s clear that Jews don’t really count.

Hamas’s attack – and the response from Israel – has unleashed a tide of hate on the streets of Britain. Posters of kidnapped Israeli children have been torn off walls. ‘From London to Gaza, we’ll have an intifada,’ demonstrators chanted during the Palestinian solidarity march this weekend. We’ve heard calls for ‘jihad’. Britain’s Jews are terrified – and who can blame them? So where are the anti-racist campaigners?

Earlier this year, Gary Lineker compared the language used to launch the government’s migration policy to Germany in the 1930s, when the Nazis were seizing power.