Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why aren’t ‘anti-fascists’ condemning the tide of anti-Semitism?

Palestine supporters ignite flares during a rally outside the Sydney Opera House (Credit: Getty images)

I have a question about the events of the past few days: where is Antifa? Where are those self-styled anti-fascists who love to rage against anything that is even vaguely reminiscent of the 1930s?

Jews in Israel have been rounded up and murdered. Disgusting anti-Semites are on the streets of Sydney screaming, ‘Gas the Jews! Fuck the Jews!’ Mobs in London have taunted Israel, essentially laughing over its dead Jews. Britain’s Jewish schoolkids are taking off their blazers lest anyone recognise them as Jews and attack them. Across Europe security is being beefed up at Jewish establishments — schools, synagogues, museums — out of fear that Hamas-supporting mobs will invade and desecrate them.

And yet Antifa is nowhere to be seen. The thing these lefties fearmonger about all the time — the creeping return of the boiling hatreds of the 1930s — feels more real than ever and they’re saying nothing. It’s a strange anti-fascism that takes a break when something very much like fascism rears its repulsive head.

Following the slaughter in Israel the Western left stands exposed like never before

To the modern left, everything is fascism except actual fascism.

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